“Canterlot Station, this stop! Next stop, Manehattan!”
Rarity set down her magazine and slid it back into the front pocket of her suitcase. Around her, fellow passengers tidied up their belongings and looked anxiously out the windows as the train approached the station. Rarity likewise did the same, checking that she had all her belongings about her and she wasn’t forgetting anything. Again, she couldn’t help but feel like she forgot something in Ponyville, but another sweep through her luggage pushed the thought back into the corner of her mind. No, she’d double and triple checked her baggage, and she was absolutely certain that she had everything she needed.
The countryside bled away into the outskirts of Canterlot, with houses and large buildings gradually stealing away the farmland and natural beauty of the hills and valleys at the foot of the mountain. In the distance, tiny Ponyville straddled the Maressissippi River, and even though Rarity had left only that morning, she felt a pang of homesickness settle in her gut. It’d be a long time before she saw her hometown again.
The engine let out a shrill whistle and Rarity felt her momentum shift forward as the train began to slow on squealing brakes. Sighing, she turned away from the window and watched her fellow passengers finish up their conversations. They probably had plans, picnics, dinner dates. A casual evening in Lowtown Canterlot. How she envied them. All she had to look forward to was more traveling. In fact, she’d be traveling for the next four days. All in the name of her business; her passion.
Would it be worth it?
Rarity was confident in the answer.
With a final squeal of brakes, the train finally pulled into Canterlot Station. Steam hissed and billowed around the doors as it bled off of the engine, and the cars shook slightly as their occupants stood up and queued by the doors. Rarity sat in her chair, content to watch them stand and slowly shuffle out, until she was the only one left in her travel car.
Her magic took hold of her two carry-on bags as she walked towards the door. It was a lighter load than she was used to carrying, but was done out of necessity. Donning her sunglasses, the mare gave her long and curled mane a casual shake back into place and hopped down the stairs two at a time into the cheery summer sun.
Rarity held her hoof up for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the bright light on the cloudless day. When they finally refocused, she looked up, up, up at the glistening peaks of the Mountain of Dawn, and the ivory spectacle that clung to its side. The magnificent and opulent towers and ramparts of the Princesses’ home seemed to defy gravity, jutting as they did out into open air with nothing to support them. It was a magnificent sight, one that Rarity had never grown tired of seeing, and one she never would grow tired of seeing. The castle was the core of the city, its backbone of elegance and grandeur, and promised everypony visiting that they had just crossed into the threshold of high society.
“Rarity! Yoohoo!”
The trilling Trottinghamish accent drew Rarity’s attention back to the station, and she saw a pale blue unicorn emerge from the crowd. Her face and overall body was much more slender and shapely than most unicorns, suggesting a purer lineage, and her iridescent mane glittered orange and yellow on one side and purple on the other. She wore a faded purple dress and saddle, studded with amethysts and gold to the point of being gaudy, yet she somehow carried it with enough pride and charisma that it looked anything but. Blue eyeshadow appeared and disappeared as she blinked in the glaring sun and waved to Rarity.
Rarity waved back and trotted over until she was close enough that she didn’t have to shout to be heard. “Sassy Saddles! Oh, so good to see you here!” She leaned forward with a foreleg outstretched, and Sassy returned the hug. The two kissed cheeks and giggled before withdrawing to their own personal space and beginning to walk up the road towards the Canterlot boutique.
“And it’s good to see you too, Rarity!” Sassy exclaimed, smiling brightly and effortlessly. “I’ve worked so hard on preparing the lineup, but it wasn’t until you told me you were coming today that I realized I wasn’t dreaming!”
“Oh goodness, you’re telling me!” Rarity said, fighting the urge to bounce along like Pinkie Pie. “I’ve been working on those dresses for a month, maybe two, and I still wasn’t sure that the deal was going to pull through! I can’t believe I’m finally branching off into the Confederacy!”
Sassy smiled and lazily eyed a few pegasi flying overhead. “Well, it’s not every day that one of the premier fashion ponies in all of Equestria starts marketing dresses for griffons! You’re truly drilling an untapped well with this brand new line of yours! Most designers wouldn’t even dream of trying to design attire that comfortably fits griffons.”
“Please, darling, I’d hardly say I’m the first who’s tried it.” She let the sentence hang in the air like she was expecting a response, and sure enough, Sassy gave it to her.
“But Rarity, you’re the first who’s tried and gotten this far!” The two ponies briefly skirted to opposite sides of a food vendor on the sidewalk before rejoining at a street corner and waited for wagon traffic to slow down. “Frankly, it’s hard for most designers to try to find something that a griffon finds suitable. I mean, what with the chest feathers and the talons that can rip and tear any fabric to shreds…”
“And the colors,” Rarity joined in. “Those were the worst. Did you know that griffons can see in ultraviolet as well?”
“Really?” Sassy blinked and tapped a hoof against her chin. “But what would that even look like?”
An officer whistled for the traffic to stop, and the two ponies crossed the street while there was a break. About two blocks away, Rarity could see the glistening white and pink façade of the boutique jutting out into the sidewalk. It was good to know she’d left the establishment in such good hooves as Sassy’s.
“I haven’t the faintest,” Rarity said, picking up where they’d left off. “Twilight offered to cast a spell to let me see for myself, but I had to decline. Heavens know what sort of mischief can arise from her new spells. Maybe if she’d tested it on Rainbow Dash first to make sure it worked, but apart from that, that wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.”
“But how did you make it work?” Sassy asked. “The orders you sent me, they all had very… dull fabric, apart from some bright accents. And expensive, although I’m sure that you had already taken that into account when you sent the order forms.”
Rarity scoffed and tightened her magical grip on her luggage. “Oh, but of course I did, darling. And I admit, I was stumped on the problem for quite some time. Then I happened to spot a raven perched just outside my window, and I decided to focus on some very glossy black materials highlighted by a few bright colors. I tested them with a blacklight to try to get a sense of what they might look like. Honestly, it was just a shot in the dark, but one that seems to have paid off, if this trip is any indication. After all, a raven might look black to us, but to other ravens, they must look infinitely dazzling.” She paused a moment, then added, “Or at least that’s what Twilight told me when I took my idea to her.”
Sassy giggled. “I’m sure she would know best. She does spend a lot of time holed up in that library of hers, from what you tell me.”
“Oh, if you only knew the half of it,” Rarity answered and smiled. “Sometimes I worry about that mare…”
The two unicorns found themselves in front of the doors to the boutique, and Sassy produced a key from one of the many hidden pockets of her dress. Within seconds, the heart-shaped key had found its lock and twisted it open, and the two stepped into the pristine boutique, decorated with the finest models of dresses Rarity had shipped over in the previous month. The entire place was spotless, without a single mote of dust to be found.
“Sweet Celestia, Sassy, I hope you didn’t do this all for me,” Rarity said, walking over to an oak table so finely polished that she could see her reflection in it. “This must’ve taken an entire day’s worth of your time!”
Sassy chuckled and poked at her iridescent mane. “Only all of Saturday, but I wanted to make the place absolutely pristine for you. After all, this is your first visit in… seven months?”
Rarity smiled and twisted the tip of her hoof back and forth on the ground. “Yes, well, I do believe that I’ve left the boutique in more than capable hooves. My oversight isn’t really necessary in Canterlot, isn’t it?”
“No, Rarity, I assure you it is not,” Sassy proudly exclaimed, standing straighter and puffing her chest out. “We’ve never ended a month in the red, even if some of your pricier dresses have tags I myself wouldn’t even be able to justifiably afford. And if the deal in the Confederacy pulls through, then we’ll have a steady income off a cornered overseas market to supplement your future endeavors.”
“We can only hope.” Rarity sighed and parked her suitcases next to the table. “Sassy, forgive me for asking this, but do you have anything to drink around here? I’ve got a long day’s worth of traveling yet to get through, and I don’t see myself surviving without it.”
A bottle of wine and two glasses landed on the table in front of her before she even had the chance to turn around. Sassy walked up alongside her, the magic dissipating from her horn and an amused smile on her face. “A premier sauvignon blanc tickle your fancy?”
Rarity giggled and poured herself a glass. She lifted it up to her face and swirled it around, watching the fingers creep down the sides of the glass. “Now I remember why I hired you as my personal manager.”
“Because my family owns a vineyard?” Sassy asked. The corner of her mouth twitched upwards as she poured a glass for herself.
“Oh goodness no… although that might have sealed the deal,” she admitted with a tiny titter. She raised her glass out with her magic, and Sassy did the same. “To the future!”
Sassy clinked her glass against Rarity’s. “To the rules of Rarity!”
“And to the art of the dress!” Rarity finished, a happy smile on her face. She held her glass up to her nose, took a deep breath, and then drained a ladylike sip. Already the sweetly bitter taste of the wine left her feeling loose and relaxed. She exhaled in ecstasy, and eyed the remainder in her glass.
With some alcohol in her system, Rarity finally felt herself relax for the first time all day. She and Sassy shot the breeze and shared all the juicy gossip they’d stored and marinated since they’d last seen each other, eliciting gasps and cultured laughter as they let the wine flow. Hours blurred by as the two mares relaxed in friendly, casual conversation.
Soon enough, the chimes on the Canterlot clock tower heralded four o’clock, and Rarity had to cork the last splash of wine left in the bottle. After a quick chance to freshen up in the bathroom (and a moment to apply another layer of perfume to hide the smell of alcohol on her breath), Rarity gathered her things about her and set off for the Canterlot Air Harbor. Sassy Saddles accompanied her, hauling up a large steamer trunk in her magic.
It was four seventeen when the two mares opened the door to the air harbor station. Rarity led the way, and even though her hooves still felt like leaden weights from drinking half a bottle of wine, she carried the proper poise and gait all the way up to the check-in. Sassy followed close behind with the trunk in her magical grasp, and her body gracefully swayed on gently curved limbs as Rarity set her bags to be checked.
The earth pony behind the counter took Rarity’s ticket and looked it up in a spiral notebook he kept at his station. “Let’s see, ta ta ta ta ta…” he rattled as his eyes scanned the leaves of the book. “Ah! Miss Rarity Belle. Five thirty-five aboard the HMS Concordia?”
“That would be the one!” Rarity’s brilliant blue magic took hold of her two suitcases and set them on the counter next to the stallion. “Two bags and one cargo.”
The earth pony nodded and briefly weighed the two bags. The needle on the scale dipped into the red on the far right of its face for the second. “This one’s overweight,” he said, taking it off the scale and sliding it back to Rarity. “Can you get five pounds out of it?”
Rarity rolled her eyes and floated her suitcase back. “Airships,” she scoffed, unzipping the purple bag and rummaging through the dresses she’d neatly folded inside. “You can carry several tons of cargo but five pounds over in one bag will break the keel of the ship?”
The stallion shrugged. “I don’t make the rules, Miss.”
“So why are they your concern?” Rarity intoned. She lifted a trio of stunning dresses and floated them before her. “Oh, I simply can’t decide which ones I have to leave behind. They’re all so beautiful, don’t you think?”
She fluttered her long lashes at the stallion and shifted her weight onto her rear legs. Brilliant blue orbs fixed him in a half lidded stare that suddenly made his uniform feel very hot and uncomfortable. Swallowing the lump in his throat, the earth pony rubbed the back of his neck. “Y-Yes, they’re sure… sure something, Miss.”
“And to think that I’ll have to leave them behind,” Rarity pouted. Her lower lip jutted out just a hair further than her upper, and the corners of her eyes sparkled with moisture. Then she tapped a hoof to her chin like she had an idea. Her voice took on a low, husky tone, and she placed her forehooves onto the counter and leaned on them. “How’s about I slip one on, you… look after the second, and we throw the others in, free of charge, hmm?”
The stallion anxiously tugged on the collar of his uniform as Rarity draped a silver dress across his back, placed a purple one in the suitcase, and pulled a sapphire sequined dress over her white coat. When she finished, she flounced her mane and leaned forward again. “It’s not overweight now, is it, darling?”
“I… I... I… I…” the stallion stammered, unable to form a response.. Smiling, Rarity kissed her hoof and blew it in the stallion’s direction before placing her suitcase on the table behind him herself. Before he could respond, she gently tugged her ticket out of the stallion’s grasp and sauntered off, casting one last wink over her shoulder as she strode up to Sassy’s side.
Sassy held a hoof over her lips to stifle her laughter, but when the two began to walk towards the terminal, she couldn’t contain the outburst anymore. “Oh Rarity, you dame! Playing with that poor stallion’s heart, that’s just cold!”
Rarity tittered. “Please, darling, this isn’t the first time I’ve talked somepony into being generous. Besides, I left him one of my finer dresses as personal compensation for helping me out. I’d say I was more than fair.”
“‘Personal compensation’. Is that what they call bribery these days?” Sassy teased. She shook her head and tugged on the corner of her dress with her magic. “I’m not even sure what he’ll do with that.”
“If he has a wife, I’ve saved him a rather hefty expense on an anniversary present.” Rarity shrugged. “Everypony can find a use for a Rarity. They’re not dresses you oft see in donation boxes.”
The two ponies approached the back of a meandering, snaking line of passengers waiting to go through security. Rarity sighed and slapped her hoof to her brow. “Eugh, this is why I loathe airship travel. Nothing but standing in lines, getting frisked by burlesque security personnel, and delays and cancellations for as far as the eye can see!”
“But at least you’ll be traveling in style and luxury,” Sassy said, draping a hoof across Rarity’s back. “First class aboard the HMS Concordia is no laughing matter, after all.”
“And neither are all the bits I saved and the investors’ cards I pulled in order to get it,” Rarity said. “At least the drinks are free.”
Sassy smiled, and her eyes caught sight of a large mob of traveling ponies slowly approaching the security line. She stepped forward and gave Rarity a heartfelt hug. “Oh, best of luck at the show in the confederacy, Miss Rarity! I so wish I could’ve joined you, but the boutique isn’t going to run itself, after all!”
Rarity had to raise onto her hind legs to wrap her hooves around Sassy’s taller shoulders. “And how I wish you could’ve come too. It would’ve been nice to have a familiar face around, but I suppose I’ll have to make due by fraternizing with the investors.” She gave the pale blue mare one last squeeze and then separated, backtrotting to reserve her place in line before the flood of ponies reached it. “I’ll be back in two weeks! Au revoir!”
“Have a fun trip!” Sassy exclaimed, waving her hoof high. Then the throng of ponies closed in around Rarity, and she lost sight of her manager.
The smile slowly faded away from the fashionista’s face until it was replaced with a mildly annoyed frown. Grumbling, she turned in place and stared into the back of the head of the pony in front of her. She hated traveling, hated the lines, and now that Sassy was gone, all she had to accompany her was this pony’s horrifyingly frizzy green mane. Oh the things Rarity would do to that mane if she just had an hour…
The hands on the clock nailed to the wall slowly, inexorably wound their way about its face. The line shuffled and advanced along twisting paths and rope barricades. One by one, ponies had their bags checked, and unicorns had a dampening spell placed on their horns. Soon enough, it was Rarity’s turn to pass through security, and she stood still while two unicorns checked her over and applied the spell to her own horn.
A hot scorch of mana, then coolness. Rarity winced and rubbed the tip of her horn. “How long is this going to last?” she asked the security stallion standing next to her. “I have a premier that requires my magical talents shortly after I disembark.”
“The dampening spell only lasts for four days,” the stallion said. Rarity could tell by the irritated edge in his voice that he’d had to say this innumerous times already. “It only blocks higher end spells. Short-range telekinesis and other rudimentary magic isn’t affected. We want to keep the airship as safe as possible for your journey. It should wear off by the time you land in the Confederacy.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“See another security pony on the other side,” the stallion said, pointedly turning towards the next passenger behind Rarity. “They’ll take the spell off for you. Next!”
Rarity bade the security pony a good day and wandered over to her gate, making minute adjustments to her dress along the way. Simply trying to use her magic gave her the beginnings of a headache; it felt like she was trying to push her horn through a straw. Grumbling, the mare checked the time on her ticket and found an unoccupied seat in front of a window overlooking the air harbor.
Down below and all around, she saw airships of numerous sizes gently gliding in and out of their docks. Colorful throngs of ponies moved to and fro, boarding and disembarking their airships and being escorted to their respective terminals. Rarity’s eyes dipped straight down to where the HMS Concordia was moored. The crew tossed bags from one pony to the next with practiced ease. Despite the airships’ reputation for dropping and damaging luggage, these ponies at the least seemed to be careful experts of their craft.
With another half hour left before she even could board the airship, Rarity closed her eyes and let the sounds of the air harbor consume her. Ponies talked and chatted about the latest news or what the Princesses were going to be wearing to the Gala (Rarity scoffed inwardly; she already knew because she was designing their dresses). Somepony’s foals cried out of boredom, and somewhere a street performer played a charming if out of tune performance on a violin. At least those two sounds somewhat drowned each other out.
“…still in training though. So I, uh, got quite a bit to go. But even though I’m still pretty new to the team, I’ve got all the routines memorized!”
Rarity’s eyes opened. Was that… “Rainbow Dash?!”
Sure enough, hovering in place at the back of the waiting area was the sky blue pegasus, her rainbow hair ablaze in the light of the sun. A set of saddlebags rested on a chair just next to her, and she’d managed to loop several unwitting ponies into a conversation about what Rarity only assumed was the Wonderbolts. At her name, she jumped in surprise and turned towards the windows. “Rarity?!”
She zipped over with a mighty gust of her wings, ruffling the newspapers of a few ponies trying to read. Rarity had to lean back as she suddenly found her personal space invaded by the energetic pegasus. “What the hay are you doing here?! I can’t believe I ran into you!”
Rarity smiled and nudged Rainbow back. “I’m on a business trip to the Griffon Confederacy. I’m going to premier my first line of griffon dresses and garments for the population as a whole, not only mere designer garments. Why, I already have three dress lineups planned!”
Rainbow stopped flapping her wings and simply dropped a foot or so onto the ground. “That sounds pretty cool and stuff. Crazy that you’re going to the Confederacy too, eh?”
“Why, yes,” Rarity said. Then she narrowed her eyes. “You’re also going to the Confederacy? By airship?”
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Business trip.”
“Business trip?” Now those were words Rarity thought she’d never hear Rainbow say. “For the Ponyville Weather Control?”
“Pssh. Nah. This is straight from the top.” Rainbow smirked and crossed her forelegs. “Cloudsdale Weather Control is looking to set up shop in the Confederacy. The griffons don’t have weather factories like we do, and Cloudsdale wants to see if it can work something out with them. You know, create rain clouds locally so that they can make their arid land more farmable at a lower cost rather than relying on rain imports from Equestria. But to do that, they needed to send somepony who knows her stuff and just might be the teensiest bit world famous. And a member of the Wonderbolts doesn’t hurt, either; Spitfire wants me to feel around for interest in a tour their way next year, while I’m there..”
A cocky grin dominated Rainbow’s face, and Rarity couldn’t help but reflect some of that back at her. “So you’re saying that Cloudsdale Weather Control and the Wonderbolts chose you to be the lucky pegasus to deliver their sales pitches to the griffons?”
“Yeah! Duh! I’m not speaking fancy or anything like that!” Rainbow proudly placed a hoof over her chest. “They’d only chose the best for something like this. I mean, between the two of them, they gave me free tickets and a room. How cool is that?”
“Oh I’m sure,” Rarity said. A tinge of envy needled her that Rainbow was flying free to pitch something for somepony else while she was paying top dollar for some of the best rooms on the ship. “But you aren’t just flying there yourself?”
Rainbow dismissively waved a hoof. “Well, I’d like to, but the ocean’s a little too wide to cross by wing. I may be a heck of a lot faster than an airship, but I can’t keep that pace for a day and a half.” She flexed her small, speedy wings for emphasis, then shrugged. “That’s how long it’d take to cross the ocean if I was going full out. Well not, Sonic Rainboom speeds, but still pretty fast. I’m a sprinter, not an endurance flier. I can’t keep my speed up like that without breaks every so often. It’s too far for me to cross by wing, safe to say.”
“Plus you don’t want to miss out on the free food,” Rarity added with a wink.
Rainbow smirked and brushed her hoof against her chest. “Yeah, that too. I mean, complimentary meals and drinks and room service? Why would anypony give that up?!”
Rarity opened her mouth to reply, but a ringing bell interrupted her. She and Rainbow both turned towards the central podium in front of the staircase going down to the airship, where an aquamarine pegasus with a blue and white mane stood in front of a microphone. “May I have your attention please!” she said into the microphone. “The five thirty-five flight for the Griffon Confederacy is about to begin boarding! My name is Jetstream, and I’ll be your hostess for your four day flight.”
Jetstream paused to brush her mane back behind her ears; her emphatic, smiling head movements had shaken it loose from where it’d been tucked. She smoothed out the navy blue fabric of her uniform with a hoof before donning her bright smile again and returning to the microphone. “We here at CelestiAir sincerely thank you for choosing to fly with us, and we look forward to accommodating any and all needs you may have during our voyage. You can find me in the lobby of the ship at nearly any time, and if I’m not there, somepony will be willing to take care of you.
“Now,” Jetstream continued, pointing at the staircase behind her, “we’re going to begin calling our Harmony members first. If you’ll simply go down the stairs behind me, our wait staff will escort you to your rooms, where your luggage is waiting. Everypony else, please just sit tight for a few more moments, and we’ll have you out of here in no time at all!”
Jetstream pressed a button on the microphone to turn it off and shuffled out of the way as business ponies in formal suits began to queue up and descend the staircase. Rainbow Dash took to the air with a single flap of her powerful wings and smiled at Rarity. “Well, Rares, guess I gotta be off!” She flashed the colorful plastic card emblazoned with the logo of the Cloudsdale Weather Control and began to drift towards the line. “We’ll meet up later, kay?”
Rarity nodded. “Oh, I look forward to it, Rainbow.”
Rainbow waved and flitted over to the crowd of business ponies where she roughly inserted herself into the line. Some of the ponies cast her odd looks, and even Rarity couldn’t help but smile at how out of place Rainbow looked, naked amongst all the pressed suits. But the line cleared out fast enough, and soon Jetstream was moving towards the microphone again.
“Alright, fillies and gentlecolts, time for our business class!”
Rarity stood up and shuffled over towards the line—one last little line—and let her thoughts wander. She smiled inwardly as she handed Jetstream her ticket and began to descend the staircase. What were the chances that Rainbow Dash would be on the same flight as her out to the Confederacy?
At the least she wouldn’t be lonely or bored during the flight, or for much of her time across the sea. As she exited the staircase and looked up at the enormous hull of the airship, she smiled. Maybe traveling like this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
A thin, butter yellow mare sauntered down the hall, a company clipboard firmly held in her magical grasp. Her CelestiAir uniform was dangerously cut, and silver horseshoes attached to toothpick legs quietly thudded down the carpeted hall. The voluminous brown tail attached to swaying hips had reduced Rarity’s pupils to pinpricks as the mare led her to her room.
The halls of the Concordia were spacious enough to fit three ponies side by side and leave enough space for the regularly placed potted plants that lived up the bright space. Floor to ceiling windows comprised large swaths of the outward walls, offering a perfect view of the countryside around the airship. Blue carpets accentuated white wallpaper and silver chandeliers. Passengers moved up and down the halls as the wait staff of the airship showed them to their rooms, gave them their keys, and offered refreshments while they waited to depart.
Deftly maneuvering around bellhops and passengers alike, the flight attendant took Rarity to her room, placed squarely in the middle of the long hall. Her sparkling golden magic pulled a key from a pocket on her vest and slid it into the door. “Here we are, madame. Room tree-ooh-nine,” she said in her incredibly thick Prench accent. Green eyes glistened under fluttering eyelids with fake eyelashes that rivaled Rarity’s own. “Your bags have already been delivered and are waiting for you.”
“Tha… th-thank you,” Rarity managed to force out from underneath the heat in her cheeks. “Miss…?”
“Lucarne,” the mare answered with a small bow of her head. “Is there anything else that you think you will need?”
“Uh… no, not at the moment,” Rarity stammered, although she could think of one thing… maybe two, as her eyes flicked over the attendant’s form for the briefest of moments. “Thank you very much, Miss Lucarne.”
Lucarne bowed and backed away from the door. “Then I will see if there are others that need my services.” Rarity felt somepony ratchet up the thermostat, and she fought the urge to fan herself. “I trust you will be there for the captain’s speech?”
“Oh, uh, of course. When is that?”
“It will be in half an hour in the ballroom,” Lucarne said, taking quick note of some papers on her clipboard. “Right after we depart from the air harbor. Refreshments and some hors d'oeuvres will be offered.” She smiled, a show of ivory perfect down to the alignment of every last pearly tooth. “We hope to see you there.”
Rarity nodded. “Of course…”
Lucarne bowed one more time, then pivoted with a clack of hooves and set off down the hall to find another lost passenger. Rarity watched her go, fighting the urge to chew her lip to shreds as those shapely flanks flexed and moved with each strut, until the attendant had disappeared into the throng of ponies still gathered outside.
“Celestia have mercy,” Rarity murmured to herself, finally managing to tear her eyes away. Her magic turned the key in the door until she heard a satisfying iron clunk and the door flew open. She trotted inside and took a look around, failing to stifle a small, excited squeak.
Somehow, CelestiAir had managed to cram a queen sized bed and a full bathroom into a tiny airship. It was something she would’ve expected of an ocean liner, not an airship, no matter how impressive the Concordia might be. The fashionista gasped and cantered towards the far end of the room, where a porthole looked out over the starboard side of the ship, and the Equestrian countryside far below the heights of Canterlot.
“What a view,” she whispered, all but pressing her nose against the pane of glass. She pictured herself flying high above the land, with all of Equestria’s beauty displayed before her. Green valleys, purple mountains, blue oceans; the raw colors of the world. Already, the first sparks of inspiration had caught hold of the tinder of creativity. The coming days would serve to fan the tongues of fire into a blaze of art and beauty.
Rarity turned around and found her luggage at the foot of her bed. She quickly set her combinations into the locks and popped the suitcases open, and soon her magic began levitating dress after dress into the small closet provided for her. She shoved her empty suitcases under the bed and piled charcoal and several rolled sheets of parchment onto the table near the window. She’d make good use of those things in the coming days.
The bathroom was next on Rarity’s list, and she trotted in with a legion of cosmetics in her telekinetic grasp. Eyeliner and eyeshadow, lipstick and powder made their way onto her face, one after the other. It was only when the clock in her room chirped once that Rarity settled for good enough. The captain was supposed to be giving his speech in five minutes, anyway.
Rarity looked over her things spread on her bed and across her room before nodding once and making her way towards the door. She tucked the key into the folds of her dress and quietly shut the door behind herself. With a quick look up and down the hall to orient herself, she turned towards her right and began trotting back towards the stern of the airship.
She found most of the ship’s passengers already gathered in the ballroom with cocktails and appetizers in front of them. Rarity looked around the room, noting its hoof-carved columns and mahogany floor, as she looked for Rainbow Dash. She found the pegasus in the back corner of the ballroom with at least five or so tiny square plates haphazardly strewn on the table in front of her. In between voracious bites, Rainbow’s eyes managed to catch sight of Rarity, and she enthusiastically waved a hoof and pointed to an empty chair next to her.
Rarity navigated the room of suited business ponies and other ponies in business casual attire to get to the table Rainbow had saved for the two of them. As she drew near, Rainbow paused and took a good, long look at Rarity. Her brow furrowed and her lips turned into a teasing grin as she leaned back in the chair. “Geez, Rares, what are you all dressed up for? Trying to impress the captain?”
Rarity giggled and sat down next to Rainbow. “Oh, goodness no, darling. I was already wearing the dress when I boarded, so I figured I might as well finish off the appearance. You know what I’m saying?”
“Pfff. No,” Rainbow responded, and quickly shoved another morsel of food into her mouth. “Mmm, Rarity, you gotta try these things! They’re like garlic marshmallows!”
Rarity raised an eyebrow and took note of the morsel of food Rainbow Dash practically inhaled. A delicate sniff was all she needed to confirm her suspicions and swallow the bile in her throat. “Uh… Rainbow, darling, you do know what you’re eating, right?”
“Good food, that’s what,” Rainbow said as she chowed down on another. “I don’t really know, but they’re on little plates and stuff where the chef makes those weird swirls with the sauces on the side like it’s an abstract art piece or something, so it means it’s fancy.”
“Rainbow, what you’re eating is escargot.”
“Gesundheit.”
“Snails, Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow coughed and slapped a hoof against her sternum, letting the plate she’d slurped the snail off of fall to the ground. She stuck her tongue out and tried her best to wipe away the garlicy remains of the mollusk, earning several disgusted glares from nearby nobles in the process. Rarity pressed a hoof to her lips, concealing a dainty laugh as Rainbow writhed in revulsion. After downing almost a full glass of water, the pegasus pushed the plates away and gasped. “Really?! That’s just… ech! Why would anypony serve snails as food?!”
“It’s popular and elite Prench cuisine, Rainbow,” Rarity said. Her magic grabbed a few plates of chopped vegetables and seaweed rolls which she slowly placed in her mouth one at a time. “I’ve no care for it.”
“You mean you’ve eaten snails?”
“Once,” Rarity admitted with a shrug. “It was during that trip to Canterlot I had before Twilight’s birthday a few years ago. We all make sacrifices for the company we surround ourselves with.”
Rainbow frowned and nudged the remaining plate of escargot in front of her another inch or two away. “I guess…”
Both mares’ ears perked as the room began to quiet down. They turned their attention towards the ballroom dance floor, where several stallions and mares appeared in fine CelestiAir uniforms. Rarity recognized Jetstream from the gate, and the pegasus stepped forward with a microphone between the feathers of her wing. After a brief touch of her hoof to her flouncing bangs, she pulled back her lips into her bright billboard smile.
“Good afternoon, fillies and gentlecolts!” she exclaimed, waving a hoof to the ponies gathered around. “I hope you’re all having an absolutely wonderful time! I trust that our wait staff helped you to your rooms and got you accommodated?”
A murmured chorus of “yes” and nodding heads filled the room, and Rarity had to fight down the urge to blush when she remembered Lucarne. Thankfully, Rainbow Dash was too preoccupied with sniffing at the last bit of escargot in front of her to really notice.
Jetstream beamed. “That’s wonderful to hear! First off, I’d like to thank you all on behalf of CelestiAir for choosing to fly with us. It really, truly means a lot to us, and we do hope that you find everything on your flight splendid. In case you’ve forgotten, my name is Jetstream, and I’ll be in charge of our day to day activities we’re holding on the top deck. We have a filled itinerary of activities, and we invite you all to come and join us as you please.”
Rarity made a mental note to search her room for an activities guide. Maybe she could find something that Rainbow would be interested in as well. If not, there were always spa dates and yoga she could go to on her own.
“Most of our activities will be an hour long, and they’ll be held from nine until nine each day. We’ll have a few nighttime activities as well, for all you night owls out there.” She giggled and fluttered back towards the uniformed ponies waiting behind her and wrapped a hoof around the shoulders of the stallion in the middle. “And now, I’d like to introduce you to the captain of the Concordia, Captain High Winds!”
She passed off the microphone to the captain, and the two nuzzled as he took the stage. His white uniform with gold trim along the lapels was almost indistinguishable from his white coat with golden mane, and his ivory wings ruffled at his sides. “Good afternoon, fillies and gentlecolts, and welcome to the Concordia.” He smiled around perfect teeth, and Rarity wondered just where CelestiAir was recruiting to find such perfect models. Not even the mole on Lucarne’s cheek that Rarity certainly hadn’t noticed earlier wasn’t all that detracting.
“I’m Captain High Winds,” the stallion continued, “and I’ll be guiding this marvel of Equestrian engineering across the vast oceans over the next four days. The Concordia is the newest ship in CelestiAir’s fleet, and from what experience I’ve had with her, she handles like a dream.
“It’s a pretty straightforward flight,” High Winds said. He began to pace back and forth in front of the crew. “We’ll be taking off as soon as we’re finished here, and after four days of nonstop flight, we’ll be in the Confederacy. It looks like it’s going to be smooth sailing from here to there; Cloudsdale’s weather control teams reported clear skies for the next four days, and we should be landing before any storms riding up from the equator have a chance to muster strength.”
“Thank goodness,” Rarity whispered. “The last thing I need is to be stuck in my room getting airsick.”
Rainbow raised her eyes from the spotless plate in front of her and licked her lips. “You get airsick? Since when?”
“Since I nearly fell for a mile straight to my death, that’s when,” Rarity retorted, a pouting frown on her face.
The blue mare blinked. “Oh. Yeah, I guess that’d do it.”
The two turned their attention back to the captain, who’d returned to Jetstream’s side. “…after which we’ll be touching down somewhere around noon, just in time for lunch.” He smiled and draped a wing over Jetstream’s back. “If you happen to need anything, you can see my wife. She’ll be happy to accommodate you with any and all requests you might have.”
He passed the microphone back to Jetstream, who took it once more in her feathers. “And there you have it, everypony. Our flight schedule for the next four days! And like the captain said, feel free to find me if you have any requests or complaints. Me and the attendants will do everything in our power to make things better for you. And now, for the rest of our crew…”
Rainbow and Rarity tuned her out as Rainbow’s forehead met the table. “Mehhhhhh,” she groaned, staring at the empty plates in front of her. “When are they going to bring out the food?”
“As soon as they’re done here, I would presume,” Rarity said. Her sapphire eyes looked over the practically licked clean plates around Rainbow. After a moment’s pause, she stacked them for her with her magic and set them aside. “Go ahead, Rainbow, get some more. Nopony’s judging you.”
“Apart from the Suits,” Rainbow grumbled, her ruby eyes focusing on the back of a business stallion seated a table away.
Rarity rolled her eyes. “I’m not judging you,” she said, touching Rainbow’s hoof. “You’re not going to see any of these… Suits… ever again. Besides, it’s obvious that you actually do like the taste of escargot.”
“…I guess you’re right,” Rainbow admitted, and her wings buzzed as she drifted over to the hors d'oeuvres table. She scooped up three more plates of snails, as they bore only three pitiful, tiny snails per plate, and set them back down at her place. Grimacing at the food, now that she was aware of what it really was, she delicately shoveled it into her mouth and swallowed after a moment to savor the taste.
The staff at the front of the room departed after a round of applause, and soon ponies with platters of food resting on their backs began to make their way throughout the room. They reached Rarity and Rainbow Dash and set down the first course, a bowl of soup and a salad, then quickly carried on their way. Rarity grabbed her fork in her magic, while Rainbow looked on at her food with a barely restrained primal hunger.
Rarity caught it out of the corner of her eye. “Rainbow, please use your utensils, darling,” she said, sliding a fork into Rainbow’s outstretched wingtips. “You don’t want to appear any more animalistic than you already are.”
Rainbow stuck her tongue out at Rarity, but nevertheless drove her fork into her salad like a farmer pitchforking hay. She took one enormous bite, briefly mashed the leaves between her teeth, then swallowed them. “So, how’s your room, Rares?”
“Oh, it’s splendid,” Rarity said between ladylike sips of her soup. “A queen sized bed and a full bathroom? On an airship? Why, I didn’t think it was possible. But that’s what you get when you pay for business class, I suppose.”
“Heh. Nice.”
“I can’t imagine what your room must be like,” Rarity said. Her magic twirled her spoon about in her bowl. “If you got to use the corporate card and all…”
Rainbow simply shrugged. “Eh. It’s a room.”
Rarity scoffed. “I simply don’t believe that. I want to take a look when we’re done here.”
“If you really want to.”
Apparently, the conversation lasted too long for Rainbow’s stomach. With a casual toss of her wing, she chucked the fork aside and buried her face muzzle-deep into the salad. Rarity could only watch in horror as Rainbow tore her food apart like a starving timberwolf. The noise alone attracted the eyes of several nearby ponies, and Rarity felt an embarrassed fluster building on her cheeks.
She sighed and picked through her meal with what ladylike grace she could muster. One day, somepony was going to have to teach Rainbow Dash some manners.
“But I mean, like, they’re clouds, you know? I don’t see how anypony could be traumatized by them, especially if they’re a pegasus!”
The elevator doors opened on the VIP deck of the Concordia, and out stepped Rainbow Dash and Rarity. The unicorn opened her mouth to respond to Rainbow, but instead cooed at the sights around her. Instead of two long halls running along opposite sides of the ship, the VIP deck only had one wide open hall through its middle, with brass doors inlaid with gold leaf lining both sides. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting sparkling light on the blue carpet through crystal casings, while lavish paintings covered the walls. Every so often, the hallway opened up on either side to make room for a small seating area with a clear view of massive floor to ceiling windows.
“Oh my heavens, Rainbow! This is beautiful!” Rarity giggled and trotted into the room, her head spinning from side to side as she tried to take everything in. “The colors, the décor! How renaissance classique!” She turned to Rainbow, eyes sparkling. “How can you not be impressed by something as lavish as this?”
“Meh,” Rainbow shrugged. “I mean, I live in a pretty swanky house myself. I kinda get used to seeing stuff like this every day.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Of course. Celestia only knows how you afford that thing.”
“I don’t have to pay anything on it,” Rainbow said, casually glancing out a nearby window. The green hills of Equestria had begun to take on an amber sheen as the Concordia soared above them with the sun setting to its stern. “My dad’s an architect, and my grandpa’s an engineer. They designed and built the thing for me for my sixteenth birthday.”
Rarity’s jaw dropped. “You got a house for your sixteenth birthday?!” She couldn’t believe that Rainbow Dash of all ponies was lucky enough to have parents so wealthy they could just build a house for her like it was nothing. Although, Rarity’s parents had footed a rather impressive investment in her business when she first started it for her sixteenth birthday, but Rarity had paid them back with a ten percent interest, and they still held five percent of her company holdings. Which, in other words, meant that she wrote them a check for a few thousand bits every year for Hearth’s Warming.
“I mean, it’s just a house,” Rainbow said.
“A very big and impressive one!” Rarity protested. “How come you never told us?”
Rainbow blinked. “Uh… told you what?”
“About your family!” Rarity exclaimed. She trotted back towards Rainbow Dash and poked her in the ribs. “In all the years I’ve known you, I think you’ve said a total of ten words about your family. I didn’t know they were wealthy!”
“Yeah, so?” Rainbow asked, raising an eyebrow. “Who cares what my parents do or how rich they are? I don’t want ponies to know me because of them. I want ponies to know me because of me.” She smiled and flicked Rarity’s nose with a wingtip. “Also, they’re... kind of a little too into the whole ‘supportive’ thing. That’s why I never bring them up. Now come on, let’s see this room you’re so desperate to see.”
Rainbow trotted past Rarity, leaving the unicorn to sputter and fluster in her wake. “I’m not desperate to see it!” she exclaimed, stomping after Rainbow. “I just said I wanted to take a peek at what those rooms were like!”
“Uh huh,” Rainbow teased, smirking as she trotted up to the door at the very end of the hall. She dug her hoof into the ends of her mane and pulled out her key, then jammed it into the door.
Rarity stuck her tongue out and cringed. “You keep things in your mane?!”
“Well where else am I supposed to keep it?!” Rainbow exclaimed. “I don’t usually wear clothes!”
The corner of Rarity’s mouth twitched and she glared off to the side. “This is why I insist that dresses can be practical as well as fashionable, darling.”
“Well, duh, yeah,” Rainbow said, twisting the key in its hole. “Pockets are a miracle when you have ‘em.”
Rarity didn’t even notice Rainbow open the door; she was still trying to process what she’d said. “Wait… you admit that dresses are good for something?”
“Yeah, so?”
“I just…” Rarity stammered, then shook her head. “I’m just surprised, honestly. I thought you hated dresses!”
“I have to wear formal stuff for Wonderbolts appearances all the time, but just because I said they can be useful and stuff doesn’t mean I like them,” Rainbow said. Rolling her eyes, she nudged the door open a bit more. “Are we gonna stand here all night or what?”
“R-Right. Of course.” Rarity tossed her mane back into place and trotted into Rainbow’s room with her head held high. “I do want to see your room after alllawahaahaaah!!!” For the second time that night, Rarity found herself cooing and ogling the decorations around her. “How did they fit this onto an airship?!”
‘This’ was the luxury suite Rainbow Dash had managed to land herself with the CWC company card. It wouldn’t be fair to call it a room, because it was more than that. The door opened into a spacious living room, replete with faux leather couches and glass reading tables. From there, the main space branched off into a bedroom with a king-sized bed on the left and a master bathroom with a Jacuzzi and walk-in shower on the right. Opposite the entrance, large glass doors slid open to a balcony looking over the stern of the ship.
Rarity immediately trotted through those doors and placed her hooves on the railing. The balcony was framed on either side by the bulwarks of the ship, which rose to meet the floor of the captain’s quarters directly above it, yet was spacious enough to hold six ponies across and two ponies deep with plenty of elbow room. The winds this high up batted with Rarity’s coiled mane, making her feel like she was a pegasus. With the sun shedding amber light on the farmlands of Equestria far below them, it wasn’t too hard for Rarity to buy that illusion.
Hoofsteps heralded Rainbow’s egress onto the balcony, and Rarity whirled to her. “Rainbow, darling, this is simply amazing. I can see why this is the most expensive room on the whole ship! Why, if I could afford it, I’d live like this for the rest of my days!”
“Yeah, it’s pretty nifty,” Rainbow said, resting her forelimbs on the railing. “And it’s a great takeoff point for flying. Plenty of space, little wind, and sheltered from the elements. I’ll get good use out of it.”
“But I thought that pegasi weren’t allowed to disembark from the airship at any time during the flight,” Rarity said, frowning at Rainbow. “Otherwise they’ll be refused reentry.”
Rainbow snorted and waved her hoof. “Yeah, like anypony’s going to be able to stop me. I’m the fastest flier in Equestria; they won’t even know I’m gone!”
Rarity swatted Rainbow with a magazine she picked up from the nearby reading table. “Rainbow Dash, you will not leave this ship on some daredevil joyflight. There are ponies counting on you to go to the Confederacy and do your job, and you can’t jeopardize their trust in you because you’re bored.”
Rainbow rubbed the back of her head. “You just want to use the room.”
“And I want to use the room,” Rarity admitted, swatting Rainbow again. “Mostly the balcony. I don’t think I’ll find a more pure haven of inspiration on the whole ship.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll find some other way to entertain myself then.” She trotted back into the living room and began to dig through the cabinets until she found the hidden minifridge. Glasses clinked together as she rifled through the contents until she pulled out a glass bottle and set it on the table behind her. Taking a bottle opener in one hoof, she popped the cap off and walked back to Rarity. “At least there’s booze. Want any?”
Rarity looked at the brown bottle with disgust and shook her head. “Thank you, but no. I’d rather drink some fine wines than something like…” She squinted as she tried to make out the name on the bottle. “…Boars Light. That is for frat colts and sorority fillies at a party campus, not a designer like myself.”
Rainbow blinked and stared at Rarity. “There’s wine in the fridge if you want that,” she deadpanned.
Rarity bit her lip. “I don’t know, I know companies like this charge you for everything you take out of the fridge. I wouldn’t want to do that to you.”
The pegasus took a big gulp from her beer, wiped her lips, and belched, much to Rarity’s horror. Shrugging, she looked at the print on the bottle. “I mean, it’s all going to go on the company card.”
“In that case…”
Rainbow’s eyebrow crawled up her face. “You sure?”
Rarity’s alarm clock went off at precisely eight fifty-five the following morning. Its shrill siren shattered the peaceful silence of Rarity’s cabin while the digital numbers flickered on and off. Groaning, Rarity rolled to her side, sleeping mask held firmly over her eyes, and blindly slapped her hoof around the nightstand until she found the snooze button. The noise stopped, and with a sigh of relief, the fashionista rolled over and buried her muzzle in the pillows.
…EEEEEE EEEEEE EEEEEE EEEEEE EEEEEE—
“Grrr, Celestia blast this damn machine!” Rarity exclaimed, groggily sitting upright and pulling off her sleeping mask. Frowning at the clock, she reached out for it with her magic only to see nothing more than blue sparks dance across the switch. “And this damn spell, too,” she added, leaning over and nuding the switch off with her hoof.
A sigh, followed by a deep breath. The ivory mare stretched her pearly limbs in well-rehearsed motions, relaxing her muscles and driving blood through her shoulders and down to her hooves. After five minutes of peaceful stretches, she finally felt ready to take on the day. Brushing back a stray bang that had escaped the curlers she’d placed in her mane, Rarity stepped out of bed…
…and nearly fell flat on her face. She managed to catch herself on the nightstand and stabilize herself as her skull reminded her that she’d downed almost two full bottles of wine over the course of the previous day. Uttering a primal groan, Rarity banged her forehead against the nightstand and shut her eyes. “Celestia have mercy,” she muttered, mustering her willpower to force the headaches away. Now that she finally got some blood flow to her brain, her body could work on clearing the toxins that’d accumulated in her body from the night before.
Speaking of clearing toxins…
The mare whirled towards her bathroom and stumbled over on leaden hooves. Her hooves clopped against the tiled floor and she mussed with the door for a moment before leaving it open. It wasn’t like anypony was going to see her, anyway. She squatted down to do her business when heavy pounding on the cabin door startled her.
“Rarity!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, assaulting the door with another set of knocks. “Rarity, you up?”
Rarity sighed and placed her head in her hooves. “Yes, darling, what is it?”
Rainbow stopped mid-knock. “Oh, cool, you’re awake,” she said, her voice muffled by the door. “I was wondering if you were still sleeping off your hangover.”
“No, but I am attempting to get rid of it,” Rarity remarked. “What exactly do you want? I’m a bit… preoccupied at the moment.”
“Well you said we were going to get breakfast this morning, so here I am.”
Rarity blinked. “I said that?”
“Yeah. You said to show up at nine.”
Rarity stood up and flushed the pressurized toilet behind her, then trotted around to corner to her cabin door. She opened it to find a surprisingly bright eyed Rainbow Dash waiting for her. Upon seeing Rarity’s post-REM state, she failed to suppress a snicker. “Did you forget?”
“Yes, Rainbow, I forgot,” Rarity huffed. Groaning, she trotted back into her cabin, kicking the door wide for Rainbow to follow. “To be fair, I did not have my proper wits about me last night. I’m sorry that I’m not ready when I said I would be, intoxicated or not.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Eh, it’s whatever. You do get pretty funny when you’re drunk.”
“I do not!”
Smirking, Rainbow threw a hoof over her chest and slumped back against the doorframe “Daahhhhlinnnggg, you’re like… like… the fastiest pepagasus in the world. You make me burn with envy!”
Rarity glared down her muzzle at Rainbow. “That is something I would never say.”
“Can’t prove it.”
“Ugh, you are insufferable,” Rarity said, marching into the bathroom and beginning to pull the curlers out of her mane. Somehow she’d at least managed to get those in last night; points for muscle memory, she supposed.
“I try to be,” Rainbow teased, ducking around the corner of the bathroom. Rarity saw her reflection in the mirror and stuck out her tongue while she fussed with a curler with her hooves. “Should I just come back later?”
Rarity pried the last curler out of her mane and dropped them in the sink. “Yes, please, that’d be wonderful,” she said, batting at her limp mane with a hoof. “Give me an hour and I’ll be ready.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and turned around, the flick of her prismatic tail the last thing Rarity saw in the mirror. “Whatever. It’ll be your fault if I die of starvation though.”
The door opened and closed with a bang. Pushing through the restraining spell on her horn, Rarity turned on the shower while she looked herself over in the mirror. “Hmph. Starvation,” she muttered, grabbing her toothbrush from its stand. Her stomach growled in response, and she raised an eyebrow at it. “Don’t you start. Appearances before all else.”
It made one last pathetic rumble as the shower began to billow steam into the bathroom.
Coat brushed, hooves polished, and mane curled, Rarity left her room just under an hour later. She found Rainbow Dash sitting on the floor across the hall with her nose pressed to the window. At the sound of Rarity’s door opening, her ears flicked back and she turned her head. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” Rarity said, trotting over to Rainbow. She’d forsaken formal wear for the time being, instead opting to casually stroll around the ship in the nude. “What are we looking at?”
“We’re approaching Manehattan,” Rainbow replied. “Last bit of Equestria we’ll see before we hit the ocean.”
Rarity leaned over Rainbow’s shoulder to get a good look at the ground below them. Sure enough, the carriage roads, waterways, and rail systems all linked up into one slithering pattern on their approach to the metropolis. Farmland became homesteads, homesteads merged into small towns, and soon those towns retreated from the ever-outward march of Manehattan’s towering skyscrapers. A few airships puttered on the distant horizons, some passenger ships like the Concordia, and others heavy cargo freighters with two or more pairs of enormous propellers lining their hulls.
“Pretty,” Rarity breathed, eyes flitting between the skyscrapers and the emerald fields. She nudged Rainbow’s shoulder and gestured with her head. “Come on, we can grab breakfast and get a great view from the top deck.”
Rainbow grunted and stood up with a shake of her wings. “Sounds good to me, I’m starving!” She flapped her wings and began to hover down the hall while Rarity kept pace by her side. “I’ve been waiting to eat for like, forever!”
“Oh please, Rainbow, it’s only been an hour,” Rarity said. “I’m sure you’ve gone longer without food.”
“Well, I was actually up at eight, so two hours.”
“Oh really?” Rarity remarked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you would’ve been sleeping in. You know, enjoying the room that I’m certain Celestia herself has slept in.”
Rainbow shrugged. “I’m always an early riser. I’m used to practicing first thing in the morning before doing anything else. I’m usually up at six to get a head start, so it’s kinda like sleeping in.”
“And yet you stay up long after the sun goes down. I guess that explains why you take so many naps.”
“Hey, it doesn’t matter when you get your eight hours, only that you get eight hours,” Rainbow said, gradually flying upwards while Rarity climbed the stairs to the upper decks. “So I get four at night, then an hour nap at nine and five, and a two hour nap at one.”
Rarity shook her head. “And how does that fit now that you’re a Wonderbolt?”
“Eh, I have to shift them around a little bit. I’m not the worst offender, though,” Rainbow said, winking.
“And us poor ponies who actually have to work forty hours or more a week to do our jobs would love to have a flexible sleep schedule such as that,” Rarity said. The staircase opened up before them, and the two ponies stood face to face with a large glass door leading into a lounge area. “I suppose the food is through here?”
Rainbow closed her eyes and sniffed the air. “If it’s not through there, I don’t know where else that delicious smell could be coming from.” She fluttered over to the glass door and opened it. “Come on, there’s some seats by the window.”
Rarity took the door from Rainbow’s outstretched hoof as the pegasus darted into the lounge. A few quick sniffs were all she needed to find the breakfast buffet, and she immediately began piling food onto her plate. Not a single tray was left untouched by Rainbow’s ravenous appetite, while Rarity more casually picked through the offerings to put a slim and balanced meal on her plate. With her breakfast in her magical grasp, she trotted over to the window seat Rainbow had found and set her plate down on the linen tablecloth.
Already muzzle deep in her food, Rainbow spared Rarity only a glance before she returned to stuffing more breakfast down her gullet. The noise and ferocity of her meal attracted the attention of a few nearby passengers, and again Rarity found herself wishing Rainbow knew at least a few manners. At this point she’d settle for just two rules of etiquette. Maybe one if things looked really bad.
“This stuff’s delicious!” Rainbow exclaimed between mouthfuls of food. Cramming another serving of eggs into her mouth, she belched and contentedly slouched back in her chair. “You know, I was kinda expecting it to be kinda bleh, because airliner meals, but these guys don’t fool around!”
“It certainly is a good breakfast,” Rarity agreed. She paused to take a sip from her orange juice and looked out the window. The towering skyscrapers of Manehattan seemed almost close enough to touch, and the ponies filling its streets looked indistinguishable from colorful specks. Sighing, she rested her cheek in her hoof. “I wonder how Coco is doing.”
Rainbow’s face screwed up in thought. “Who?”
Rarity made a small gasp. “You don’t remember Coco Pommel?” she asked, incredulous. “Don’t you remember when we all went to Manehattan for Fashion Week? She was Suri’s assistant—or I guess former assistant—and she helped me out when Suri passed off my lineup as her own?”
The blue pegasus shrugged. “I guess?”
Rarity rolled her eyes and went back to looking out the window. “Rainbow, darling, sometimes you amaze me. And not in the good way,” she added when she saw Rainbow open her mouth.
Before Rainbow could respond, a familiar blue and white pegasus trotted up to their table. “Rarity Belle and Rainbow Dash?” Jetstream exclaimed, a huge smile on her face. “I thought I’d seen your names on the register, but I didn’t believe that CelestiAir would be accommodating two Element Bearers! What brings the two of you to the Confederacy?”
“Oh, simply business, darling,” Rarity said, shaking Jetstream’s offered hoof. “I have a new line for griffons I’ll be premiering there, and it wouldn’t be right if I wasn’t there to personally oversee the final preparations.”
Perfectly white teeth glistened as Jetstream’s picture-perfect face fought to smile even wider. “Wonderful! Well I do hope that your line does well, Rarity. I have one of your dresses from your fall line last year. I love it, and so does the husband,” she said, ending with a wink.
Now it was Rarity’s turn to smile. “Thank you! You should see the lineup I have planned for this fall. If you thought last year’s was grand…”
“I look forward to it!” Jetstream exclaimed, “Although I’m not sure my bank account does…”
“Pish posh!” Rarity exclaimed. “Next time you’re back in Canterlot, go to my boutique there. Tell the manager, Sassy Saddles, that I sent you to take your pick of the lineup. Anything you want, it’ll be on me!”
Jetstream gasped and took Rarity’s hoof between her own. “Oh, everything they say about you is true, Rarity! You’re too generous!”
Rarity smiled and tried not to let Jetstream dislocate her foreleg. “It’s simply who I strive to be, it’s no big deal at all.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and stacked her empty plates atop each other. “You should see her when she sees something she really wants. Like a bouquet of flowers.”
Rarity scowled at Rainbow Dash, but the pegasus’ comment drew Jetstream’s attention and allowed the fashionista to free her hoof. “Oh, I could only possibly imagine,” she said. “And what about you? I don’t see why Equestria’s fastest pegasus would bother riding a slow airship across the ocean.”
“Because oceans are big,” Rainbow said. “That and the Cloudsdale Weather Control and the Wonderbolts paid top dollar for the royal suite to get me across in style.” She barely managed to cover a burp and patted her stomach. “Plus the food’s really great too. It’s a bit different from energy drinks and snackbars.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Jetstream said, nodding. “And you’re traveling in the royal suite? Well, I can’t possibly think of a better place for you to stay.” She turned back to Rarity. “And you’re in the…?”
“Business class,” Rarity said. Shooting Rainbow a teasing glare, she added, “I didn’t have a corporate card to pay for my accommodations.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Life’s life.”
“Well, I hope that both of your accommodations have been acceptable to you,” Jetstream said, smiling and taking a step back. “If there’s anything you need, anything at all, please let me know, and I’ll have it taken care of right away.”
“Of course, of course,” Rarity said, gently waving aside the question. “Trust me, darling, the rooms are perfect. They have everything I could possibly want on a cruise… except for a spa, or a place to do yoga.”
Rainbow shrugged. “It’s fine I guess.”
Again Rarity rolled her eyes, but Jetstream only nodded. “I’m glad to hear. There is a spa in the mezzanine, if you’re interested.”
Rarity grinned. “Then I’ll have to take a gander sometime, won’t I?”
“We have some of the best masseuses in the world! I personally visit them more than I care to admit.” Winking, Jetstream added, “Will you be joining us above deck for the farewell to Equestria?”
“Why, that sounds lovely,” Rarity said. She looked at Rainbow Dash, who was still attempting to lift scraps of food from her plates. “Although I do think Rainbow’s still famished.”
“Just a little,” Rainbow grumbled, eyeing up the buffet behind Jetstream.
Rarity smiled and placed a hoof on Jetstream’s shoulder. “We’ll be right up after we’re finished here, darling, don’t worry about us.”
“Wonderful! I’ll be sure to look for you upstairs,” Jetstream said, backtrotting away from their table. She nearly bumped into a waitress and muttered a quick apology as she turned towards the other end of the lounge. “If I don’t see you again, I hope you have a wonderful trip!”
The hostess wandered over to another table to talk to some more passengers as Rarity waved. Chuckling quietly to herself, Rarity poked at the last of the food on her plate. “Such a lively mare.”
“Well, if you were the premier airliner corporation in the skies, would you want a glum or somber face in charge of interacting with all of your passengers?” Rarity asked. “Although, yes, she is awfully ‘smiley’.”
“Kinda like Pinkie Pie, except with less diabetes,” Rainbow said, to which Rarity snickered and shook her head. Standing up, Rainbow took wing and began to drift over to the buffet line. “One last run, then we can go above deck. I need to get one of those omelets!”
“Have fun,” Rarity said as Rainbow merged with the buffet line. She stuffed another bite of her own omelet into her mouth and thoughtfully chewed as the skyline of Manehattan passed them by. She could already feel the first traces of inspiration reaching out to her from a vantage point this high up. She’d have to sketch some ideas later.
She yawned and set her fork aside. No matter how rough it had started, she could already tell it was going to be a great trip.
Rarity and Rainbow Dash emerged from the dining hall several minutes later and immediately sought out the stairs to the top deck. Rarity took them two at a time while Rainbow simply used her wings to ascend. The staircase ended right in front of a glass door, and Rarity pushed it open and stepped onto the deck with Rainbow not far behind.
“Oh, heavens, this is simply stunning,” Rarity cooed as she trotted away from the bulwarks and into the open space below the airship’s balloon. She immediately turned to her left and approached a tall guard rail several feet from the edge of the port side of the ship. Resting her hooves on the polished brass, she sighed and watched the Manehattan skyline slide to her left, with streets hundreds of feet below her.
Rainbow Dash joined her by her side, and Rarity turned to her. “I’m more envious of you pegasi than I ever have been,” Rarity remarked, bringing a sly smile to Rainbow’s muzzle. “The wind in your mane, the view, the freshness of the air…”
“Heh. Yeah, we have it pretty great,” Rainbow said, her wingtips twitching by her flanks. “Life’s better a mile higher.”
The airship shuddered as it found a rough patch of air, and Rarity’s muscles immediately tightened up. They finally relaxed after several seconds, but the unicorn had taken on a slight green tinge underneath her pearly white coat. “Ugh… then there’s the motion sickness.”
Rainbow snickered and patted Rarity on the back with a wing. “Yeah, yeah, no need to thank me.”
“Thank you?” Rarity said, raising an eyebrow. She shuddered and pressed her hoof to her forehead. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, the reason you’re even alive to have motion sickness in the first place is because of yours truly.” Rainbow withdrew her wing and closed her eyes, opening her mouth slightly to taste the air. “There’s just a pressure front moving in from the southeast. There’s probably going to be a Cat One in Manehattan in a week’s time, ten days tops.”
Rarity blinked. “Cat One?”
“Category One hurricane,” Rainbow said. She looked over the Manehattan skyline and picked out numerous tiny specks flying between a heavy wall of clouds on the perimeter of the city. “Hurricane season is starting to ramp up, and the CWC always deploys extra fliers to Manehattan and Baltimare to shield the cities from the storms. See those pegasi out there?” she asked, pointing in their direction. “They’re making what we call a cloud phalanx. Since hurricanes are driven by low air pressure, we create a zone of high pressure over the city by piling as many clouds and stuff as we can over it so the water vapor builds up, you know?”
“I suppose,” Rarity said with a shrug, although she watched the pegasi with a keen interest. “Apart from basic weather dynamics in high school, I never learned much about how the weather works. Most of my time was spent covering history, social sciences, and technical trades, like dress making.” She nudged Rainbow in the ribs. “You know, the sorts of things unicorns are expected to really focus on. Weather was for pegasi.”
“Eh, I guess.” Rainbow tapped her hooves along the guardrail, then began to trace a line running from Manehattan and to the southeast. “Well, when the hurricane finally comes close enough to the city, the weatherponies there will set the phalanx loose. They break apart the cloud wall holding all the high pressure over the city and allow the winds to rush forward to meet the hurricane. If everything goes according to plan—which it should, since I helped refine it,” Rainbow said, winking, “then the winds meet the hurricane head on or slightly off center, deflecting it away from the city and weakening it in the process by hitting it opposite the direction of rotation. The trick is to make sure that you release the pressure at the right time and in the right direction, otherwise you’ll just make the storm stronger.”
Rarity looked again at the cloud phalanx and at her friend, this time with a sense of admiration. “Wow, Rainbow. I’d taken you for being a brash stunt flier so long that sometimes I forget that you’re a licensed weather manager.”
“Hey, Rares, a degree’s a degree, even if it’s from a trade school,” Rainbow said. “I just figured having an actual paying job while I worked on chasing my dreams would be the smartest thing to do. Well, that and I didn’t want to rely on my parents for money anymore once I turned twenty. It’s hard enough as it is to get them to stop trying to do everything for me, you know?”
Chuckling, Rarity shook her head and took a step back from the railing. “If only we could all be so lucky, having parents like yours.”
Rainbow shrugged and likewise stepped back from the railing. “Trust me, it wears out its welcome fast enough.”
“Oh, I’m sure.”
The two friends made their way to the center of the deck, where many of the other passengers aboard the Concordia had gathered to the sounds of music and even more offered food. Even though they’d both just ate, Rarity and Rainbow lined up next to one of the tables and began to fill small, square plates with fruit, cheese, and crackers. As Rarity forced her telekinesis through the restraining spell placed on her horn, she glanced at Rainbow. “So what, you can tell what the weather’s going to be like a week from now, or were you just spouting off weather reports?”
Rainbow blinked, hovering in place as she reached for more food to scrape onto her plate. “Huh?”
“Darling, just a second ago,” Rarity said, stepping away from the table with a loaded plate in her magical grasp. “You were talking about the hurricane on its way to Manehattan.”
Rainbow followed her to the edge of the gathered crowd. “Oh, that. I can, like, taste the weather. Like the moisture and stuff in the air.” At Rarity’s face, Rainbow held up one hoof while balancing her plate in the other. “No, seriously. I’m really good at predicting the weather. It’s in my blood or something, you know?”
Rarity thoughtfully chewed on a slice of cantaloupe. “You know, I could believe that,” she said. “I’ve got an eye for fashion, Fluttershy’s got a heart for animals, and you’ve got a… tongue for the weather?”
“Jeez, Rares, when you say it like that, it sounds dumb,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes.
“You’re the one who claims she can taste the weather,” Rarity retorted.
“Yeah, but that still doesn’t mean you should make it sound dumb. Don’t make it sound dumb,” Rainbow grumbled, finishing her tirade by shoving her muzzle into her plate.
Rarity giggled and patted Rainbow’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, darling. I’ll try to refrain from such an ill choice of words in the future.”
Rainbow’s eyes narrowed at her. “Now you’re just being snooty.”
Rarity gasped and lightly smacked Rainbow. “Snooty? I never!” Rainbow’s grin only sharpened the frown on her face, and she pointedly harrumphed and stuck her nose into the air. “I am not snooty!”
“Whatever you say, Rares.” Rainbow stuffed a slice of pineapple into her mouth and quashed its juicy flesh between her teeth, inadvertently spraying Rarity with some of the juice. The unicorn squealed and wiped the liquid away, shooting Rainbow an angry look. Unfortunately, that only emboldened her, and she threw another piece of fruit into her mouth before Rarity’s magic stole her entire plate from her. “Hey! Give that back!”
Blue magic floated the plate over the side of the ship and dumped its contents thousands of feet to the ground below. Satisfied, Rarity returned the plate to Rainbow and stuck her tongue out at her. The empty plate fell into Rainbow’s outstretched hooves, and the pegasus simply gave it a hollow look while Rarity went back to eating off her own platter.
Rainbow’s brow dropped and she glared at Rarity. Setting her plate on a small table, she folded her forelegs and maintained an irate hover several inches above the deck. “Element of Generosity, my flank.”
“Being generous doesn’t necessarily mean being nice,” Rarity teased. Her magic floated a stalk of celery up to Rainbow’s snout and tapped it, then offered it to the pegasus. Rainbow snatched it in her teeth but kept her glare locked on Rarity as she chewed the crunchy stalk to pieces, the leaf on the end slowly inching towards her lips with each bite. Rarity giggled and held a hoof to her face. “My, Rainbow, you’re quite the adorable little pegasus when you’re pouting.”
“Wrong A-word,” Rainbow muttered, abandoning the argument and finding something else to focus her ire on. Her ears perked at noise coming from the center of the deck, and she hovered a little higher to get a better look. “Hey, look, it’s Misses Smiley.”
Rarity turned in that direction, and sure enough, she saw Jetstream gaily flutter into the open. She had a microphone grasped between her feathers, and she twirled it and brought it up to her lips as she approached the throng of ponies. “Good morning, passengers! I hope you’ve all been enjoying yourselves!”
Her electronically-amplified voice gathered the attention of the few ponies who weren’t looking in her direction, and soon she had all eyes on her supermodel figure. “I’d like to offer my warmest regards from the captain of this fine ship, as he couldn’t be here to say farewell to Equestria with us. He is, after all, preoccupied with a rather important duty; namely, guiding the ship through the crowded and busy Manehattan airspace.”
As she said that, the sounds of another pair of propellers filled the air, and the ponies on deck looked to their left to see a heavy freighter passing by the Concordia’s port side, massive screws beating at the air. The large mechanical wings protruding from the underside of its hull turned and pivoted at its captain’s command, guiding the freighter well clear of the Concordia while still remaining close enough for the deckhooves to wave to the passengers from above.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Rainbow said, nudging Rarity’s shoulder. “Manehattan’s not a good place for leisure flying, at least not in certain air zones. There’s too many airships flying about, and trust me, the last thing a pegasus needs is to be turned into a cloud of feathers when they get whacked by one of those props.”
Rarity let loose a little offended gasp and slapped Rainbow on the shoulder. “Inappropriate!” she hissed. “And rather… erm, morbid.”
Rainbow snickered. “I’m a pegasus, I’m allowed to make jokes about it.”
“Of course,” Rarity muttered, shaking her head and redirecting her attention to Jetstream. The aquamarine mare had fluttered over to the port side of the ship, and was busy pointing out the sights to the ponies congregating around her. She hovered above the deck so everypony could see her, and Rarity noted how she fluttered sideways while she spoke so that she stayed in the same spot over the moving airship’s deck. “…and through those tall brown skyscrapers, you can see Bridleway avenue, home to the dozens of professional theatres collectively called Bridleway. The greatest actors and musicians from across Equestria gather here to share their work and experience life under the Manehattan limelight. After all,” she added with a wink, “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”
“I wonder if I can see the Saddle Row from here,” Rarity murmured, trying to look through the skyscrapers. “I wonder how my boutique is doing.”
“Probably pretty great,” Rainbow said. “I did help pick the employees to keep it running.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Yes, even though you missed the point entirely and just hired all of them.” Shaking her head, she added, “At least the boutique does well enough for me to comfortably maintain their employment. And besides, having three employees does help reduce wait times and keeps the whole business running smoothly. With the revenue Rarity For You generates, I’m sure I’ll be able to open a couple more boutiques in Manehattan within a few years.”
“I’m sure you will, Rares,” Rainbow said, placing her hooves on the rail alongside Rarity. “If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you don’t let anything stop you.”
“Awww, that’s so sweet of you,” Rarity said, smiling at Rainbow.
“Eh, don’t push it.”
“If you insist.” Rarity went back to watching the city slide by, noting that she was craning her neck more and more to the left to see what she wanted to see. They’d be past the Statue of Harmony in the water soon enough. A sweeping melancholy began to settle into her bones, and she sighed, resting her chin on the rails.
Rainbow’s ears perked at the sound, and she glanced to her right. “What’s up?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Rarity said, feigning indifference. She let the little lie linger in the air for an appropriate amount of time before she added, “It just feels like life is moving so fast, you know?”
“Uh… sure?”
“I mean, honestly,” Rarity said, gesturing towards Manehattan, “Fashion Week was… what, three years ago? Four?”
Rainbow blinked. “You’re asking the wrong mare.”
“Oh it doesn’t matter,” Rarity huffed. She crossed her forelegs, thought better of it, and opted instead to simply rest her elbows on the railing and her chin in her hooves. “The point is, it feels like it was just a few weeks ago. Time has gone by so fast, and I’m afraid that we’re all—you, me, the girls—we’re all drifting apart.”
“Like that’d ever happen,” Rainbow scoffed. When Rarity’s expression didn’t change, she bumped Rarity’s cheek with her snout. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Nopony’s going anywhere. Not if Loyalty has anything to say about it!” she finished, proudly placing a hoof over her chest.
Rarity wasn’t so convinced. “But that’s just the thing, Rainbow,” she said, pivoting to face the colorful pegasus, “I’m opening new boutiques one at a time, and it’s only a matter of time before I have to move my operations from Ponyville to someplace like Fillydelphia or Manehattan. Ponyville just simply doesn’t have the resources I need to run a large, successful business.
“And you!” she added, gesturing to the skies, “You’re a Wonderbolt now! An honest to Celestia Wonderbolt! You’ve been on tours for months at a time, traveling all across Equestria. We’re only be able to see you when you’re on leave these days, or the team happens to be visiting Canterlot or somewhere else close.”
Rainbow’s smile faltered, and she sighed, adopting a similar position as Rarity. “I… yeah, I guess you’re right,” she muttered, choosing to stare at the water far beneath the airship rather than at the passing city. “I’d never really thought that far ahead. Making the Wonderbolts had always seemed so… you know. Far away and stuff.” Silence hung between them, save for the perpetual beating of the airship’s props and the excited din of Jetstream’s voice as she went on and on about the Statue of Harmony in the harbor. “Man, that’s kind of a downer, isn’t it?”
“In simple terms, yes,” Rarity said. “But I guess there’s nothing to be done save enjoy the time that we have left.”
“Yeah.” Rainbow lifted her head, and the wind blowing across the deck mussed her mane in all different directions. Giving her head a shake, she regathered her mane, then chuckled. “We should get the rest of the girls on one of these things sometime. Seeing the world together would be totally awesome.”
“Oh, it’d be amazing,” Rarity purred, choosing to follow Rainbow’s example and drop the uncomfortable topic. “The seven hills of Roam, the countryside of Prance, and of course Mareis itself, followed by a trip to Las Pegasus for some moral-free gambling and camaraderie—what a wonderful idea.”
“Yeah, well, you’re welcome for it.”
“Hush, you.”
The two mares watched in silence as the Statue of Harmony passed before them, depicting a stern mare of copper patina balancing on two legs, with a tablet in one forehoof and a torch in the other. Her stoic visage was forever pointed across the ocean, in the direction of the Confederacy, a reminder to all ponies and griffons alike about the friendships that tied their two nations together since the Neighpoleanic wars more than a century ago. At least, that’s what they heard Jetstream saying from her group a few paces down the deck. Neither mare was really that knowledgeable about history.
When the Concordia finally passed the Statue, there was nothing around them except open ocean for hundreds of miles, stretching to the east for as far as the eye could see. Smiling, Rarity leaned over the railing and waved to Manhattan. “Au revoir, Manehattan! Au revoir, Equestria!”
Rainbow Dash merely shrugged. “What she said.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and began to trot away from the railing, Rainbow Dash close behind her. “Ah, well, that was fun. Now for the rest of the three day journey!”
“Yeah. So, what, are you just going to be sketching dresses and stuff?” Rainbow asked, fluttering behind Rarity and likewise adopting the angled flight Jetstream had used to keep up with the ship.
“I’m sure there will be plenty of time for that,” Rarity said, “but Jetstream promised a spa somewhere below us, and I’m going to find it.” She gasped and turned to Rainbow. “You should join me!”
Rainbow frowned and crossed her legs. “Yeah, sorry, no. Spas aren’t my kind of thing.” Looking around the deck, she saw a fenced off section beneath the bridge, painted green with white lines and a low net strung across the middle. “Oooh, they have tennis! C’mon, I’ll play you!”
Rarity scoffed. “As if exerting myself beyond my normal yoga and daily exercises was on today’s agenda. I’ll pass, thank you.”
“Filly,” Rainbow teased, sticking her tongue out at Rarity. “You just know I’d win.”
Rarity’s hooves clacked together as she straightened her posture. “I did not say that. Simply that beating you into a pulp would be valuable spa time going to waste.”
Smirking, Rainbow touched down in front of Rarity and poked her chest. “Careful, Rares. Them’s fighting words. Besides, you don’t want to chip your hooves or something.”
“I’m sure I can get another hooficure after I take you to the house… and then to the spa.” Rainbow flinched, and it was all Rarity needed to drive the attack home. “Unless you’re afraid of losing to a fashionista. I won’t look down on you if you back out, Rainbow, I swear.”
Rainbow flared her wings and bumped noses with Rarity. “Oh it’s on. I’ll go to the spa with you if by some miracle I happen to lose to a snooty unicorn like you. But when I win…” She grinned and fluttered backwards, rubbing her hooves together. “We’re gonna get you absolutely shitfaced and see what you’re like then. You know, what the real you is like.”
“A lady is never ‘shitfaced’,” Rarity said, matching grins with Rainbow. “And I don’t expect that to change any time soon.”
“Of course it is, darling. We’re playing a proper sport, and if you want me to join you, then we’re going to look the part.”
Rainbow raised a white tennis dress with blue hems by the tip of her wing. She gave it a plaintive sniff, then wrinkled her nose. “Eugh. It’s so girly.”
“It’s a tennis dress, Rainbow,” Rarity retorted, already wearing hers. Unlike Rainbow’s, Rarity’s was a solid royal purple with white filling the spaces between pleats around her flanks. She turned away from her mirror and seized the article from Rainbow’s wingtip, smoothing out the wrinkles and stretching it in front of the pegasus. “It’s proper attire for playing the sport, made of lightweight fabric and designed to be as minimally restricting as possible. Besides, it even has wingslits for you.”
“Or I could just go naked and not wear the stupid dress,” Rainbow grumbled.
Rarity sighed. “Rainbow, stop being such a foal.”
“I’m not being a foal!” Rainbow exclaimed. “I just don’t want to wear the dumb thing!”
“I’ll show you a dumb thing,” Rarity hissed. Then her magic assaulted Rainbow, and the pegasus squawked and fluttered her wings as Rarity attempted to force the dress on her. After a lot of noise and a few spools of thread and fabric falling onto the floor, Rarity claimed victory, holding a now-limp pegasus in midair by the dress she reluctantly wore. Giggling, Rarity brought Rainbow closer to the mirror so that she could see herself. “See, Rainbow? That wasn’t so hard! And I do say that you look absolutely fabulous.”
Rainbow and her reflection gave each other deadpan looks. “You are so going to regret this,” she muttered, still hanging limply in Rarity’s magic. She flailed her limbs and gasped as that magic suddenly disappeared, sending her falling to the floor. Groaning, she rubbed her jaw and stood up on her other legs as Rarity marched to the door. “Sabotage? Really?”
“Rainbow, I don’t think there’s much left inside that head of yours that isn’t concussed,” Rarity teased. Her hoof worked the handle, and she stood in the doorway, holding it open for Rainbow. “It’s not like I’m doing any lasting damage.”
“You’re making it really hard to not spike a tennis ball between your eyes,” Rainbow grumbled, shouldering past Rarity. The white mare giggled and rolled her eyes, then shut the door and locked it behind her.
The two friends surfaced deckside, where most of the ponies who had been listening to Jetstream’s little farewell speech had dispersed to various locations on the ship. Many lounged on the deck, enjoying the high-altitude sun free of obstructions like buildings, and others walked or jogged around the track outlining the boundaries of the deck. Rainbow and Rarity made a quick beeline for the tennis court, with Rainbow taking wing to claim it before anypony else could.
“Well this is a nice little court!” Rarity exclaimed, trotting into the cage surrounding the court and shutting the door with a quiet click. Her magic took hold of two racquets and a tennis ball, and she gave them all a keen inspection. “And the racquets are freshly strung, too! Oh, this is perfect!”
“Since when did you become such a tennis pro?” Rainbow asked, trotting up to Rarity and taking the offered racquet.
Rarity shrugged and twirled the piece of equipment in her aura. “Oh, I used to play a bit when I was on the varsity team in high school. It’s been ages since I last played, though, so I’m bound to be a bit rusty.”
Rainbow held a hoof up. “Wait wait wait wait wait, you were on Ponyville’s tennis team?” She blinked. “What was a froufrou pony like you doing on a tennis team?”
The unicorn scoffed and bounced the tennis ball off the ground a few times, testing its elasticity. “Rainbow Dash, I am not ‘froufrou’. Elegant and sophisticated, yes, but not froufrou.” She harrumphed and looked away, but shrugged a second later. “And if you must know, tennis dresses were in vogue at the time, and I figured the only way I’d know what a mare really wants in a tennis dress was to learn the sport myself.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes. Cradling the racquet in the crook of her foreleg, she took wing and glided over the net. “You can have first serve. You’re gonna need it,” she said, a glint in her eye.
“Magic or mouth?” Rarity asked, slipping into her singsong voice to shout across the court.
Rainbow shrugged. “You can use your magic if I can use my wings.”
“Sounds fair,” Rarity said. She cantered over to the back-right corner of her side of the court and bounced the ball on the ground. “Just no flying over the net.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good.” Rarity said, and she twirled the racquet in her magic. “Keep your eye on the ball, darling,” she proclaimed, then positioned her racquet. “Zero serving zero!” And her racquet collided with the back of the ball in an expert swing.
Rainbow Dash knew when the ace slipped by that she was in trouble.
The bright tennis ball ricocheted off of the cage wall and nearly plunked Rainbow in the head on the way back. She stared at it as it rolled across her side of the court until it came to a stop against the net. Blue shimmering magic wrapped around it, and she looked towards the caster in shock.
Rarity smiled right back at her, but it was cunning, dangerous. She was the cat, and Rainbow felt a lot like a mouse. “Advantage: moi,” Rarity teased, bouncing the ball on her racket. “I’m sorry, did you need a serve to warm up?”
“I… uh…” Rainbow stumbled over her words. Who could have guessed that the slim white unicorn knew what she was doing when it came to tennis, let alone any sport?
But still, this was a challenge, and Rainbow Dash lived for challenges. Her shock disappeared, replaced by determination and excitement. She knew she was much faster than Rarity, especially on the wing, and she could use her speed to her advantage. Besides, she wanted to wipe that smug look off Rarity’s face in a splash of color.
Grinning, Rainbow readjusted her grip on her tennis racquet, sliding it into the bars of her jaw. “Uff ot Ad ayk e eie on yew.”
“I’m just going to assume that was a poor excuse for a taunt or something,” Rarity said, shaking her head. Rainbow frowned, and Rarity smiled back at her. Bouncing the ball a few times off of the court, she tossed it high, shouting, “Fifteen-love!”
This time, as the ball came flying across the court, Rainbow was ready for it. She darted forward, lining up her shot and swinging her neck to put the ball as far away from Rarity as possible, in the front-left corner of Rarity’s court. But the unicorn was already on the move, expecting the shot, and the ball barely bounced before her racquet propelled it back in the other direction.
Rainbow cursed and contorted her body to dive backwards, her wings shoveling the air. She spun the racket in her teeth to switch sides, then dived forward to make the save. Her last-ditch effort was just enough to connect with the ball, and send it back to Rarity—who was already rushing the net. With a flourish of her racquet, Rarity lightly tapped the ball to her left, leaving Rainbow to try to scramble to her hooves only to watch the ball bounce twice on her side.
“Really, Rainbow, I thought you were going to put up a better fight than this,” Rarity teased, leaning over the net. Her magic snatched the ball, and she began to trot back to her corner.
“Meh… friggin’ magic,” Rainbow grumbled, climbing onto her hooves. “It gives you reach.”
“I asked ‘magic or mouth’, and you said magic was fine,” Rarity said, lining up in her corner. “I can do mouth if you want, but you can’t fly.”
“Might as well be on equal hoofing,” Rainbow said. She turned around and backed into her corner, snatching up her racquet along the way. Spreading her hooves wide, she readied herself for Rarity’s serve.
Rarity dropped the tennis ball into her hoof, shouted, “Thirty-love,” and snatched the tennis racquet in her mouth. She tossed the ball into the air, positioned herself, and swung hard when it dropped in front of her muzzle.
Without the precision or power afforded with Rarity’s magic, Rainbow found herself better able to adjust to the incoming projectile. She returned the serve, watched as Rarity scrambled across the court, and then positioned herself for the next hit. This time, Rarity’s return hit didn’t blow by her or send her diving for the save. Still, as she found herself darting back and forth a little further each time, she knew control of the point was slipping between her hooves.
Just as the ball seemed out of reach, Rainbow found a surge of speed, launching herself forward to try to close the gap. Almost in slow motion, she realized her jump was going to fall short, and without even thinking, her wings extended the tiniest bit. The additional lift was just enough to get her in range of the tennis ball, and with a powerful swing, sent the ball speeding across the court, where it bounced off the corner and into the cage behind Rarity’s surprised swing.
A brash grin found its way onto Rainbow’s muzzle, and she picked herself up off of the ground and trotted over to the net. “Ha!” she exclaimed, “No shut-outs this game!”
Rarity, however, was angry. “We agreed no wings, Rainbow!” Her hooves took her over to the net, where she leered at the pegasus. “I’m not going to play with a cheater.”
The accusation stung, and stung deep. It reminded Rainbow Dash of her first Running of the Leaves with Applejack, except coming from Rarity, it was somehow worse. Wincing, Rainbow backed up and held up a hoof. “Err… sorry, Rares. Instincts, you know?” She chuckled, trying to defuse the tension. “I can slip my wings under the dress thing if you want.”
Rarity’s eyes narrowed. “That would make it fair.”
Shrugging, Dash did as she said, concealing her blue feathers beneath the white tennis dress. She frowned and shook the dress around, trying to get it to sit comfortable atop her wings, and rolled her shoulders. “Better?”
The dour expression on the unicorn’s face disappeared after a moment’s delay. “Better!” Rarity sang, picking up the tennis ball and trotting back to her corner. Dash blinked in confusion, feeling a little mood whiplash, as Rarity bounced the ball up and down. “Aren’t you going to get ready, darling?”
Rainbow blinked. “Oh, uh, don’t I get to serve now?”
“Rainbow, have you ever seriously played tennis before?” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “One player serves each game, and it rotates between games in the set.”
“Oh.” Rainbow shrugged. “Duh.” She bent down and picked up the racquet between her hooves, and readied herself for the incoming serve.
As the game wore on, Rainbow finally felt like she was falling into a rhythm. Rarity’s serves were very controlled and accurate, but she lacked the raw muscle power behind her swings that Rainbow carried in her athletic frame. She couldn’t send the ball flying into Rainbow’s court as fast as the pegasus could, but she could dance the ball from one side of the court to the other, hitting the lines and using every inch of the court available. Rainbow simply struggled not to hit it out of bounds, giving Rarity a narrower field to cover.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rarity won the first set, game-thirty.
“That was fun!” Rarity exclaimed, trotting over to the net after the game was finished. It took Rainbow a little longer to meet her; she was splayed out on the ground, tennis racquet a few inches in front of her muzzle, the aftermath of a failed dive to keep the game alive. “Want to go again, or are you ready to call it quits?”
“Gnnf… A pegasus never calls it quits,” Rainbow said, slowly crawling to her hooves. “…unless you’re Fluttershy. But no.” She grabbed her tennis racket and began to retreat to her corner. “A ot iheshe ih uh eh.”
Rarity facehoofed and shook her head. “Right, Miss Tennis Talk, it’s your serve anyways.”
It was contrary to her very spirit. The essence of her soul was built on winning, on thrashing the competition, on doing things nopony else could even dream of doing. Even then, she picked her fights carefully, and would only hurl herself headlong into something she knew she was going to win.
Which is why she really hated Rarity right now.
As another ball rocketed out the back of Rainbow’s court, just inches away from her racquet, Rarity wiped her brow and sidled up to the net. “Have you given up yet?” she sang, smirking at Rainbow as she lay outstretched on the ground, legs splayed around her. “Or do we need to take it to another game? I can do a best of fifteen if you want.”
Rainbow’s ruby eyes flicked towards Rarity. The white unicorn was leaning on the net, hooves crossed under her chest, and panting lightly. Her mane had slowly worked itself out of its ponytail, and now loose violet strands hung in front of her muzzle, or were plastered to her white face with sweat. Her shoulders heaved with panting breath, and as Rainbow watched, a tiny bead of sweat traced its way down her horn, across her muzzle, down to her chin, and hung there, trembling for but a moment, before dropping to the court below.
Maybe lying prone on the court after an embarrassing failed save wasn’t so bad after all.
“Rainbow?” Rarity blinked, then leaned a bit further over the net. “Are you okay, darling?”
“Huh?” Rainbow flinched, then quickly scrambled to her hooves, despite how much her aching muscles protested. “Oh, uh, nothing. You’re h—I’m hot. Just hot, and tired, and sweaty.” She licked her lips, tasting salt, and vigorously shook her head from side to side, jarring loose the thoughts in her skull and flinging them aside like the sweat from her mane. “Yeah.”
Rarity’s eyes flicked over Rainbow’s figure, and she smirked. Shifting her weight from one hoof to the other, she cocked her head to the side. “Well? Care for game eight? Or shall we call seven-zip the final score?”
Even more than Rainbow hated losing, she hated admitting that she lost.
“This isn’t over,” she grumbled, shuffling across the court to grab her racquet and the tennis ball. “This is only the beginning of a terrible and bloody war.”
As the two friends left the courtyard, Rarity bumped shoulders with Rainbow. “Don’t feel so bad, Rainbow,” she said. “You didn’t know what you were getting into in the first place.”
“Meh.” Rainbow’s hooves angrily shuffled across the floor. “I didn’t know I’d be playing the god-queen of tennis.”
Rarity giggled. “Rainbow, darling, please, I’m not that good. It’s just a hobby, that’s all.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
The two approached the sliding glass doors on the Concordia’s top deck and entered the shade of the indoors as they automatically parted. Rarity’s strained magic touched the call button for the elevator, and the doors opened, allowing the two ponies to step inside. Rarity’s hoof slapped the “M” on the elevator, and the doors closed with a chime.
“I thought your room was on the second deck,” Rainbow remarked.
“It is,” Rarity said, grinning. “But we’re going to the spa instead.”
Rainbow coughed and all but hissed as she jumped back into the far corner of the elevator. “Hell no!”
“Aww, but Rainbow, we had a deal,” Rarity said, jutting out her lower lip in a pout. “If I throttled your flank, then you’d come to the spa with me.”
“Rarity, I will hit you,” Rainbow growled. Sighing, she slumped into the corner of the elevator. “I don’t want to go to the spa,” she whimpered. “They’ll touch my hooves and do silly things to my hair!”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Rainbow, they won’t do anything to your hair except for… you know… actually cleaning it up.” She smiled and touched the pegasus’ shoulder. “And you don’t have to get a hooficure if you don’t want to. Though I would encourage you to try, I won’t hold it against you if you don’t.”
Whatever Rainbow had been about to say was cut off by the elevator doors chiming as they opened, and Rarity trotting out onto the mezzanine. She immediately turned to her right and opened another set of glass doors, gesturing for Rainbow to enter as she peered around the edge of the elevator. With a huff, Rainbow trudged forward, her hooves moving like leaden weights as if she was marching to her doom.
As the doors opened, a small, pearly earth pony looked up from her podium. “Why hello!” she said, beaming, as Rarity trotted in, followed by Rainbow’s lethargic form. “Welcome to the Mile High Spa! How can I help you today?”
“Hello, darling,” Rarity greeted, strolling up to the podium. “We’d like two of your deluxe packages. The Cirrus package, more specifically.”
“Oh, excellent choice!” the receptionist said, flipping a few pages in the clipboard in front of her. “It doesn’t look like our masseuses are busy at the moment. We can easily get you set up with a sauna, then a mineral water bath.” Her sky blue eyes darted over the two ponies, and the corner of her lip pulled up a little higher. “You two look like you could use it.”
“Most certainly!” Rarity exclaimed, following the earth pony as she gestured, and in turn beckoning Rainbow onward. “We just had a few very rousing games of tennis, and now we need to clean the sweat out. Oh, do you happen to have any water? Iced, preferably.”
“Of course!” the mare exclaimed, and approaching a heavy wooden door, she wrapped her hoof around the handle. With a heave, she pulled it open, revealing an interior slick with moisture, humidity, and steam. “I’ll have it delivered to you before you get settled down. In the meanwhile, toss your dresses over there, and we can get them cleaned up for you.”
“You’re too kind,” Rarity said, smiling at her. She stepped into the dim room, closed her eyes, and shuddered. “Oh, this already feels wonderful.” Sapphire pools flicked open again, and she looked over her shoulder at Rainbow, who was still lingering outside of the door. “Coming, Rainbow? This will make you feel fantastic, I promise.”
“How’s sweating my feathers out gonna make me feel better?” Rainbow asked, following Rarity inside. She bit down on the hem of her dress and pulled it off in one smooth motion, then spat the sweaty article onto the floor. “I already feel icky and need a shower.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and pulled off her own dress, haphazardly folding it before putting it down by Rainbow’s. “And here I thought sweat was your natural element,” she teased, guiding Rainbow into the sauna with her tail. “The heat entices your pores to sweat, and the steam carries it all away, leaving you pure and raw. Then you get in the bath to wash the salt away. It’s something to die for.”
“Sorry if I’m not all that convinced,” Rainbow muttered, following Rarity into the room. She watched the unicorn lay a towel flat on the wooden bench before sitting on it, then patted the bench next to her. Sighing, Rainbow pulled a towel off of the wall and did the same, sitting with her wings bunched behind her back and her forelegs crossed. “Now what?”
“Well, first we take a much needed drink,” Rarity said. She gestured to the receptionist as she trotted in with a tray carrying glasses of water on her back, and took two in her magic. One she dropped at Rainbow’s hooves, and the other she raised directly to her muzzle and took a long, long draw from. Setting it aside, she nodded to the earth pony as she flipped their discarded dresses onto her back. “Thank you very much, darling.”
The receptionist nodded and backpedaled to the door. “Of course. We’ll have these cleaned and pressed by the time you’re done. In the meantime, please enjoy yourselves, and if there’s anything you need, we’re more than happy to help.”
“Can you get me out of here?” Rainbow pleaded, giving the earth pony her best puppy-dog eyes—which weren’t all that good.
Rarity waved a hoof in front of Rainbow’s face and smiled apologetically at the receptionist. “Don’t mind her, she just doesn’t know what’s good for her.” She leaned over and brushed shoulders with Rainbow, an action which the pegasus completely failed to acknowledge. “We’re more than fine at the moment, thank you.”
“If you insist,” the earth pony said, trotting out of the sauna and placing a hoof on the door. “Enjoy!”
Rainbow tried to stand up, but Rarity’s magic tugged her back down. “No, wait—!”
But the door had already shut behind the receptionist, leaving Rarity and Rainbow to broil in the humid heat.
It wasn’t long before Rainbow was panting. The humid air was sweltering, and she only noticed that her wings had opened to their full length when she heard Rarity fuss in protest over the one brushing her face. Rainbow snapped her wings shut to her sides and shot Rarity an apologetic look. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright, darling,” Rarity said, smiling. “I know it’s hot, but we’ll only be here a few more minutes. We don’t want to get dehydrated, after all.” As if to emphasize her point, she took her glass of water and took a long draw from it. “In the meanwhile, try to relax. It’s much more enjoyable that way.”
“If you say so,” Rainbow mumbled. Sighing, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall, tilting her chin up and letting her sweaty mane tumble over her shoulders. If she wasn’t so hot, she might have been able to take a nap. She could definitely use the rest after getting annihilated by Rarity at tennis.
Just as she was starting to get comfortable, or as comfortable as she could get while sweating through her coat, the door to the sauna opened. She opened her eyes and held up a hoof as the mare from before beckoned to them from the doorway. “The baths are ready for you, Misses. I hope you enjoyed your sauna.”
“It was divine,” Rarity purred, rising to her hooves and walking toward the door. With a grunt, Rainbow followed her, towel draped across her back and sweat dripping from her brow. She didn’t know what Rarity was talking about; now she was just more sweaty and disgusting. Her down feathers felt like some sort of mush clinging to the undersides of her wings and her sides. Preening later was going to be awful.
The receptionist led them down a short hallway and around a corner to a small room mostly dominated by crystal clear water. If it weren’t for the gentle shaking of the Concordia and its massive engines, the surface of the bath would’ve looked like a mirror. Still, it was nice enough, and the decorations of flowers and soft music playing over hidden speakers made the whole thing feel peaceful and serene.
“Please enjoy your bath,” the mare said, backing away from the door and gesturing for Rarity and Rainbow to enter. “After you are finished, we will begin your massages.”
“Sounds lovely,” Rarity said, gaily trotting past her and into the bath. Tossing her towel on a bench, the unicorn gingerly put a hoof into the water, shivered once, then gracefully slipped under the surface. She emerged a moment later, rivulets of water running off of her face and through her mane, and found a corner to sit in with a ladylike trill. Opening her eyes, she arched an eyebrow at Rainbow. “Coming?”
In that moment, Rainbow saw an opportunity for revenge. Flinging her towel to the side, she stretched her wings and lowered her head. “Oh, I’m coming, alright,” she said, grinning at Rarity. With a flap of her wings, she galloped across the floor and hopped into the air.
Rarity had just enough time to pale and hold up a hoof. “Rainbow, wait—!”
Rainbow’s cannonball sent water splashing everywhere. Across the tile floor, against the walls, even up to the ceiling. Rarity blinked and lowered her hoof as the water drained off of her head and shoulders, while Rainbow emerged from the middle of the bath with a bout of rowdy laughter. “Gotcha!” she squawked between laughs, pointing at Rarity and drifting across the water on her back.
At the doorway, the receptionist maintained a strained smile. “Splashing in the baths is prohibited, Miss…”
“Eheh… whoops,” Rainbow said, rubbing a hoof behind her head and drifting toward the wall near Rarity.
“Please enjoy yourselves,” the earth pony continued, stepping away from the door and putting her hoof on the handle. “I shall come and fetch you when we’re ready to move on.” Then, with a small little bow, she shut the door, leaving Rainbow and Rarity alone in the bath.
Rainbow opened her eyes to see Rarity huff and shake her head. “Must you?” she asked, glaring at Rainbow.
“Uh… yeah?” Rainbow said, smirking back at Rarity. “You think it was going to be this easy?”
“I thought I’d be able to get you to relax a bit, dear,” Rarity said, tilting her head back and looking up at the ceiling. “You could use it.”
“Me? Nah. I don’t need any of this pampering and stuff.” Stretching her wings, Rainbow sank down in the water until only her muzzle poked out of it. “Though after that sauna thing, the cold water is nice.”
“I told you,” Rarity said, a pleased smile on her face. “Just wait for the massage.”
“Eh… if you say so.”
Silence filled the chamber as the two ponies relaxed. Rarity, however, being a creature of gossip and talk, didn’t let it last. Water trickled off of her mane as she raised her head and turned toward Rainbow, who almost looked like she was asleep in the bath. “Rainbow, darling?”
Rainbow’s ears perked. “Hmn?”
“It’s been a long time since we really talked,” Rarity said. “How’s life? How’s the Wonderbolts?”
Rainbow opened her eyes. “I thought we talked about this crud last night.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Humor me. I wasn’t in the right state of mind then, and neither were you. The details are a bit… well, foggy.”
“Well, it’s… I dunno, Rares. Good?” The pegasus shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“That’s hardly an answer and you know it,” Rarity accused. “I would’ve thought you’d be too busy with the Wonderbolts and everything to still be involved with weather management.”
“I mean, I kinda am,” Rainbow said. She leaned forward and dipped her muzzle into the water, blowing bubbles for a few seconds, before resurfacing. “Yeah, I’m on the team, but we really only do spring and summer shows. That leaves a lot of time in the offseason where we’re doing… well, nothing.”
Rarity cocked her head to the side. “Don’t you have appearances, autograph signings, that sort of thing, though?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Yeah, kinda. They only last like a few days at the most. Then it’s back to doing nothing until the start of spring when the weather’s good enough to officially practice again. The weather job is just something to do when I’m not on tour. Besides, Element of Loyalty here. I’ve made a lot of good friends at the CWC in the years I worked there. I couldn’t just leave them hanging, right?”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Rainbow,” Rarity said. “I never thought about that.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, tossing her sodden mane over one shoulder. “That, and if I left managing Ponyville’s weather up to somepony else, who knows what would happen. I’ve been running that joint for years, Rares. Where would they be without my awesome expert touch?”
“I shudder to imagine,” Rarity said with a bemused smile. “You’ve certainly done such a good job managing the weather in our little town over the years. Color me impressed.”
“Was there ever any doubt?” Rainbow asked, brushing a hoof across her chest.
“No, I suppose there wasn’t, or at least, there hasn’t been for a long time now.” Rarity slid down in the tub until only her head was above the water. “Some of us had our worries back in the day when you first started. As prone to distraction and your love of stunt flying as you were, ponies were worried you’d simply slack off. But no, you rose to the occasion, and with impressive results.”
Rainbow chuckled. “Yeah, some of the bigger branches of the CWC were trying to get me onto some of their other teams. Manehattan was a big one. They always need new and better managers there, their district is so huge and complicated.” She sighed and paddled her wings through the water some, reveling in the cool feeling between her feathers. “But, like, what’s up with the dresses and all that? That going good?”
“Very good,” Rarity purred. “I’ve got a boutique in most major cities and an army of competent assistants to run them. I’m at the point where all I have to do is design the headlining dresses and my assistants and other designers can fill in the rest of the catalogue for me. The thing practically runs itself.”
Rainbow Dash just smirked at her. “But you’re doing a ton of extra work and crud because you can, right?”
“Oh, you know me too well,” Rarity said, giggling. “Though I’ve been more focused in the business side of the whole thing as of late, I can’t help but take on extra projects when I can. Even though I’m flying to the Confederacy for a business proposition, the whole thing started because I wanted to see what dresses for griffon hens would look like. After several weeks of toying with designs, I ordered a custom-made griffon ponyquin to arrange them on and started putting out feelers into the market. It was at least a month before this became anything more than a mere curiosity I wished to satisfy.”
“Heh, figures.” Rainbow slid down in the bath, mirroring Rarity, and watched the water ripple as the Concordia momentarily jostled in some turbulence. “You know, I used to think it was funny…”
Rarity’s eyebrow climbed up her forehead. “Hmm?”
“Like you wanted to start this great big fashion empire and all that jazz… but you wouldn’t move out of Ponyville. I didn’t get it; there had to be better opportunities elsewhere, right?” She shrugged. “But, like, then I realized that Ponyville is where we all were, and just by being there, you could do all this awesome stuff for us, because you cared. And I just…”
She searched for the words for a few seconds, but eventually just settled on frowning at her muzzle. “I don’t know where I was going with that, but I guess what I’m saying is that you’d make a pretty awesome Element of Loyalty if it wasn’t already taken.”
“Oh, well, thank you, darling,” Rarity said, blushing at the sudden complement, especially considering who it came from. “I don’t really know what to say.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it.” Grunting, Rainbow ducked her head into the water for a split second and shook out her mane. “Just something I thought of out of the blue. You’re a pretty great pony despite the whole ‘dresses dresses fashion’ thing.”
Rarity rolled her eyes at Rainbow’s smirk. “Yes, and you can be surprisingly poignant when you want to be.”
“Poy-what now?”
Rarity giggled. “Oh, never mind,” she said, smiling. “I’m just happy to be sharing this experience with you. Tell me, do you still think the spa is really that bad?”
Rainbow pinched her shoulders together and glared at the water like she’d just remembered she was supposed to be mad at it for existing. “It’s… okay.”
“Oh, darling, you’re so sweet, you know?” She raised her forelegs over her head and stretched, humming with pleasure. “Well, if you’re still not sold, then I suppose that we’ll just have to see how you handle the massage.”
“When is that?” Rainbow asked, looking around. “I feel like I’m getting pruney.”
As soon as she said that, the door slid open behind her. She turned around to see the receptionist standing in the doorway, towels on her back. At the other end of the bath, Rarity hummed and stood up. “Right now, darling.”
Rainbow swallowed hard as she looked in on the massage room. The two tables inside didn’t look all that much different from torture racks, at least to her eyes, and the bright lights and leafy plants in the room didn’t do all that much to settle her. Next to each table, a vibrant mare stood with a big smile plastered on her face, and as one, they gestured to their tables as Rarity and Rainbow entered the room.
“Please, do enjoy yourselves,” the receptionist said with a bow of her head. “If you need anything more, just ask your masseuses, and they can take care of it immediately. Soft Step and Detendu are simply the best!”
“I’m certainly looking forward to their expert touch,” Rarity said, smiling. “Though the Ponyville Spa is my go-to back home, it’s nice to experience the more exotic and refined hoof from time to time.” She grinned at Rainbow and nudged her shoulder. “Well, Rainbow? What do you think?”
Rainbow fidgeted in place. “I don’t really like anypony touching my wings…”
“I assure you, Miss, Soft Step knows what she’s doing,” the receptionist assured her, and she pointed to the bright green pegasus inside. “She’ll give your wings a wonderful treatment.”
“Best treatment I’ve ever had is sticking my wings in buckets of ice after a show,” Rainbow grumbled.
Rarity rolled her eyes and tugged on Rainbow’s ear with her magic. “I know the Wonderbolts, darling, and I know that many of them regularly get massages and chiropractor adjustments after their shows to loosen up. Now quit being such a foal,” she grumbled, practically dragging Rainbow into the room by her ear.
“Ack! Rarity! Stop!” Rainbow grunted, rubbing her ear when Rarity finally let go. “Celestia! Can’t you be patient? I’m already here, let’s just get this over with!”
“You just looked like you needed some persuasion, darling,” Rarity teased, and with a shake of her damp mane, she climbed onto the table and laid on her stomach. “I’ll take the works, dear,” she said to the masseuse, closing her eyes. “As for her, see to it that her wings are taken care of. Heavens know she could use some real care and attention with how much she uses them.”
Rainbow scowled at Rarity as she climbed onto her table. “My wings are my life, Rares. I preen them all the time.” Gingerly lying down, Rainbow spread her wings loose at her sides and looked up at the masseuse standing next to her. “Just make it quick, alright?”
“Don’t mind her,” Rarity said. “She just doesn’t know what’s good for her.”
Soft Step gently smiled. “It’s okay, Miss Rainbow Dash, I know my way around the feathers.” She took one of Rainbow’s wings in her hooves and spread it out, looking it over. “In fact, I used to give massages to the Wonderbolts on occasion. I know exactly what you need.”
The statement was enough to disarm Rainbow, at least a little bit. “Really? You used to give the Wonderbolts massages?”
“Mmhmm,” she said, nodding. “When I was an apprentice. I’ve seen a lot of stunt fliers, I know what you all need.” She placed her hoof just under the crest of Rainbow’s wing and began to move it in small circles. “Please, relax. This will feel good, I promise.”
Rainbow sighed and tried to loosen her wings as much as she could. “Well, okay, I’ll try, I just don’t like ponies really touching my wi—aaaahhhhhhmmmmmmffffffff…”
Rarity opened an eye and raised her eyebrow while the other masseuse worked on her shoulders. “Rainbow?” She giggled when she saw the dazed look on Rainbow’s face and how her whole body twitched when Soft Step made her wing pop. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Celestia…” Rainbow moaned, her muzzle slowly melting into a smile. “I think I died and went to the Summer Lands…”
Soft Step giggled and slowly worked her way up Rainbow’s wing, inching closer to the stunt flier’s shoulder. “Misty was a lot like you, now that I think about it. She didn’t trust other ponies touching her wings until I got ahold of her. Then she just couldn’t get enough!”
“Mmmrrffff… the softy still can’t,” Rainbow said. “I used to make fun of her for how much she loved her massages. She acted like she couldn’t fly if she didn’t get them every so often.”
“Maybe you can join her next time,” Rarity said. “I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”
“Maybe,” Rainbow said. Her free wing twitched like she was trying to shrug it, but Soft Step’s hooves had turned her body into jelly. She almost couldn’t wait for Soft Step to get to her other wing. “Okay, I take it back, Rarity. This is great.”
Rarity grinned. “I told you it wouldn’t be so bad,” she said. “Maybe I can convince you to come again one more time before we get off in the Confederacy, hmm?”
“Eh… don’t push it,” Rainbow said. “You’d have to beat me in tennis again.”
“Oh? Is that a challenge?” She chuckled and sighed as Detendu’s hooves pressed at a tight knot in her lower back; no doubt she’d picked that one up in their game today. “I don’t believe that’ll be too hard.”
“I’m onto you now, Rares,” Rainbow said in between happy sighs and grunts as Soft Step worked on her other wing. “It won’t be so easy next time.”
“I’m sure, I’m sure. Maybe you’ll win a game, hmm?”
Rainbow frowned and stared straight ahead. “Shut up,” she grumbled. “The stupid dress was weighing me down.”
Rarity chuckled. “I’m sure it was, darling, I’m sure it was.” She moaned as her masseuse worked out a sore spot near her tail, and her hooves pawed at the table under her. “But, for the meanwhile, how about we just enjoy our massages, hmm?”
“Yeah, sure, whatevaaaaahhhahahahhhhmmmmmm…” Rainbow practically melted again as Soft Step’s hooves found another sore spot in her wing. “Celestia, you’re good at that…”
Soft Step giggled. “I try to be. It’s my job, after all.”
“Well, you certainly are,” Rainbow hummed, resting her cheek on the table. “Yeah, you’re really good.”
Rarity slowly shook her head. She might have crushed Rainbow on the tennis court, but this right here was the real victory.
Rarity tossed her mane as she cantered out of the spa, Rainbow behind her. “See, darling, don’t you just feel so much better?” she asked, twirling in front of the balcony so she could admire the glistening sheen in her coat and mane. Though she was still achy and exhausted from the tennis game, she felt much more limber and loose after the massage and pampering.
Rainbow, meanwhile, did her best to keep a disinterested air about her. “Meh,” she said, following Rarity out of the spa. “It was alright.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Rarity said. Really, it was the best she was going to get out of Rainbow. She sighed and looked at a clock hanging on the wall nearby. “Dinner is in a few hours, and I haven’t done any designing today. Shall I meet you in front of the dining room for dinner at six?”
“Yeah, sure, sounds good to me.” Rainbow stifled a yawn and shook her head. “I think I’m gonna just take a nap until then. Today’s been busy.”
Rarity just nodded and smiled; Rainbow wouldn’t be Rainbow if she didn’t disappear in the middle of the day to catch a nap. “Do rest well then, darling. I’ll see you in a bit!”
Rainbow hummed her agreement, then fluttered over to the nearby staircase while Rarity went to the elevator. She briefly attempted to press the button for her floor with her magic, but rolled her eyes and grumbled when the restraining spell meant it was more effort than it was worth. Slapping the button, she hummed to herself and waited until the doors opened again. Then it was just a quick walk back to her room, and when the door shut behind her, she immediately walked over to her bed and sprawled out across it. Maybe Rainbow Dash had the right idea. It’d certainly been a long time since she’d exerted herself like that, and even though she’d beat her friend pretty soundly, it’d taken everything she had. She was exhausted.
It felt like she’d only closed her eyes for a minute, but when she opened them again, her room was noticeably darker. Pawing at her eyes, she slid off of her bed and trotted to the window. She pulled the curtain aside and looked out over an almost endless horizon of blue sea rolling by thousands of feet below her. A few clouds drifted across the horizon, outlining the dark specks of distant airships, and far below, she could trace the wakes of other traditional vessels sailing along the seas. She had to press her face almost against the far end of the window and look sharply toward the stern of the ship to see the coastline disappearing into the haze behind her.
“We’re truly over the open sea now,” she murmured to herself, stepping away from the window. She gave a quick glance at her portfolio of drawings and sketches, then looked at the clock. “Celestia, I didn’t mean to sleep that long,” she grumbled, and brushing the portfolio aside, she went to her closet and picked out a dress. She nosed through each dress at least twice before she settled on a stunning red one. She was feeling great from the day’s spa treatment; why not feel sexy as well?
Half an hour later, she left her room and hid the key in her dress. She was going to arrive a few minutes early to the dining room, but she didn’t really mind; that’d give her time to pony watch and see if there was anypony worth fostering some connections with. It was amazing how much time she’d saved by having her mane and everything done at the spa today!
Though as she expected, she wasn’t the first one up to the dining hall. Several older passengers were already seated inside, chatting with the waiters and waitresses as they readied for the meal to officially begin. Ponies slowly trickled past her as she sat off to the side of the doors, waiting for Rainbow, and occasionally she noticed a few surprised looks and gasps at her presence. The attention made her smile to herself; it always felt great to be recognized, especially when she looked how she did.
“Miss Rarity Belle?” a stallion asked, strolling into Rarity’s view. He wore a pressed suit and sharp tie, and his facial hair was neat and prim. A mare with a low-cut dress stood by his side, but it wasn’t the mare herself that Rarity recognized. Only a true expert could hide the stitching around the hems in such a way.
“Yes, that would be me,” she said with a smile, standing up to properly greet him. “Pardon me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe we’ve met before.”
“Oh, no, certainly not,” the stallion said with a chuckle, sharing a friendly embrace with Rarity before stepping back. “At least, not in person. My name is Textile Ferry, or just Ferry for short. I’m on the board of the distributing company your boutiques use. Me and my wife, Pearl Path, have become intimately acquainted with your work over the past few years.”
Rarity smiled and politely kissed cheeks with Pearl. “I was going to say, I thought I recognized that dress!” Chuckling, she admired her own design for a split second. “Last spring was such a wonderful season for me. With the funds I made from that line, I was able to open a Vanhoover boutique. That dress in particular is one of my favorites.”
“It’s mine, too!” Pearl exclaimed. “I feel like a runway model when I wear it, and I’m sure Ferry will agree.”
“Oh, of course, dear,” Ferry said, nuzzling his wife’s cheek. “It’s no wonder your dresses are the envy of mares everywhere, Miss Belle!”
Rarity laughed. “Oh, please, Ferry. We’re business partners, even if only as intermediaries. You may call me Rarity; everypony does.”
“If you insist, Rarity.” Ferry turned his head toward the dining room, which was slowly beginning to fill up. “We should probably get a table before they’re all gone, don’t you think, dear?” he asked Pearl, who nodded in response. He turned back to Rarity and smiled. “What about you, Rarity? Care to join us?”
“I’d be delighted,” Rarity said with a grin. “I’m just waiting for a friend. I promised her I’d wait for her out front.”
“And wait no more!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she glided over to the three. Landing by Rarity’s side, she flicked her eyes over her dress and raised an eyebrow. “You on a date, Rares? Who’s the lucky pony?”
Rarity giggled and shifted slightly so Rainbow could join the conversation circle. “No, darling, I just do my best to look my best.” She pointed to Ferry and Pearl, who offered warm smiles to Rainbow. “Rainbow, this is Textile Ferry and Pearl Path; they’re business acquaintences. As for you two,” she said, turning to the other pair, “I doubt that you don’t know who Rainbow Dash is.”
“An honor, truly,” Ferry said, shaking hooves with Rainbow. “So, are you two traveling together?”
“It’s actually the most remarkable coincidence,” Rarity said. “I didn’t even know that Rainbow would be on this flight until I ran into her at the air harbor.”
“Funny how that works sometimes, isn’t it?” Pearl said.
“It sure is.”
Rainbow Dash shuffled her wings. “Not to be rude or anything, but I’m super hungry,” she said, and she flicked her ear toward the dining hall. “Can we get something to eat first?”
“A fair point; I suppose we can continue this inside.” Rarity smiled and made her way to the door, Pearl and Rainbow close by her sides while Ferry let the ladies go first. “Hopefully there’s still a table open for the four of us!”
The dining room of the airship was already filling up, but the four ponies spotted an open table near the back and snatched it before anypony else could. As they sat down, a waitress came by and introduced herself, took drinks, and just as quickly disappeared. It didn’t even take a minute before their drinks arrived, and soon the four slipped into idle conversation while they waited for their food.
“So, you fly for the Wonderbolts and manage the local weather?” Ferry asked Rainbow, somewhat incredulous.
“Not at the same time,” Rainbow clarified, fiddling with her drink between her feathers. “Wonderbolts is mostly spring, summer, and a bit of fall. Besides, fall and winter are the hardest seasons to manage the weather. Summer and spring are a breeze; all you have to do is set up the occasional rain shower and bust some clouds from time to time. But in the fall and winter, you have to manage snow and cloud cover and all that.”
“Sounds dreadful,” Pearl said. “I certainly wouldn’t want to work then. I don’t know why you still do it if you don’t have to.”
Rainbow shrugged. “It’s something to do when I’m done with shows for the year. Also, I like the challenge. Keeps me busy when I’m not flying for a living.” Then she winked at Rarity. “Plus, I don’t trust my replacement in Ponyville to run the kind of cold weather that everypony there is used to. They’d be completely lost without me.”
“Rainbow, darling, have faith in your successor! Dewdrop does a very good job during the spring and summer when you’re not around.” Rarity took a sip of her wine; it was a good thing she played those matches today with Rainbow, otherwise all the wine she’d had this trip was really going to do a number on her physique. “Besides, it’s not like you’ll be running weather forever. The other Wonderbolts officers are busy year-round with the organization, and soon you’ll be, too.”
“Yeah, but that’s not for like another five years at this point,” Rainbow said with a shrug and a wave of her hoof. “I’ve got plenty of time to hang around Ponyville. And I mean, when I’m there, why should any of you guys have to settle for anything less than the best?”
Rarity chuckled and turned to Pearl and Ferry. “There’s a reason she’s loyalty, not humility,” she said, and the other two joined her in a friendly laugh at Rainbow’s expense.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Rainbow said, taking a sip from her beer. It nearly slipped out from between her feathers, however, when the ship shook and rattled for several seconds. The four ponies hesitated and looked at each other, and several of the passengers looked around as the ship resumed smooth flying.
Ferry, however, looked like he was going to be sick. “Ugh, I hate this part about airship travel,” he muttered, resting his forehooves against his temples. “What even was that?”
Pearl nervously chewed on her lip. “I heard something before we left Canterlot from Whinny,” she said to her husband, lowering her voice. Her eyes shifted across the table to where Rainbow and Rarity just looked on at the two of them, confused. “Whinny heard that there have been… unregistered airships seen over the ocean. They don’t fly a country’s flag; they only fly their own.”
Rarity and Rainbow glanced at each other and raised an eyebrow each. “So… you mean pirates?” Rainbow asked, cocking her head at her.
Pearl nodded. “Two cargo ships have gone missing between Equestria and the Confederacy over the past month. It has to be pirates! How do you lose something that big otherwise?”
“Erm… Pearl, darling, has anypony actually seen pirates over the waters?” Rarity asked, frowning. “An airship is an incredibly complicated and expensive machine to maintain. If there were pirates, I’d imagine that they’d be on the sea, preying on easier ships with cheaper vessels.”
“It’s pretty obvious that it’s just been bad weather,” Rainbow said. “Bad storms can happen over the ocean since there’s no weather team out here to tame them. And if you have a bad captain who doesn’t know how to stay clear of them, then they can tear a balloon and take a ship down in a flash.”
Rarity placed her hoof on Rainbow’s and gently shook her head. “Let’s… not talk about such unpleasantries, hmm?” She offered a comforting smile to Ferry and Pearl, who definitely seemed like they needed it. “CelestiAir are professionals, and they did say to expect a bit of foul weather on our trip. But we’ll be well clear of any storms before they cross our path.” She chuckled a bit to lighten the mood. “Might mean we have a bit of rain when we land in the Confederacy, but it can’t be helped, can it?”
“Not until the griffons get some weather teams of their own,” Rainbow said with a shake of her head. “They’re too busy trying to squeeze gold out of each other to work together enough to raise a weather team out there. That’s why the CWC is trying to offer them a deal.”
“Well, certainly a commendable initiative,” Ferry said, managing a smile. “I hope it goes well for you.”
“Of course it will; I’m involved, after all,” Rainbow said with a cocky grin. Then she leaned back as the waitress arrived with the table’s food, and she rubbed her hooves together. “Alright! Now we’re talking! I’m starving!”
“I believe we all are, darling,” Rarity said, thanking the waitress as she set her food down in front of her. She was really looking forward to digging into her eggplant parmesan; hopefully CelestiAir’s comfort and luxury extended to their meals as well. One bite later, she laid that worry to rest. She felt like she was eating at one of Canterlot’s high-class restaurants again.
Ferry raised his glass in his magic, and the other three soon raised theirs as well. “Well, here’s to a good flight, a relaxing vacation, and successful business deals on the other side,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll see each other again before the flight is over.”
“Oh, but of course,” Rarity said, and they all clinked their glasses together. “It’s a small ship. It’s not like we could get away even if we tried!”
Rainbow chuckled. “Speak for yourselves,” she said, stretching her wings.
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?”
A stick of charcoal gracefully flowed over a sheet of paper. Lines joined other lines, creating one smooth, flowing form. A breeze tugged on the corner of the paper, but a white hoof smoothed it back down.
Rarity hummed to herself as she finished her sketch. Long but airy and light dresses would be the next trend come the fall, and she wanted to design something with a little loft to it. The dress she’d quickly sketched on the piece of paper in front of her, pinned to a board with some clips, had a short piece that covered the breast before smoothing into a series of delicate layers that fell down from a mare’s flanks. They were almost like the petals of a flower, or the leaves of a tree right before the Running of the Leaves.
“Beautiful,” Rarity hummed to herself, unclipping the design and placing it into her portfolio. The key was to get the general design down now, then set them aside and worry about the details like embellishments and stitching patterns later. She could do that on the return trip from the Confederacy.
She took a sip from her glass, this time filled with water instead of wine. She’d had enough of that last night with Rainbow Dash, and even if her head didn’t hurt too bad, she didn’t want to push her luck. Her liver already had enough of dealing with the toxins she’d been ingesting, and she didn’t need to add to its worries. Besides, she already knew that she wouldn’t be able to help herself when tempted again tonight.
But at least she’d been right. Rainbow’s balcony was the perfect place to sit and work on her designs. It wasn’t too windy since it was at the stern of the ship, sheltered from the headwinds, but still open and airy enough to get a gentle breeze. Far below, the vast and empty ocean drifted by. Occasionally she’d see a splash of white and green amidst the deep blue, but there weren’t many islands to be seen this far from Equestria. Most of the islands were far to the south, and the Concordia wouldn’t be passing over them.
Another sip, and Rarity let her eyes wander across the distant horizon. They were still well below the clouds—the airships never went that high—and the sky was dotted with all sorts of puffy white cotton balls. Still, they were starting to show up pretty thick. There was definitely a storm brewing to the south; if she leaned over the railing and looked to her left, it was almost like looking at a fluffy white and gray blanket. But if Rainbow said that the storm wasn’t going to catch them, then she had nothing to worry about.
Rarity’s ears perked at the door to Rainbow’s suite opening, and she looked over her shoulder through the windows into the main room. It was Rainbow Dash, as she expected, and the pegasus was covered in sweat and still panting lightly. Rarity expected her to go straight for the showers, but instead, she joined her on the balcony. “Hey, Rares.”
“Hello, Rainbow,” Rarity said with a cheery lilt. “How was your workout?”
Rainbow Dash wiped her forehead with a towel, trying to mop up some of her sweat. “Eh. Flying in a fitness center isn’t anywhere near as good as flying under the open skies. I thought I was gonna break the elastic bands on my legs; they only barely held me in place while I stretched my wings.”
“I’m sure you could’ve really broken them had you tried your hardest,” Rarity said, to which Rainbow nodded.
“Yeah, but I don’t think they’d appreciate it too much if I did that.” She shook out her wings, and Rarity flinched in disgust when sweat droplets pelted her shoulders. Rainbow snickered and covered her muzzle. “Oh, uh, sorry, Rares.” Snickering again, she stretched her wings out to their full glory. “It was a good workout, though.”
“Yes, and I can tell that you need a shower,” Rarity said. “Or were you going to stand out here and air dry? Quite frankly, darling, you smell horrid.”
Rainbow smirked. “That’s just the smell of awesome!” She held a wing toward Rarity. “You sure you don’t want a whiff?”
“Rainbow, if you try to put your sweaty wings in my face, I will clip them and throw you overboard.”
“Alright, alright, fine,” Rainbow said, folding her wings up. She took a step back and glanced at Rarity’s portfolio, lying open on the table next to her. “Looks like you’ve been busy.”
“Only four dresses so far,” Rarity admitted, paging through the portfolio with her magic. “Sometimes I just get lost staring at the beauty of the sea. It’s vast and perfect, like a roughened sapphire.” After a moment, she tapped her chin. “Do you think there are seaponies out there?”
“Beats me.” Rainbow shrugged and turned around, though she put her hoof on the doorframe before entering. “Wanna go chill on the decks when I get out of the shower? I wanna get some sun before the clouds cover it up.”
Rarity smiled at her. “I think that would be splendid, darling. I am starting to get hungry for lunch, after all.”
“Cool, sounds great!”
Rainbow dashed off to the shower, slowing only long enough to dump her things on the nearby couch. Meanwhile, Rarity closed her portfolio and hefted her supplies back inside. She didn’t want them to blow away in the wind, what little of it there was. Better safe than sorry.
A distant horn wailed somewhere on the horizon as Rarity tucked her things safely inside the door: three short, three long, three short. At first, the fashionista didn’t think anything of it, but then a much louder horn answered, shaking her very bones. It must’ve been the Concordia’s horn, and she felt the great airship shake as its engines changed course.
Rainbow Dash stuck her head out of the bathroom, mane still dripping with water from the shower. “What was that?” she asked, and she looked around her room to make sure that nothing was on fire or had otherwise changed in the suite.
“I don’t exactly know, darling,” Rarity said, “but there was another horn before that one. From another ship, maybe.”
“Another ship?” Rainbow ducked back inside the bathroom, and a moment later she opened the door again, tossing a damp towel on the floor. “Awesome! Wanna go see?”
“I mean, well, I’m certainly interested, but—”
“Cool! Let’s hit it!” And with little more than that, Rainbow threw open the door to her suite and fluttered down the hall.
Sighing, Rarity followed her. “Do wait up, Rainbow,” she said with a little shake of her head. “It’s probably nothing to get excited about.”
Rarity and Rainbow weren’t the only passengers wondering about the commotion. It seemed like everypony had wandered out of their rooms to see what was going on. The hallways were thick with muttering passengers, and the starboard windows were starting to become crowded. Rainbow Dash didn’t seem to consider stopping at the windows an option, though. She pressed straight for the stairs leading to the top deck, leaving Rarity to struggle to keep up.
“Rainbow!” Rarity yelled at her as she squeezed between an older couple standing in the middle of the hall. “Darling, I can’t fly! Slow down!”
Rainbow reluctantly landed in front of the stairs and turned, waiting for Rarity to navigate the crowd. “C’mon, Rares, we’re missing it! We gotta get room on the top deck before it gets too crowded!”
“The Concordia is huge, Rainbow,” Rarity insisted. She barely got within a foreleg’s reach of Rainbow before the pegasus bolted into the staircase and began flying straight up the middle. “Please! There’s enough deck space for everypony!”
Jetstream’s voice came on the loudspeakers at that moment; it seemed particularly loud in the stairwell, where it echoed off every wall. “Good morning, fillies and gentlecolts! This is your hostess, Jetstream, and I’d like to request that all passengers please stay below decks for the time being. The Concordia is currently responding to an internationally-recognized distress signal from a nearby cargo freighter. Please, do not interfere with the crew as they perform their duties. Thank you!”
Rarity stopped in the middle of the stairs. “Rainbow, darling, did you hear that? Come back!” But instead of Rainbow’s voice, Rarity only heard the doors at the top of the stairs slide open. Groaning, she continued stomping her way up after her friend. She’d be damned if Rainbow ruined the rest of her trip because she couldn’t listen to rules!
Of course, actually dragging Rainbow back down below decks was going to be a problem in itself, what with her restrained magic and everything. By the time she came topside, Rainbow Dash was already halfway down the deck, hovering just above the heads of the few passengers too reluctant to go below decks at Jetstream’s wishes.
Well, so long as they weren’t the only two passengers who weren’t where they were supposed to be…
As she trotted after Rainbow, Rarity turned her eyes to starboard. The clouds she’d seen from Rainbow’s balcony earlier were much more prominent and much thicker to the southeast, like a smothering gray veil descending upon the world. Though the seas under the Concordia were calm, she could see innumerous whitecaps and choppy waters in the distance as the storm worked its way up from the south. But what caught her attention the most was the dark silhouette of a large airship probably a mile or two away.
It was long and low, almost like a flying barge, and its enormous balloon was tethered down in four places instead of the three like the Concordia. Three engines lined the port side, one each in the bow, midship, and stern; Rarity assumed that there were three more on the other side as well. She could vaguely see figures running to and fro on the deck, though she was too far away to make out any details. Behind them, something burned on the deck, billowing smoke into the air.
“Oh, in Celestia’s name, how horrid!” Rarity exclaimed. She made it to Rainbow’s side, and she could tell at once that Rainbow was looking to fly over to the other ship. With a gentle tug on Rainbow’s tail, Rarity at once got the pegasus’ attention and forced her to land. “Darling, please don’t.”
Rainbow’s wings twitched, and for a second, Rarity thought she was going to go airborne again. “But I can just go grab a cloud and bring it over to the ship and—!”
“Rainbow, hush,” Rarity said, placing her hoof over the stunt flier’s lips. “The crews here know what they’re doing. I trust that they’ll be able to handle it.”
But Rainbow still didn’t look convinced. “If that fire gets to the balloon…”
“They have pegasi of their own that should be able to deal with the problem,” Rarity insisted. “All good airship crews have them.”
Though Rainbow bit her lip, she said nothing more, and she and Rarity simply watched as the Concordia puttered closer to the stricken freighter. When they got within maybe a half mile, the Concordia let out two loud blasts from its horn and began to angle to the freighter’s port side. Both friends watched as several pegasi took off from the cargo ship, and a minute later, landed on the decks of the luxury liner.
“Where’s the captain, or a mate, or somepony to talk to?” one of the pegasi said. He and the other sailors from the cargo ship only wore bandanas to keep their manes back and utility belts around their waists, in which were held a number of tools and a length of rope. “Please, this is urgent!”
Another set of wings heralded the arrival of the Concordia’s captain nearby. “Captain High Winds,” he said as he stepped forward, no more than ten feet away from Rainbow and Rarity. “My helmsmare is guiding my ship to your port side, and I’ll have crew offer rescue assistance. What happened?”
The pegasus who’d spoken earlier took off his bandana in a show of respect. “Raiders,” was all he said, earning a startled gasp from a few of the ponies still gathered on the deck—Rarity included. “Attacked earlier in the morning. They just rolled out of the clouds, made it clear they’d shoot if we didn’t surrender.” Sighing, he looked back to his own ship, which was just beginning to put out the fire on decks. “Cleaned us out, then shot at us as they left. Took out our engines and started a fire below decks. That’s when we started broadcasting our SOS.”
High Winds took all this in with a grim face. Then, turning to a mate, he pointed to the Concordia’s bridge. “Relay that to our radio operator and get some scouts in the air. Those raiders might still be nearby, and we have our passengers to protect.” When the mate flew off, he turned back to the sailor. “How many are injured? Do you need medical attention?”
The stallion shook his head. “We have it under control. Thank you for the offer.”
High Winds nodded, and as the Concordia gently maneuvered into position, he turned around to address the passengers who still lingered on decks. “All of you need to go below decks, now,” he said. This is a maritime emergency, and we can’t risk having any interference from the passengers.”
The ponies still gathered on decks nodded and began to turn around, and Rarity started that way too, at least until she saw Rainbow Dash refusing to budge. “Come on, darling, we’re just in the way up here,” she pleaded.
Rainbow remained obstinate, torn between her desire to help and simply heading back below. But while Rarity tried to get Rainbow to move, the sailor turned and watched the crew of his ship fasten hooks to hold the two airships together for the time being. “I’m mighty appreciative of this, Captain,” he said, smiling at High Winds. “Your ship sure is a beauty.”
High Winds turned back to the sailors and returned the smile. “Finest ship in the fleet. We can accommodate anything your captain or your crew needs while you repair your freighter, if necessary.
The sailor chuckled. “A luxury liner, eh? Might just take you up on that offer.”
High Winds opened his mouth to chuckle, but it never came. Instead, the sailor reached down to his belt and drove a screwdriver into High Winds’ neck.
In that instant, chaos exploded across the decks of both ships. Pegasi dropped out of the clouds brandishing swords and primitive firearms, quickly securing the deck of the Concordia. More ponies jumped decks from the freighter to the luxury liner with weapons, screaming and shouting as they subdued the Concordia’s startled crew. And where an Equestria flag once fluttered from the freighter’s balloon, a pegasus took it down and replaced it with a skull and crossbones.
It was a trap, and the Concordia fell right into its snapping jaws.
“Oh my, Celestia!” Rarity screamed, falling to the deck as pirates descended on her and Rainbow, brandishing swords. Several ran past her and down the stairs, and she could hear more screaming from inside as the pirates began seizing control of the ship. More went straight to the bridge, and a desperate revving of the ship’s engines fell silent a moment later. The prize was theirs.
Rainbow Dash snapped her wings open to take flight and perhaps do something stupid like try to fight off the pirates, but before she could, a red magical aura enveloped her and slammed her back into the deck. Dazed, Rainbow tried to stand, but a burgundy hoof stepped on her wing, pinning her to the ground.
Rarity looked up from where she huddled on the ground and gasped. Standing over Rainbow was a large, nearly crimson unicorn, with a shaggy coat and wearing an old tricorn hat. A pair of swords and a quartet of flintlocks hung from the unicorn’s flanks and chest, and her face was covered in old scars. Gray eyes and a naturally gray mane completed the raider’s sneering appearance, but after a moment, that turned into a predatory smile.
“My name is Captain Squall,” she said with a wicked grin. “Welcome to my new ship.”
Rarity felt her blood turn to ice. As she watched Rainbow struggle under Squall’s hoof, she remembered what Pearl had said at dinner the night before. What she’d dismissed as the worryings of a middle-aged mare didn’t seem so amusing now.
Squall chuckled as her crew forced the Concordia’s officers to their knees in front of her. “They said that you couldn’t prey the skies in an unarmed barge. ‘Twodeckers and harpoon launchers are where it’s at,’ they said. Half of those idiots were blown out of the skies by navy vessels or merchant ships they thought were easy pickings. But who’s going to think twice about a barge with a deck fire in the middle of the sky?”
Rainbow Dash grunted beneath her hoof, and Squall regarded her for a moment before a spark of recognition flashed in her eyes. “You’re Rainbow Dash, aren’t you?” she asked, leaning down to get a better look at the pegasus. “How lucky am I to have the former Element of Loyalty as a distinguished guest aboard my new ship?”
“Grr… more like unlucky!” She tried to stand up and lash out at Squall, but the pirate captain rolled her eyes and simply pressed harder with her steel-shod hoof. “Okay ow ow ow ow okay…”
Squall snorted. “Bind her wings and take her to the bridge. We can keep a closer eye on her up there. Get the rest of the crew below decks, lock the passengers in their rooms. We’ll have a princess’ ransom for the ship and an Element Bearer!”
Rainbow Dash bit down on Squall’s foreleg, catching the captain by surprise, and bought enough purchase to free her wing. She stood up in a flash and drove a hoof into the pirate’s muzzle, but another tackled her from behind. Squall stepped back and rubbed her bleeding nose, and pure fury clouded her eyes. Once more her magic wrapped around Rainbow’s figure, and once more she slammed the pegasus into the deck. “I am no longer amused,” she growled, and when Rainbow struggled, Squall introduced her to the deck again.
The sight horrified Rarity, and she couldn’t bear to see her friend abused anymore. Despite the pirates with swords around her, she stood up and harmlessly shoved Squall’s shoulder with her own magic; she couldn’t manage much more anyway with the spell on her horn. “Unhand her, ruffian!” she exclaimed, galloping forward before one of the pirates managed to restrain her. “Unhand her at once!”
Squall did a double-take. “Two bearers on one ship? Forget a princess’ ransom, I’ll live like a queen!” She dropped Rainbow, who simply collapsed in a groaning heap on the ground. “Get them to the bridge and secure the ship for transport. We need to get out of the travel lanes before another ship comes through here.”
The stallion from before, the one who drove a screwdriver into High Winds’ neck, saluted his captain. “Aye aye, ma’am.” With a whistle, he set his subordinates in motion, and a minute later, Rarity found Rainbow and herself being roughly shoved up the stairs to the bridge.
“Are you okay, darling?” Rarity asked in a timid whisper. The pirates escorting her glared, but her concern for her friend outweighed facing their ire.
Rainbow winced and spat a red glob onto the stairs. “I’ve been in worse.”
Rarity wasn’t sure about that, but the simple fact that Rainbow could walk without any obvious pain or discomfort had to satisfy her for the time being.
As soon as they entered the bridge, the pirates forced Rarity and Rainbow to sit in the back. All of the Concordia’s officers had already been removed, and only a few raiders milled about the bridge as they awaited orders. Squall herself showed up after a while, dried blood caking her nose, and she looked everything over before giving it all a favorable hum.
“Beautiful ship,” she said, inspecting the helm. “I’m tempted to fly her myself.” Then, turning to Rainbow and Rarity, she frowned. “Tie them to that pipe there. I don’t want to risk them getting free. Equestria will pay a lot for the ship and its passengers, but they’ll pay double, triple even, to get these two back safe.”
Somepony produced a loop of rope, and Rarity bristled with anger as they tied her and Rainbow back to back around the thick pipe. “You won’t get away with this!”
Squall rolled her eyes. “‘Oh, I already have,’ bluh bluh bluh, all that crap. Did you really have to start with the most stereotypical captive trope you could have possibly thought of?”
Rarity blinked. “Erm…”
The pirate captain just sighed and covered her face with a hoof. “All I ask for is a little creativity. Is that too much to ask for?”
Both bearers just glared at her, though the shiner developing on Rainbow’s face limited her somewhat.
Squall waved her hoof. “Whatever. So long as you two just sit tight, I don’t care if you talk or not.” Then she turned around and addressed her first mate, who was busy cleaning the end of the screwdriver with a rag. “Keel, you have command of the ship. Put together a prize crew and get ready to sail. We fly south as soon as you’re ready.”
Keel cocked his head. “There’s a storm brewing to the south, ma’am. The ship’ll be difficult to handle if we sail right into it. We should go east first.”
Squall glowered at him. “We go south. We need to make for base as soon as possible. As soon as they realize this ship never made it to port, and that two bearers were on it, the navy is going to be out in force. We don’t want to be caught in that.”
Keel saluted. “Aye aye, ma’am.”
With that, Squall turned around and made for the door. But she couldn’t help but add one last parting word to her two captives. “Please don’t try to run. You’re worth more in one piece, but you’re not worth anything to me if you flee. All things considered, I’ll take the hit on my return to make sure I have a return at all.” She grinned. “Don’t make me have to do that.”
The Concordia’s engines thrummed to life, and once more the luxury liner began to fly under its own power. But instead of continuing east, it sharply turned to starboard, and soon it set off to the south, chasing an old freighter. It didn’t take long before the first few gray clouds swallowed up the ship, hiding it from view.
Rainbow Dash and Rarity witnessed all of this from the back of the bridge. Squall’s officer, Keel, had quickly asserted his command over the new prize ship, and after a minute to familiarize himself and his crew with the controls, took off after Squall’s freighter. If they craned their necks, the two friends could see the cargo ship humming along in front of them, its dirty engines spewing filthy black smoke into the sky, smoke that was quickly lost in the clouds. The longer and further the Concordia sailed, the less hope Rarity had that salvation would come and save them.
The pirates seemed to settle down now that the adrenaline of capturing a ship had worn off. Keel left the bridge to the helmsmare and two other pirates, likely to inspect the rest of the ship. That left Rainbow and Rarity mostly alone in the back of the bridge, and if they whispered to each other, the noise of the ship’s engines masked their words.
“Are you okay, darling?” Rarity whispered, keeping her eyes on the pirates’ ears. When none of them so much as twitched in her direction, she felt emboldened. “That dreadful pirate did quite a number on you!”
She couldn’t see Rainbow’s face, tied back-to-back together as they were, but she felt her friend’s wingtips flick out. “I’m fine, Rares,” Rainbow hissed back. “Stupid friggin’ unicorns…”
“I happen to be a unicorn, darling.”
“Yeah, but you’re not a stupid friggin’ one.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and let silence fall over them again. She stared, worried, into the dark clouds ahead, even flinching when a bout of turbulence shook the ship. But when she felt the rope tying her and Rainbow to the pole shift, she snapped her head around. “Rainbow, what are you—?”
“Shh!” Rainbow hissed. “What does it look like I’m doing? I think I can slip out a bit if I just—!”
“Don’t!” Rarity puffed out her chest, in turn tightening the rope around Rainbow’s chest. “You heard that mare! You’re just going to get yourself hurt!”
Rainbow grunted and tried to tug back on the rope. “Rarity!”
“Rainbow!”
“Hey!” the helmsmare shouted, fixing piercing amber eyes on them. “Keep it quiet!”
Rarity shrunk back and hunched her head between her shoulders. Rainbow likewise was still, at least for a minute. Soon enough, she started working on her restraints again, and Rarity inched her head around the pillar to whisper right in Rainbow’s ear.
“Just what are you going to do if you do manage to slip out of those bonds?” Rarity hissed through a clenched jaw.
“I’m gonna smash that helmsmare’s pretty face on the big wheel thingy, for starters,” Rainbow grumbled.
“And after that?”
“I dunno. I’ll improvise!”
Rarity sighed. At least between the two of them, she had the gift of foresight. “You’ll ‘improvise?’ On a ship full of pirates with no way to escape, you’ll ‘improvise?’”
“Uhhh…”
“Listen, Rainbow, darling,” Rarity said. “Our best bet is to just stay calm and compliant. You heard that Squall mare yourself, she doesn’t want to hurt us, just ransom us back to Equestria! In a week, maybe two, we’ll be headed back home, and we won’t be worse for wear.”
“Or we could totally go and steal the ship back!” Rarity could imagine Rainbow just brimming with confidence. “We break outta here, go knock out the bad guys in the bridge, then go rally the crew and steal the ship back! We’ll be heroes!”
“I said quiet,” the helmsmare growled, scowling at Rainbow.
Rainbow begrudgingly fell still again. After a moment, Rarity leaned over again. “These pirates killed the captain!” she hissed. “It happened right in front of us! And you want to butt heads with them? By yourself?”
That, thankfully, managed to stop Rainbow’s struggles for the time being. Rarity grunted and tried to find a comfortable position for her back; she didn’t know how long she was going to be tied to this pillar, only that she hoped it wouldn’t be overnight. Her muscles were tightening up again, and she’d just gotten a massage yesterday!
Turbulence rocked the airship, and it swung back and forth beneath its balloon, like the pendulum of a clock. When it finally leveled out, Rainbow piped up again. “I don’t know about you, Rares, but I don’t want to be tied down when we sail into that storm.”
Rarity bit her lip. “Do you think it’s going to be bad?”
“I can feel that it’s going to be bad,” Rainbow said. “The pressure’s dropping fast, and it has been for the past few minutes. That sharp of a pressure gradient can only mean that we’re sailing into a Cat Two, Cat Three storm.”
“And… how bad is a ‘Cat Three?’”
“Winds in excess of a hundred knots.” Rarity could almost sense Rainbow swallowing in dread. “Ocean liners like this are rated to survive Cat Ones. A big ship like this can probably risk a Cat Two. Cat Three… I wouldn’t even fly in a Cat Three, Rares. And that’s saying something.”
“Oh…” Rainbow was right; that told Rarity all she needed to know. She swallowed hard and looked at the ropes around her waist. “But what would we even do? There’s nowhere to go!”
“We’ll figure it out, Rares,” Rainbow said. “Even if I have to carry you back to Ponyville myself.”
Rarity shuddered as another gust of turbulence rocked the Concordia. “Celestia, I hope it doesn’t come to that…”
The wind howled. The ship shook. And soon, the rain began to pour.
As the hours passed, the Concordia continued her southerly flight, right into the heart of the storm. The skies darkened so much that the pirates had to turn the ship’s deck lights on just to see around them. Nopony dared venture onto the deck itself for fear that the winds would simply blow them away.
Rarity watched all this with growing concern from the back of the bridge. Keel had returned just before the storm got worse, and he’d been keeping a close eye on his prisoners ever since. They couldn’t so much as move or shift the ropes an inch without him snapping at them, and Rarity wasn’t going to risk her pretty face to the stallion’s hooves if she could help it. He’d already whacked Rainbow once, and that blow had left her dazed and helpless for several minutes.
The longer the flight went on, the more Rarity’s thoughts shifted inward. Her luxury flight had turned into a nightmare in minutes, and now that nightmare might even be the end of her. How would her friends in Ponyville, or even ponies who knew her all across Equestria, take the news? How long would it even take that news to reach them? She could already imagine a desperate search over the seas dragging on for months, weeks, before eventually being called off as hopeless. There wouldn’t even be a body to return to Equestria for a funeral; her beautiful corpse would be little more than fish food!
“Cut it out, Rares,” Rainbow grumbled.
Rarity blinked. “Cut what out?”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“But I didn’t say anything!”
“You’re thinking it.”
Rarity huffed. If she could’ve, she would’ve crossed her forelegs. “And how would you know?”
“Because that’s exactly the kind of thing you’d be doing right now.”
Keel shot them another glare. That was all it took to silence them again.
The wind continued to pick up, and thunder rumbled around the ship, somehow audible over the howling. The helmsmare tensed at the wheel, and her wing rested idly on the throttle controls for the ships engines. Swallowing hard, she turned to Keel. “We’re all gonna die if we keep this up.”
Keel turned around and walked over to the helm. “Follow Squall. Those are the orders.”
“Squall’s in a fucking flat barge with a low balloon. The winds aren’t gonna toss her ship around anywhere near as much as this mammoth.” She tightened her grip on the wheel as the ship shook again. “This thing’s got a ton of decks and a tall balloon. Any crosswinds we run into are gonna rock this boat. Might even rip the balloon from the deck.”
“We have to trust the captain’s judgement,” Keel insisted. “She’s gotten us through worse before.”
“Not a storm as bad as this!” the helmsmare shouted back. “We should put this ship down, beach her if we have to, and ride out the storm. There’s islands around here, it’ll be the safest bet!”
“Are you questioning the captain?”
“The captain’s always been good at daring shit. This here is just idiotic!”
Rarity felt the ropes around her barrel shift while Keel was distracted with the helmsmare. Behind her, Rainbow Dash grunted, grunted, grunted… and then let out a breath. The ropes binding the two of them together noticeably slacked, and Rarity heard the softest clop of a hoof touching the floor. “Rainbow Dash, what are you doing...?”
“We need to leave now,” Rainbow hissed back. She cast a worried glance out the windows of the bridge, looking nearly straight into the heart of darkness. “That’s a Cat Three, and a strong one.” She swallowed. “The ship isn’t gonna survive that.”
Keel turned around and scowled at Rainbow. “What are you—?!”
The door to the bridge suddenly blew off its hinges. The slab of wood flew into the opposite wall, nearly taking off the helmsmare’s head, and the inset window shattered on impact. Blisteringly shrill winds pierced the bridge, sending a deluge of rain through the open doorway. In an instant, everypony inside was soaked to the bone, and a slick layer of water coated the controls at the helm.
Keel cursed and stepped toward the door, wings in front of his face to shield his eyes from the wind and rain. “Get a tarp or something! Cover that up!”
Pirates ran around the bridge as they looked for something to patch the gap with, but as they did that, a thunderous snap-twang! echoed through the howling storm. “The cables!” the helmsmare screamed, right as the noise repeated itself again. “The wind’s tearing them—!”
One of the cables holding the balloon down snapped with a deafening crack, and a second later, a length of steel cable ripped through the bridge from left to right. Wood and steel exploded into the air, along with the bloody bodies of a couple of pirates, torn to pieces by the snapping cable. The helm lay in scattered pieces across what remained of the floor, and the piping Rainbow and Rarity were tied to was torn away. But miraculously, the two friends weren’t taken with it, though Rarity could feel an agonizing assortment of cuts and slashes in her back. Had the ropes binding them to the pipe still been taut, she realized that they might have gone with the pipe.
But they were free, and Rainbow wasted no time taking advantage of it. She tossed the ropes off of her petite frame in one motion, and then pried the bindings on her wings off with her teeth. She triumphantly unfurled blue feathers, but almost immediately regretted the decision; the howling gale tearing through the bridge only flung her backwards into the wall.
Rarity managed to stand, but between her shod hooves and the water coating the polished wooden floor, she found it difficult to keep her balance. She rushed over to Rainbow’s side and helped the pegasus to stand again, and her eyes widened at the rivulets of red running off of her friend’s back. “Rainbow, you’re bleeding!”
“Mrff… You are too,” Rainbow said through gnashed teeth. Even though Rarity could feel the cuts on her back, she was still surprised to see red running into her white coat. “We need to go, get out of here!”
They started toward the only remaining safe exit from the bridge, but Keel was standing in front of it. “Hey!” he shouted. “Sit back down! You aren’t going anywhere!”
Rainbow stepped away from Rarity’s side and slowly staggered over to Keel, resisting the urge to spread her wings for balance as the wind blew her mane into her face. “You gonna stop us?” she shouted at him, “Or are you gonna try to save the ship?”
Keel grabbed a cutlass sheathed under his left wing. “You two are worth more than the ship!” he shouted around the handle. “Sit down!”
“Screw you!” Rainbow shouted, and her hoof moved like lightning. She struck keel in the nose, forcing him back, but he quickly found his balance. He raised his hooves to charge forward again, but a light blue glow enveloped his left wing and pulled it open. The wind sent the pirate flying backwards and out the door, out of sight of Rarity’s strained magic.
Rarity wasted no time carefully maneuvering her way to Rainbow’s side. “What are we going to do?” she shouted almost directly into her friend’s ear just to be heard.
“We gotta get below decks!” Rainbow shouted back. “Get everypony out of their rooms! Then we get to the lifeboats!”
“But there’s hundreds of ponies there! We can’t possibly get them all out in time! Plus the pirates!”
Rainbow forced herself through the wind and rain and emerged from the bridge, a hoof held up to her eyes. “We’re not leaving them! We’re the only ponies who can—!”
Snap-twang!
Both Rarity and Rainbow turned their heads toward the bow of the ship, where one of the steel cables in a triple-cable coupling snapped free. It bounced and flailed in the wind as it released its tension, and the end flew upwards and tore a gash through the skin of the balloon. The ship lurched, and Rainbow’s head snapped to the left, where the midship cable—or what was left of it—was flailing loosely in the winds. Gulping, she turned back to Rarity, torn.
Rarity sucked down a deep breath and pushed her forward. “If we don’t leave now, Rainbow, we’re going to die too!” Swallowing, she added, “Maybe others can find their own way off the ship, but we have to go!”
Snap-twang!
“But—!”
“Rainbow!” Rarity stopped Rainbow with a hoof on her shoulder. “There isn’t any time! You know that!”
Precarious seconds passed by as the winds tore across the deck. Rain battered them, flying almost parallel to the splintering decks. But finally, Rainbow seemed to deflate as she made her choice. “Okay. This way!” She began to clamber down the steps, trying desperately to keep her balance in the face of the howling winds. Rarity bit down on Rainbow’s tail to steady herself, and together, the two went in tandem to the deck.
The shadowy figures of a few pirates rushed around the deck as the storm whipped the disabled ship from side to side. None of them paid attention to Rainbow and Rarity as they maneuvered to one of the lifeboats, which shook as it dangled from its elevator. Rainbow hopped in first, then turned around to help Rarity in after her. Only when they were inside the cramped little boat did Rarity realize just how insane the whole thing was.
“How are we going to survive a storm in this?!” she shrieked, her voice climbing into hysteria. “We’ll be a little leaf in this storm!”
“It’s all metal, for one thing!” Rainbow shouted, and she quickly sat down and strapped herself to her chair with the provided buckles. “And it’s rated to plunge from altitude! Just think of it like a really big roller coaster!”
“I hate roller coasters!” Rarity squealed.
“This is the roller coaster that’ll save your life!”
Rarity swallowed hard and sat down next to Rainbow, fumbling with her buckles and straps. It took her a minute, but she finally secured herself to the seat, and she almost immediately clung to Rainbow in terror. “Now what?!” she shouted.
“Hold on!” Rainbow shouted, and she pulled a lever. Almost immediately, a pair of thunks shook the hull of the lifeboat, and Rarity’s stomach flew into her teeth.
She didn’t remember much of the fall. Somepony screamed in a voice much like her own. But she kept her eyes closed during the plunge—at least until something struck the bow of the lifeboat and smashed it open.
The world was a spinning malaise of gray and blue. Wind and rain pelted Rarity in the face. She didn’t know if she was alive or dead.
And then, just like that, the lifeboat slammed into the water, and the superstructure shattered into pieces.
Rarity’s head broke the surface of the roiling waves, gasping and sputtering for breath. Her limp mane was plastered to her face, and her hooves furiously paddled in the tumultuous water around her. She spun in circles, desperately seeking for some orientation as the winds whipped up seawater, spraying her face and threatening to blind her.
She didn’t even know how she got out of her seat; everything from when the lifeboat hit the water to her surfacing just now was blurry. At least she was conscious and active; the impact could have easily knocked her out, and without a lifejacket, she would’ve drowned in the storm.
“Rainbow!” she screamed into the middle of the gales, her voice hoarse from nearly drowning. The current pulled on her tail, and it was all the warning she had to take a breath before the waves dragged her under again. She could feel it breaking right above her head, and the turbulence sent her spinning and cartwheeling through the water. On instinct, she tried to open her eyes to look around, but the salt stung them so much that she coughed and nearly inhaled a lungful of water.
Miraculously, her head broke the surface again. Her chest heaved with deep breaths, and something bumped against her hoof. She immediately latched herself to it and winced as sharp, splintery wood scratched her chest. Though she squeaked in pain, she didn’t dare let go of the piece of flotsam, her only life raft in the storm the very heavens themselves had sent down to smite her. Though it was barely enough to keep her shoulders above the water, it let her pant and recoup her strength. Every little bit of energy she could save right now was important.
Instead, she screamed again into the storm. “Rainbow! Rainbow, where are you?!” Powered by desperation and the adrenaline that comes with it, she managed to turn her little plank of wood in circles as she cried out into the night. Lightning arced overhead and struck the ocean a few hundred yards away; the faintest trace of an electric tingle danced across Rarity’s water-slick coat. The accompanying light illuminated the hundreds of pieces of wood and debris around her, as well as the rolling waves masquerading as mountains. And there, cresting a wave not fifty feet away, a colorful piece of the sky clung to the remains of the bow of a lifeboat, her limbs locked in the vice grip of the dead.
Then the resounding boom of the thunder nearly ruptured Rarity’s eardrums as it bounced off the water and hit her in the face. She shrieked and flattened her ears against her head, desperate to stop the ringing, and could only shiver in incapacitated silence until she could hear her thoughts again. Gingerly lifting her head from the plank, she braved the winds swirling around the surging waves to spot Rainbow.
The pegasus was clinging to the bow of the shattered life boat, but she didn’t make any motion. Her body was rigid, locked in place, with one wing extended almost straight to her side, and the other pointing downwards—or at least, half of it was. The other half flopped with the violent heaving of the water, and the pain of that alone must’ve put Rainbow into shock. At least, that’s what Rarity hoped had happened. She couldn’t bear the thought that Rainbow might be…
She couldn’t think about that now. Rainbow had managed to get herself out of her seat, so she had to be alive still. Now they had to get to safety, or at the very least, she had to get Rainbow off of the lifeboat before its remains went under. Another crest was beginning to swell beneath her, while Rainbow was falling into a trough. It’d give her the line of sight she needed to use her telekinesis… if she could just get it through the restraining spell.
“Come on,” Rarity hissed, her face screwing in concentration and pain as she tried to force her magic through a straw. “Come on, come on!” A few sparks flared from her horn, fizzled, then died. “Gah!” she croaked, holding a hoof to her forehead to stifle the pain. “Come on!”
A sweeping undertow pulled on her tail as the swell passed her by, and Rarity momentarily took her eyes off of Dash to look in its direction. She blinked, wide-eyed, then tilted her head back as her eyes traveled up, up, up.
“Oh… Celestia…”
The rogue wave whipped up by the fury of the storm towered in the distance, rising some forty feet above the water and only growing taller. Not only did the behemoth grow in size and power, but it had Rarity in its crosshairs. Gulping, Rarity turned back to Rainbow and again tried to force her telekinesis to take hold of the lifeboat. She flailed her limbs, trying to push her little piece of driftwood closer to Rainbow, and made agonizingly little progress. She shut her eyes, bit hard on her cheek, and squeezed her magic through her horn… to be met with the sensation of something solid under its influence.
Her eyes flew open, and through the rain and the spray of the sea, she could see a feeble blue shimmer on the very end of the lifeboat’s prow. As she focused, the light intensified, and she could feel the restraining spell beginning to slip away. She reared her head back like she was trying to leverage her body against the lifeboat, and she was rewarded by the wreckage drifting closer. Fifty feet. Forty. Thirty. Rarity heaved and heaved until her horn threatened burnout, and then she heaved some more.
Then the water began to rise.
Thin sheets of water began to ripple off of the wave now beginning to loom over Rarity’s head. She looked up for just a moment and instantly regretted it. It was like staring into the very face of death, a cold, briny, watery death. Rarity wondered if it’d be the last thing she’d ever see.
The remains of the lifeboat were only ten feet away now, and so Rarity tugged one last time. She felt a searing pain run down her horn, followed by a dim crack as some being hammered a red hot chisel into her skull. It hurt so much she couldn’t even find the breath to scream. But through the red haze in her vision, she saw the stern of the lifeboat before her, and the blue figure clinging to it, chest barely moving in the tumult of the water.
Rarity’s hoof touched the lifeboat, and her other wrapped around Rainbow’s fetlock.
Rarity shivered. She could vaguely feel rain pattering on her wet coat and the cool kiss of sand against her cheek. A stubborn wind blew across her body, only making the cuts and welts covering her coat sting more. The pounding of waves competed with the bass rumbling of thunder for her attention, while someplace ahead of her, the wind whistled through some kind of vegetation.
Ice cold water rushed up around her legs, and that was finally enough to get her to move. She yipped and clawed at the sand in front of her, dragging her shivering and dirty body out of the surf on the beach. It was nearly pitch black out, and she could only see the palest glow off of her white hooves to guide her way around. The sky was thick with dimly lit clouds; if they weren’t there, the moon would’ve given her enough light to see clearly with.
Once she was finally out of range of the surf, Rarity flopped down onto the sand again. Her whole body hurt, and the inside of her cheek was shredded and swollen; she must’ve bit it as she tumbled through the waves. As soon as she thought that, though, her dazed mind began to reconstruct events, and she bolted upright and looked around the beach. “Rainbow?!” she shouted, feeling lonely and afraid now that she’d taken stock of her situation. She couldn’t be the only one left. She just couldn’t.
She tried to ignite her horn to provide some illumination, but even sending mana into it sent her reeling to the ground in pain. When she finally stopped feeling nauseous, she gingerly felt around it with a hoof. Sure enough, she felt a long, deep crack running from the tip of her horn to halfway down its length, and even prodding it was impossibly painful. She realized that it must’ve split open when she tried to force her magic through the restraining spell enough to grab Rainbow Dash in the remains of the lifeboat. Until it healed, any magic whatsoever was going to be incredibly painful.
Hopefully she wouldn’t need her horn…
She spotted a glimpse of muted color out of the corner of her eye. “Rainbow!” she shouted, immediately galloping across the sand. Though her limbs were stiff and sore, she forced them to move anyway, and in a moment, she was at Rainbow’s side. “Rainbow, are you alright?” she asked, carefully rolling her friend over. The sight of Rainbow’s wing snapped like a twig made her sick, but when she held her ear to Rainbow’s muzzle, the faintest of breaths tickled its sodden hairs.
Rarity sat down and breathed a huge sigh of relief. So long as Rainbow was with her, this wouldn’t be as bad. At least she had a friend on the island. That would make passing the time until a rescue party came for them much more bearable.
She swallowed and looked out over the roiling waves and the swirling clouds in the distance, right to the point where they melted into the blackness of the night. If a rescue party came for them. How far from their flight plan had the pirates flown the Concordia before the storm hit?
Another wave washed up on the beach, swelling around Rainbow’s torso. When her friend shivered and whimpered, Rarity wasted no time pulling her off of the beach and back towards the treeline. She could tell as she passed them that they were palm trees of some kind; hopefully they had coconuts on them. Her mind was already planning ahead, trying to think of just what they’d need to survive the next few days. Food and water were a top priority, but with the storm still buffeting the beach, shelter was the most important right now.
Rarity wished that Twilight were there with them. Twilight would know exactly what to do in a situation like this. Even Spike would be phenomenal; his ability to send messages to Princess Celestia could’ve solved the problem almost immediately.
The island was quiet, still, and dark. Rarity didn’t know if her and Rainbow were the only living things on it (besides the trees and grasses, of course) or what. What she did know was that it was more than the stereotypical single palm tree on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, though. At the very least, she didn’t see another body of water once she went through the first line of trees. Of course, she didn’t have a lot of light to see by, but there was just more sand on the other side.
She managed to drag Rainbow into a sandy gulley. Hopefully the embankment of trees and sand would be enough to keep the water from rushing in as the tides changed. She didn’t know if it was technically high or low tide, but with the storm nearby, the waters had to be higher than usual. Hopefully they’d stay dry, or at the very least, wouldn’t be washed away.
Rarity fell to the ground next to Rainbow, too exhausted to do much more. Despite however long she’d been unconscious for, she still felt exhausted. Nearly drowning twice had taken a lot out of her. She didn’t even care that she was covered head to hoof in sand, or that her mane was an absolute tangled mess, or that it was still raining on her through the palm trees. With Rainbow safe and breathing easier, Rarity just buried her chin into the sand and closed her eyes.
It was morning when Rarity woke up again. Feeble sunlight illuminated the sands around her, and when she lifted her head up, she could see overcast skies from the receding storm through the canopy. The sand around her body was hardly disturbed, and when she stood up, all her joints popped and ached in protest. She must’ve slept so soundly that she didn’t move at all during the night.
She looked to her right, and her breath caught in her throat when she realized Rainbow Dash was gone. Another glance revealed a set of hoofprints going back off to the shore, so Rarity followed them through the tree line. When she saw her friend sitting on the sand, staring out over the water, she breathed a sigh of relief and walked up behind her.
“Rainbow?” she tentatively asked. “How are you feeling?”
Rainbow shifted slightly, and that’s when Rarity saw that she’d already bound her broken wing with palm fronds and a vine knotted across her chest. “Awful,” she grumbled, flexing and flapping her good and unbound wing. “My wing’s broke, I’ve got a headache, and… well, just where are we, Rares?”
Rarity sat down by Rainbow’s side and looked out over the ocean. Choppy blue waters stretched as far as her eyes could see, all the way up to the distant horizon where they met with the stormy gray skies. There wasn’t a single speck of land in sight, nor an airship in the sky. Even with Rainbow at her side, Rarity felt horribly isolated and lonely.
“I don’t know,” Rarity admitted. She swallowed hard and watched a large board of driftwood wash up with the tide. “The waves brought us here… wherever ‘here’ is.”
Rainbow quietly nodded. “Did you see anypony else?”
Rarity shook her head. “No… have you?”
“No.”
The waves pounded the shore, ceaseless, unrelenting.
“Rainbow… what if… what if we’re the only two?”
Rainbow stared at the sand under her hooves and trembled slightly. “All this driftwood is from our ship.” Her throat bobbed, and she closed her eyes and shuddered. “The storm probably tore the balloon from the deck… the whole thing would’ve fallen nearly a mile. Smashed to pieces on the waves.”
“Could anypony have survived that?”
“Maybe if they could’ve flown free,” Rainbow said. She sneered down the length of her muzzle. “But those Celestia-damned pirates had the other passengers locked in their rooms. I don’t think they…” She hiccupped, and Rarity saw her eyes glisten. “W-We should’ve tried to s-save them, Rares. W-We were the only ones who c-could…”
Rarity slid over and gave Rainbow her shoulder to lean on. Though she didn’t have wings like her friend to cocoon her in a comforting blanket of feathers, she wrapped her forelegs around her all the same. “There was nothing we could have done, darling,” Rarity insisted. “If we didn’t flee when we did, we would’ve died too.”
“But Loyalty doesn’t leave ponies behind!”
A pang of sympathy twisted Rarity’s heart. Of course Rainbow felt guilty about running off without trying to help. It was what defined her. She would’ve tried to save everypony on that ship if she could. And even Rarity herself felt the guilt clawing away at her. How selfish was it of her to make a run for it without trying to stop and help at least one other pony get off of the ship? Textile Ferry and Pearl Path were both likely dead. Jetstream and Lucarne were both likely dead. The spa ponies, Detendu and Soft Step, were both likely dead. All those friendly and lively faces she’d met only a few days ago were dead and gone, and by some fluke, only her and Rainbow were left.
Still, she couldn’t bear to see Rainbow like this, so she steeled herself to her own guilt and nuzzled her friend’s neck. “Rainbow, it’s okay, darling. Shush. I was the one who wanted us to jump ship early. If anything, that guilt rests with me, not you.” She fidgeted, her hoof digging a trench in the sand. “But we’re here, now. We’re still alive. We need to focus on that, darling. Loyalty and generosity. Together, we will make it out of this alive. I don’t doubt that for a second.”
“Yeah, but… what if nopony finds us?”
Rarity’s breath hitched in her throat at that possibility. “Somepony will find us,” she insisted. “We only traveled a day south from our flight plan, right? We aren’t too far away.”
“At the altitudes airships fly at, our flight plan is over the horizon,” Rainbow said. “They’d have to go searching pretty far south to come this way.”
“Then we’ll make it until they do,” Rarity insisted. “No matter how long that takes. We will go home and we will see our friends again. You understand, darling?”
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, we’ll make it.” She very weakly smiled. “Thanks, Rares.”
“I only dragged you through the water and out of the surf last night,” Rarity said, smirking. “I’ll drag you home if I have to.”
“I’m sure you could, Rares. You’re definitely stubborn enough.” She chuckled, then stood up. “Thanks for that, though. I guess I was kind of a useless mess after the lifeboat hit the water.”
Rarity waved it off. “It’s nothing, darling. I did what I had to do. Now we’ll do what we have to do.” She tilted her head toward Rainbow’s wing. “I see you already have your wing taken care of.”
Rainbow glanced at her bound appendage and shrugged. “Oh, yeah. I took care of that a little bit ago. You were still sleeping.” She tugged on the knot across her chest, wincing as she adjusted her wing. “The Wonderbolts were a military organization in the past, you know? They taught me basic field dressing and survival stuff. Never thought it’d be useful, but now…”
“I’m glad that I have an expert with me, then,” Rarity said, giggling.
“Yeah… I just wish I could do something about your horn.” Even Rainbow winced when Rarity looked up at it. “I don’t know what to do for that.”
“It’ll heal on its own in time,” Rarity insisted. She stood up as well and brushed shoulders with Rainbow. “So, what’s the first step?”
“Well, first we gotta get supplies,” Rainbow said. She squinted out over the water, her eyes scanning the waves. “If we’re lucky, maybe some supplies will wash up from the wreckage over the next day or two. But we gotta find drinking water, a food source, and a place to make shelter. It’ll let us get a survey of the island as well.”
Rarity nodded. “Sounds well and good to me, darling. Would you like to lead the way?”
Rainbow started walking back toward the heart of the island. “Sure. I guess I’ll finally get to live out a Daring Do novel, eh? Couldn’t ask for a more dramatic start!”
Rainbow Dash and Rarity pushed on through the foliage on the island. Rarity expected to hit the other shore in five minutes, but it seemed the reality of the situation defied her expectations of a stereotypical deserted island. It was much larger than she thought it was going to be when she only saw a little bit of the coast and interior shortly after waking up.
The island was thick with palm trees, their fronds swaying in the gusts still tossed around from the tail of the storm. The trees themselves were heavy with immature coconuts of a variety of sizes, and Rainbow figured that when she could fly again or when Rarity’s horn had healed, they’d be able to knock the coconuts from the trees for food. But even just looking at the immature nuts made Rarity hungry, and the dry grasses poking out of the sand didn’t do much to sate her hunger. Still, the grasses would at least ensure that her and Rainbow didn’t go hungry, even if they weren’t that nutritious or didn’t taste that good.
Birds chirped and sung from the treetops all around them, and Rarity noticed that the further inland they went, the less sandy the ground became. Soon, they found themselves among actual green grasses with swaying seed pods, with a few brightly colored flowers scattered around them. Both ponies didn’t waste any time chowing down on the grasses and the flowers; the last real meal they’d eaten was more than a full day ago. When they’d finally eaten their fill, the two friends found themselves lying on their stomachs, listening to the sounds of nature all around them.
“Do you think ponies have ever set hoof on this island before?” Rarity asked.
Rainbow shrugged. “I dunno. I don’t think so.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Come on, Rares, you know I don’t really know.”
“I’m just trying to make conversation, Rainbow,” Rarity said. “Otherwise I might just go mad during our stay here.”
“Heh, yeah, I feel ya.” Rainbow nibbled a little bit more at some grass between her hooves. “At least you have me for company.”
Rarity teasingly rolled her eyes. “Oh, joy. Just promise me, darling, that you won’t spend our entire stay here bragging about yourself?”
“No promises.”
“Right.”
A colorful bird landed on the ground maybe ten feet away from them, and both ponies fell silent. They watched it move its head about in jerky movements as it examined the newcomers, and after a second, it hopped a step closer. It chirped a few times, but the moment Rainbow moved a hoof, it let out a flurry of little squawks and flew back into the air. It perched on the bulging fruit of a palm tree and began yelling at them, hopping from coconut to coconut.
Rainbow Dash snickered as she watched it. “That bird certainly doesn’t act like it’s seen ponies before.”
“It’s a really pretty bird,” Rarity said. “If only I still had my art supplies with me. Its colors would inspire a great summer dress.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure we’ll see it a ton more.” Rainbow stood up and pointed with her good wing through the grasses. “We still gotta find water, but if there’s this much grass and flowers and stuff, it’s gotta be close by. At the very least, there’s water in the ground or something.”
Rarity stood up as well. “If it’s in the ground, I think we’re out of luck, darling,” she said. “We don’t exactly have the tools to build a well.”
“Then I guess we’ll just have to hope there’s a pond or something. C’mon, let’s go.”
They set off again, paying attention to the wildlife around them. So far it just seemed like birds and insects, and after a few minutes, both ponies were grumbling and using their tails to try to swat at green flies landing on their flanks. The longer they walked, the bigger the cloud of flies following them became, and soon the two were trotting along just to leave the nuisances behind.
“I already want to go home,” Rarity complained. “Why won’t these things just buzz off?”
“We’re probably the biggest animals on the island,” Rainbow muttered. “They all want a taste. Why couldn’t—ow!—why couldn’t Fluttershy have been here too to just get them to leave?”
“My skin is going to be covered in all sorts of nasty bitemarks and—oh!” Rarity squealed as they crested a small hill of sand and dirt. Without warning, she broke off into a gallop, racing down the side, and after maybe thirty feet, she jumped and flung herself into a crystal blue lake surrounded by trees and short, sandy beaches. A second later she emerged from the water, rivulets running down her mane and split horn, and she began treading in place. “Fresh water!” she exclaimed, dipping her muzzle under the surface and taking a few gulps. “And the flies can’t get me here! This is wonderful!”
Rainbow jumped in after her and shook the water out of her mane. She took one drink just to slake her thirst, but other than that, she tried to keep her mouth away from the water. “Don’t drink too much, Rares. We really should boil it before drinking it. There’s probably parasites and all that nasty stuff in the water.”
Rarity grimaced and looked at the water again. “Eugh… well, at least it’s fresh! We won’t die of thirst, at least!”
“Hopefully.” Rainbow ducked her head under the water again and began running a hoof through her mane. “It feels great on my skin though.”
“I bet you’re wishing we were at the spa right now, aren’t you, darling?”
Rainbow sighed. “If it meant that we weren’t stranded here…”
Rarity’s eyes fell. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. She lowered her head into the water, careful to keep the split end of her horn above the surface. When she emerged again, she started looking around them. “So, food and water are taken care of. What about shelter? Where should we go?”
“Not too far from here, but somewhere near the shore,” Rainbow said. “We want to keep our food and water close by, but we also need to be close to the beach so we can signal any airships that come close.”
Rarity looked around for a few seconds. “How about there?” she asked, pointing to a gap in the trees. “I can even see the ocean from here. Maybe there’s something good we can set up there?”
Rainbow followed Rarity’s eyes and nodded. “It’s worth a shot. C’mon, let’s take a look before those damn flies come back.”
They both splashed their way out of the water and immediately broke into a gallop when they heard the dreaded buzzing of the flies around their ears. Pretty soon, they found themselves between two lines of trees in a little sandy hollow almost shaped like an oval with its long axis parallel to the beach. From here, the rumbling of the waves on the sand was muted but still present all the same, and the trees were thin enough to let an ocean breeze through to keep the flies at bay.
“This is perfect,” Rainbow said, walking to one of the ends of the ellipse. “We can get a little hut built here with branches and palm fronds, and we’re close to food, water, and the shore. I don’t think we could pick a better place.”
“I’m sure in a few days we’ll make this a cozy home,” Rarity agreed. She trotted up to the seaward tree line and watched the surf come in. “If we just pretend that we’re on a beach vacation then it won’t be so bad, right?”
“Heh, I guess you’re right,” Rainbow said, walking up next to her. After a few minutes of watching the peaceful rolling waves in front of them, she nudged Rarity’s shoulder. “Okay, let’s put the vacation on hold for a bit. We gotta start on this shelter before nightfall. I can taste more rain coming, and I don’t want to get soaked to the bone again.”
Rarity sighed and followed Rainbow back toward the interior of the island. “Can’t let me have just an hour of peace, can you…”
Rarity dragged a clutch of palm fronds back to their shelter. She held the bitter stems between her teeth while the leaves of the fronds dragged through the sand and dirt. They were already wilting and brown in some spots, but neither her nor Rainbow could prune any fresh fronds from the trees without her magic or Rainbow’s wings. At least these would do to keep the rain out for now.
She knew it was coming; she didn’t have any reason to doubt Rainbow’s prediction, and even if Rainbow wasn’t there, she would’ve known by the deep rumbling of thunder and the way the wind whipped across the sea. The fronds of the palm trees hissed and swayed in the wind, and all the birds on the island had fallen eerily quiet. Even the flies had finally left them alone. That itself made Rarity half-heartedly wish that the rest of her stay on the island would be rainy and breezy if it meant she wouldn’t be just a walking meal for the damn flies.
She emerged from the inner tree line into the sandy hollow her and Rainbow had decided upon to build their shelter in. Rainbow was hard at work at the more sheltered end of the hollow arranging what vines and wood she could find into a small frame for a basic lean-to. As soon as Rainbow saw Rarity, she pointed to two parallel vines running between a few of the trees at the end. “Cool. Let’s get those palm leaves tied into the vines and we’ll have a basic roof. The trees should shelter us from the worst of the wind and the rain.”
Rarity spat out the leaves in front of Rainbow and eyed the gathering clouds above them. “Are you sure the wind won’t just blow this all away?”
“No, but we don’t have much time to make a better shelter,” Rainbow admitted. “Tomorrow I want to see if we can find any driftwood from the Concordia. That’ll help us make a better hut, one that isn’t just two vines and a bunch of leaves tied together.”
“Well, anything is better than being rained on, I suppose,” Rarity said. She picked up a few of the palm fronds and walked to the lower of the two vines. It took her a lot of work, especially since she wasn’t used to using her hooves and mouth for fine manipulation, but she slowly started knotting the stems of the palm fronds into the green vine. She was just happy that it was a thin vine, still young and malleable, otherwise there’d be no way to fasten the fronds into place to make shelter from.
Once she and Rainbow had the stems tied down, they began jamming the second vine between the ends of the fronds to get them to stay in place. That part was easier, and simple tension meant that the fronds would stay put. They then finished the thing off by jamming more fronds into the spaces between others to try to make as much of a waterproof roof as possible.
Which they finished just in time. As Rarity placed the last frond in a gap, her ear twitched as a raindrop struck it. Within moments, a steady patter of rain began falling on their shelter and across the sand, and both Rarity and Rainbow retreated inside their lean-to before it got any harder.
The air was cool and chilly, and Rarity shivered once as traces of the wind made their way under the lean-to and glided over her coat like ice. The roof gently swayed and shook, but the water soon began running off the rear in little streams instead of piercing the fronds. It wasn’t completely waterproof, as Rainbow noticed when a steady drip began falling on her right flank, but it was better than nothing. Especially as the lightning flashed and the thunder boomed around them, and the rain became so heavy they couldn’t see the other end of the little hollow.
“Such a warm welcome to this island,” Rarity muttered. “If I’m going to be stranded in the middle of the sea, I’d at least like to be welcomed with some sun.”
“Probably won’t see much of it for another day or two,” Rainbow said. “Gotta wait for the storm to get out of here.” She sighed and added, “A storm like that is gonna shut down air traffic for a few days. It’ll be a while before anypony gets out here to find us.”
“Hopefully it won’t take too long.” Rarity sighed and shook her head. “So much for my meeting at the Confederacy. I’ll have to have Sassy schedule another whenever I get back. At least I’ve left the boutiques in good hooves for the time being.”
Rainbow chuckled. “I guess there’s some irony in bad weather stopping me from getting to the griffons to talk about the weather,” she said. “Who would have thought?”
Rarity shared in the laughter, but after a second, her mirth was replaced by a pensive concern. “Rainbow,” she asked, “if worst comes to worst and nopony comes for us… you can fly to either Equestria or the Confederacy, right?”
Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck. “Uh… I think that’d be pushing it a stretch, Rares.”
“Oh?” Rarity blinked. “But back in Canterlot, you said that you could cross the ocean on your own.”
“I didn’t say that,” Rainbow said. “I said I could cross the ocean at full bore in two days if I just flew at top speed without stopping. Realistically, it’d take me a lot longer to cross if I have to stop and rest constantly.”
“How long, exactly?”
“I don’t know, Rares,” Rainbow admitted. “But Commander Hurricane’s exodus across the ocean took him like three weeks. He had a lot of pegasi who couldn’t fly as far or as fast with him, but the advance scouts crossed the sea in two weeks. I probably only would have to go half as far, so maybe a week for me? And I need food and supplies, and I need cloud cover the whole way there if I’m going to stop and rest, otherwise I’d just fall into the sea and drown.”
Rarity grimaced. “Oh…”
Rainbow’s nostrils flared in frustration. “Yeah…” She shifted her good wing. “It’s kinda useless to talk about, anyway. My wing’ll take me like four to six weeks to heal. We’re not gonna find help for at least a month unless it finds us first.”
“We’ll make do until then,” Rarity said. Another bout of wind kicked through the hollow, and again, Rarity found herself shivering. She didn’t see Rainbow move at all out of the corner of her eye, and she crossed her forelegs and pouted. “You aren’t cold at all, darling?”
“Nope! I’m a pegasus,” Rainbow said. “We live at high altitude. It’s always colder there than it is on the ground. I mean, not many of us live at ground level in the tropics simply because it’s way too hot for us and our heavier coats.”
Rarity glared into the sand. “What I wouldn’t give to have a coat like yours right now…”
“Heh. Yeah…”
Rarity’s glare made its way from the sand to her friend. It only took maybe five seconds for realization to dawn on Rainbow’s face, and for her to extend her good wing and wrap it around Rarity’s shoulders like a blanket, blocking some of the wind. “Sorry.”
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.
Rainbow Dash heaved and threw her weight against the plank resting against her shoulder. “You got the vines?” she shouted.
“Yes, though my hooves aren’t quite as dexterous as I’d like them to be,” Rarity grumbled. She was lying on her stomach on the frame of the shelter, attempting to tie two planks together with some green vines. The cleaver rested on the plank beside her, and after she’d looped together the support Rainbow Dash was holding with the corner of the roof’s frame, she severed the extra vine with a solid chop. Once that was done, she carefully slid off of the roof and landed on the sand, spreading her hooves a bit as it slid out from under her. “How does it look?”
Rainbow gingerly stepped away from the support beam, and when the whole thing didn’t immediately collapse, she sighed in relief. “Looks like a good start to me,” she said, grinning at her friend. “Now we just gotta get the walls and the roof on this thing, but it’s not bad at all for a stunt flier and a fashion pony stranded on an island.”
Rarity stopped at Rainbow’s side and looked back at the hut. The floor plan was roughly ten feet by five feet, and the ceiling was only six or seven feet tall; that was as tall as they could make it with the planks that they scavenged that day. For the moment, it was only the rough frame of a hut tied together with vines and planks driven into the sand, but soon they’d have it all filled out with palm fronds and maybe some more wood for strength and support. There was still a pile of wood they’d collected not too far away that had a lot of splintered flat panels. That would make great material for the walls.
“Should we get the roof on tonight?” Rarity asked, her eyes drifting to the low clouds above them. The slightest touch of an orange sheen glistened off of their bottoms as the setting sun found one or two peepholes to shine through in the west. “Is it going to rain?”
“Nah, we’ll be fine,” Rainbow assured her. “The storm wore itself out last night. It’ll just be a little breezy tonight. We won’t be getting rained on.”
“That’s good. I could use a dry night for once.” She grabbed a stainless steel pot they’d managed to salvage earlier that day and started walking inland. “I’ll get some water to boil so we have something clean to drink. Do you want to get firewood?”
Rainbow shrugged then nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go scavenging for dead wood and dried palm leaves. We’re gonna want to keep all the good wood we got off of the airship for building and stuff like that. Oh, after you get the water, can you find some more green palm leaves? We could use some bedding so we’re not sleeping on the sand every night.”
Rainbow watched her go through the tree line. When she was gone, she cracked her neck from side to side and began walking between the two lines, wandering into the thickest part of the trees. The birds sang their last songs of the day, slowly winding down for the night, and a few frogs began peeping as the shadows fell heavy around their trees. Rainbow flicked her ear at a fly that landed on it, but thankfully the nuisances were starting to sleep as well. She couldn’t wait until she could start a smoking fire just to keep the bugs away, and the island certainly did have a lot of green palms for that.
She found bits and pieces of dried wood and palm fronds that’d fallen off of the trees and into the sun, and she began piling these on her back. Her good wing helped balance her finds as she walked over the uneven sand and rocks, and by the time the sun had set, she had several pounds of wood resting on her spine.
To her right, she could see the ocean glittering in the last feeble rays of sunlight, and to the left, the darkness of the island began to creep out from behind the trees and rocks. Rainbow decided to go to the right, and she emerged from the tree line and onto the sand. It was much easier to keep everything balanced on her back when walking along the beach instead of through the undergrowth.
By the time she made it back to their shelter (retracing their hoofprints in the sand from earlier that day), Rarity was already arranging pond fronds and moss on the sand inside the frame of the hut. She turned her head when Rainbow dumped all the wood and kindling she’d collected onto the sand, groaning. “I take it you found plenty of wood?”
“If we ration it it’ll last a couple of days,” Rainbow said. “Thankfully we’re on a tropical island so we don’t really need the fire to keep warm. At least, definitely not during the summer.”
“I filled the pot with enough water to last us maybe two days,” Rarity said. “Depending on how long we’re in the sun. I also used some reeds to make a rough cover for it out of some of our cloth; we don’t want it to evaporate away on us, now do we?”
Rainbow shook her head. “Good thinking, Rares.” She began to stack tinder and wood in the sand a little bit away from the hut and started arranging some rocks around it as well. “I’ll start working on the fire so we can get this water clean.” Looking over her shoulder, she added, “Good work on the bedding.”
“Palm fronds aren’t exactly the softest thing, but hopefully the moss will help with that. I tried to wash it out in the lake as best as I could, but…” she sighed and ran her hoof down her side, knocking loose sand and salt. “I don’t think it really matters all that much at this point.”
“Heh. Better get used to it.”
Rarity shuddered. “I certainly hope not. I don’t know how bad all this salt is going to be for my skin. Why, it’ll be like leather if we’re not rescued soon!”
“Salt’s good for your skin, isn’t it?” Rainbow asked. “I don’t know, I don’t read all those fashion magazines and tabloids and stuff like that.”
“You don’t?” Rarity asked, surprised.
“Of course!” A beat, and Rainbow’s eyebrows sharply slid down her brow. “Should I?”
“Oh, know, it’s just…” Rarity bit her lip. “The tabloids certainly are creative when it comes to celebrity reporting. Even with the Wonderbolts.”
“Oh…” Rainbow shifted a few sticks around and grabbed the board and stick she needed to start a fire. “Well, what are they saying about me?”
Rarity chewed on her lip. “Oh, nothing, nothing!”
Rainbow blinked. “You sure?”
“I’m positive, darling! Just… forget about the whole thing.” She nervously chuckled, then added, “I mean, I’ve certainly had much worse done to me, but if you just don’t read them it can’t bother you.”
Rainbow stared at her… then shrugged and turned away. “Okay, Rares, whatever you say.” Gripping the stick between her hooves, she began to spin it back and forth on the grooved board, trying to get the tinder to light. “Come on, stupid fire starter… I always hated these things during survival training!”
Smoke began to rise from the end of the stick, and in a few seconds, Rainbow had a tiny flame smoldering on the tinder. She squealed with excitement and quickly transported the flame from the fire starter to the tinder of the fire, gently blowing on it to get the flame to rise. After a few minutes of hard work, she had a crackling blaze growing between the rocks underneath the pot.
“Haha!” she threw the fire starter off to the side and began to dance around the pot. “We have fire! I did it! I’m the best! Woooo!” She galloped over to Rarity and shook her shoulders. “I made fire! Now we won’t die! From here, we can do anything, whoooo!!!”
Rarity giggled and drank in a little of Rainbow’s enthusiasm, allowing herself to jump around a bit. “Yes, now I know for sure that we’ll be fine!” she said, giggling. “Now if only we had some marshmallows to roast.”
“Heh, yeah, that’d be awesome.” Rainbow took a deep breath and flopped down next to the fire. “Man, that’s the most exciting thing that’s happened since we got to this place.”
“That’s not nearly drowning, at least,” Rarity amended, sitting at Rainbow’s side.
“Yeah, guess you’re right.” She shifted her good wing and looked up at the clouds above them. “I bet the stars are gonna be awesome once this storm passes. There’s too much light from Canterlot and Manehattan at night. It kinda sucks.”
Rarity nodded. “It’ll certainly be pretty…”
They fell into silence, simply watching the flickering flame in front of them. “What are we going to do tomorrow?” Rarity asked.
“Uhhh, I was thinking just salvaging more stuff from the beaches,” Rainbow said. “Some of the heavier things should start washing up now, so that’ll be good.”
“Yes, I suppose,” Rarity agreed. “Will you need my help for that, darling? I’d like to explore more of the island. We’ve only gone a little bit through it; we don’t even know how big it is, or what else is here.”
Rainbow thought for a moment. “I don’t think anything nasty or helpful’s gonna be waiting on the rest of the island. We can definitely take a look around later, though. I want to secure our supplies first.”
It was already getting dark out, and Rainbow let out a big yawn. “Mmrff. Tiring day in the sun and wading through the surf. I think I’m gonna hit the hay… or, well, fronds, as soon as this water boils.”
Rarity stifled her own yawn. “Mmhmm. Sounds lovely to me, darling.” She simply lied down on her stomach and rested her head on her hooves, staring into the fire. “It’s so peaceful out. If I weren’t still a little hungry and thirsty, and my coat wasn’t filled with sand and salt, I could almost imagine I was on vacation.”
“Heh, not many ponies get a free vacation to a deserted island.”
“Mmhmm. I’m just hoping that it’s not a one-way flight.”
“Relax, Rares, it’ll be fine.” Another yawn. “It’ll all be fine.”
The sun came up too soon, even for Rainbow Dash. But the mere fact that the sun did come up on her and Rarity meant that they were still alive. Besides, a quick trot to the shore and a splash in the water woke her up in a minute. That was good; she had a busy day ahead of her.
Rarity was still asleep in the frame of their shelter when Rainbow got back. The unicorn had curled herself into a fuzzy white ball, and she even snored softly, though it came out more as a ladylike squeak with each breath. Rainbow wanted to wake her up, and she was half-tempted to splash cold water on Rarity to do so, but decided against it. That was just mean, and she really didn’t need to waste time apologizing to her friend. She had better things to be doing with that time, and besides, Rarity had been taking all of this much harder than she had. Her friend deserved her sleep.
The fresh water in the pot they’d boiled last night was crisp and refreshing, even if it was warm from the air. She just wished that they had Rarity’s magic and another pot so that they could boil multiple days’ worth of water with one fire. They couldn’t do more with just the single pot, and even if they had another one right now, they had to wait for the fire to die and the pot to cool down before they would be able to move it and set up the next pot. Rainbow had to kick sand over the fire last night to smother it so that it wouldn’t boil away all of their drinking water. It’d been a horrible waste of good wood, but hopefully they wouldn’t need it that much.
But one thing they were going to need more of was nutritious food. Rainbow saw that for herself when she went to get breakfast down by the lake. Between her and Rarity and what they’d eaten over the past few days, they’d already cleared a sizable chunk of the fresh grass that grew around the pond. At the rate they were eating it, it’d probably all be gone in two or three weeks. They’d need to either find new food or ration what they had left—probably both. Maybe if they were lucky, they’d be able to find something they could grow from the Concordia’s kitchen if some of its food stores happened to wash up. Rainbow couldn’t help but think that she was planning too far ahead—help would surely find them before any crops they planted would have time to grow—but it didn’t hurt to be safe. She’d rather forego food in the short term if it meant that they’d have something to eat later if the worst happened and nopony came for them.
In the meanwhile, Rainbow carefully measured out what she ate that morning, stopping as soon as she curbed the worst of her hunger. She knew that come lunch, she was going to be starving, but this little bit would at least give her the energy she needed to go wading through the surf and salvaging what she could. After all, though she could see the morning sun through the clouds overhead, the skies were still pretty cluttered in the aftermath of the hurricane and she didn’t want to rule out the possibility of getting rained on in the near future. It didn’t feel likely today, but there would probably be a follow-up storm tomorrow afternoon, and she wanted to have the roof and walls on their shelter before it hit.
She noticed Rarity stirring when she walked back through their little campsite, so she diverted toward the shelter long enough to gently shake her friend awake. “Morning, Rares!” she sung, deriving some pleasure from Rarity’s tired groans and the feeble rubbing of her eyes. “How was the first night in your new home?”
“Mmmff… Rainbow, what time is it?” Rarity groaned, sitting upright. She rubbed the split end of her horn and winced, and it flickered a few times with blue sparks of raw magic. “My head…”
Rainbow squinted through the canopy of palm trees to try to see the sun. “I dunno, we haven’t found a clock yet, but it’s like, six? Six-thirty?”
“Ughh…” Rarity rolled over on her bed of palms and moss and buried her muzzle into the greenery. “Wake me in two hours,” she moaned, her hooves pulling down on her ears. “I need my beauty sleep.”
Rainbow nudged her again. “There aren’t any ponies with cameras here, Rarity. Nopony’s gonna see you if you look like a mess. Besides, we can only work with the daylight now. Night’s too dark to do anything, so we gotta get everything we can get done, done now.”
“Five more minutes…” Rarity pleaded.
Rainbow groaned. “Fine, whatever. I’ll be on the beach salvaging things.” She started walking away, stopping only to mutter, “Why couldn’t I have been stranded with AJ? She’d at least take the whole survival thing seriously…”
Of course, Rainbow didn’t know how well their competitive natures would have mixed when they only had each other for company. Rarity was at least always interesting to talk to, even if she tended to talk about dresses and other things Rainbow didn’t care about. Still, her time in the Wonderbolts had given her a new appreciation for the public face that Rarity had to maintain at all times and had been maintaining for much longer than Rainbow. Plus it certainly didn’t hurt at all that Rarity was attractive and objectively beautiful in ways that Applejack and her country charm were not, or at least were in a different way. Though of course, Rainbow didn’t want to say that out loud. Rarity had her own ego, too, and saying things like that could make her insufferable.
But Rainbow soon pushed those thoughts out of her mind, because she could already see a growing collection of debris to be salvaged with the receding tides. Pretty soon, she was racing up and down the beach and splashing through the water, trying to drag what she could to the safety of higher shores. Her focus was mainly on anything metal or heavy, and after almost an hour of hard work, she’d collected a small treasure of tools and scrap that they could repurpose into other things. She’d even found an entire chair that’d washed up on its own; if she didn’t know that Rarity would want it to sit on, she would’ve broken the thing apart to try and salvage the nails. As is, however, she’d already found a few floorboards that had some nails in them.
Then Rainbow’s heart skipped a beat. Further down the beach, she spotted an aquamarine body with a blue and white mane lying on its side, halfway up the beach. “Jetstream?” she shouted, galloping across the sand. “Jetstream, are you alright? Jets—!”
She rolled Jetstream over, but the ship’s hostess and captain’s wife didn’t move. Her eyes were bulging and half-lidded, and the sclera was red and bloodshot from the saltwater. Her skin was clammy and cold, even though the sun had dried her coat, and her nostrils were full of sand. When Rainbow pressed down on the mare’s chest, a trickle of water came out of her open mouth, but nothing else.
Rainbow shivered. Jetstream was dead.
She used her wingtip to close Jetstream’s eyes, then briskly trotted away and took a few deep breaths. She’d just touched a dead mare. A mare who wasn’t supposed to be dead. It was a strange thing to think about; she knew that there likely weren’t any other survivors from the Concordia, but she’d held out hope that maybe her and Rarity wouldn’t be alone. But even now, as the seagulls began to wander toward the mare’s corpse behind her, Rainbow knew that she was just kidding herself. Jetstream had drowned, that much was obvious. She didn’t know the details or the reason why a mare who could fly had drowned beneath the waves, but the end result was the same. There were so many good ponies on that ship, and now they were all dead.
It made the tiny island she was standing on feel even more tiny and remote. Her and Rarity might as well have been the two last ponies on the planet, for what it was worth. The sea surrounding the island was a grave, and her and Rarity clung onto the tiny mote of life still floating in it.
“Rainbow! Where did you go?”
Rainbow’s ears twitched at Rarity’s voice, and she spun around. Some part wanted to shelter her friend from seeing Jetstream lying on the beach, but Rarity wandered around the trees before she could even act. “Oh, there you are!” Rarity sung, trotting forward, but a split-second later, her eyes fell on Jetstream’s body. “Jetstream?! Is she—?”
Shaking her head before Rarity could even finish, Rainbow stepped past the concierge’s body. “She drowned, Rares,” Rainbow said, swiftly intercepting Rarity before she could get close enough to see the details in the drowned mare’s face. “It’s… not pretty.”
Rarity looked aghast at the body, then at Rainbow. But, swallowing once, she nodded. “We should bury her,” Rarity said, eying the seagulls sneaking up on the corpse. “She doesn’t deserve to be food.”
“None of them do,” Rainbow murmured, shaking her head. “She could’ve been us. We could’ve ended up like her. We shouldn’t forget that.” She sighed and began looking around the beach. “Help me find a shovel. Let’s do her right.”
Rainbow Dash was covered in sweat by the time she tossed the crude shovel aside. With some luck, her and Rarity had managed to scavenge a square coal shovel that must have come from the Concordia’s engine room, and they’d spent the remainder of the morning digging Jetstream’s grave. Now, with the sun directly overhead, all that remained of the concierge was a slightly upturned mound of sand and silt just inside the tree line of the island, where the surf wouldn’t just wash open the grave in a month.
The two friends stared in silence at the grave in front of them. The waves rolled in and out, in and out, all along the island, adding a calming melody to the peaceful, cloudy day. Though each had their own thoughts, they kept them private for the time being, at least until Rainbow’s ragged panting had slowed into a more reasonable pace.
“What do we say?” Rainbow asked, not taking her eyes off of the grave.
Rarity swallowed hard. “I… I-I don’t know, darling. I was never one for religion and ceremony. It seemed like such a waste of time when I had so many other things to do.”
“Heh, yeah, and when you’re personal friends with a living goddess, you don’t spend much time on superstition.” Sighing, Rainbow absent-mindedly patted down a corner of Jetstream’s grave. “Um… I didn’t really know you, Jetstream, but you were a really nice pony. And…” She shook her head in frustration. “I’m sorry you’re dead. I wish I could’ve saved you.”
Rarity bit her lip and watched as Rainbow hung her head. “You were a pretty mare and a good mare,” she continued for Rainbow, adding her own contribution to the eulogy. “You and your husband were a happy couple. I could see that and I hardly knew either of you. And now that you’re gone, you two can be reunited in the afterlife.” She sighed and added, “If Rainbow and I are the only ones who survived this tragedy, then we’ll do our best to make it home in your memory—in the memory of everypony who died on that ship.” Kicking a little more sand over the grave, she finished with, “Rest in peace. The hard part is already behind you.”
Rainbow Dash turned away without another word and walked back to the water. The sound of the waves on the beach felt like a ghost calling to her from beyond the grave, a siren’s song trying to lure her into the water and slip beneath the waves. She wondered if there were any sirens or seaponies around, anyway. She didn’t know much about them other than that they were real and they lived somewhere. Maybe they could deliver a message to Equestria for them. Maybe they were a way out.
She sat down on the sand, and a few moments later, Rarity joined her. Together, the two friends just stared out over the ocean, each imagining more blue and bloated bodies like Jetstream’s floating on the waves. Rainbow wondered how long it’d be until the next body washed up on that very beach. She hoped the answer was ‘never’.
“Rainbow, I’m sorry,” Rarity said.
Rainbow’s ears perked. “Eh?”
“I know that you’re taking it personally.” Rarity placed her hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “You wanted to go save them, but you didn’t, and now you’re blaming yourself that she’s dead. If anypony, blame me. I’m the one who convinced you not to try.”
Rainbow sighed with exasperation. “I’m not blaming myself, Rares, I’m just… I don’t know. It sucks! None of this should’ve happened! We should be in the Confederacy right now, not sitting on some beach in the middle of nowhere! Jetstream should still be alive. Celestia damn it, they all should still be alive!”
Rarity put her hoof under Rainbow’s chin and turned her head toward hers. “Darling, it’s alright. I know it’s awful, but there’s nothing we can do. We just need to survive for them so that somepony remembers what happened, okay? That’s our job now. That’s our job, and we need to do it. If not for us, then for our friends and everypony who passed in the storm. We’re the only consolation we can offer the families of everypony on that ship, because we’re the only ones who were there.”
“I guess you’re right.” Rainbow shook a little bit, but she sucked down a deep breath to try and stop herself. “We’re here for a reason, right? Isn’t that what all that religious stuff says?” She shrugged her good wing and stood up. “I don’t really know, but I’m not gonna give up. Rainbow Dash never quits. Even if it takes us ten years, we’ll find our way back home, somehow!”
“I’d much rather it not take us ten years to get off of this island, but I can appreciate the sentiment.” Rarity forced herself to her hooves and brushed shoulders with Rainbow. “We’ll make it through this together, darling. We’re both used to working hard, and we never give up once we put our minds to something. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better pony to be stranded with.”
“I mean, if we’re excluding Twilight,” Rainbow said with a snicker. “Admit it, if she were in our situation, she’d just teleport us all the way back to Equestria or something. This wouldn’t even be a challenge for her.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Well, I suppose you are correct in that, darling. But I feel like that would be cheating.”
“Heh, ‘cheating.’ You make it sound like it’s a game.”
“Why not, darling?” Rarity asked. “If we’re going to be stuck here for Celestia knows how long, why not at least try to make it enjoyable?”
Rainbow chuckled. “Can’t argue with that. At least when we get back, I can brag to AJ that I’ve survived longer on a deserted island than she has.”
The rising tide splashed near their hooves, calm and soothing. Both ponies simply sat side by side, letting the water wash around their salty coats. Resolute in her conviction to make it off of the island alive, Rainbow was determined not to end up like Jetstream. She’d live, and she’d take Rarity with her. She knew they’d get home safe.
Lunch came, and then dinner, or at least, what passed for it. All they had to eat was grass, grass, and more grass. It was hardly the most filling of diets, but at least they wouldn’t starve. And with the amount of energy they were expending scavenging the beaches and building their shelter, they needed to be as well-fed as they could afford.
Between the sun beating down on her all day, the burial, scavenging in the surf, and now helping Rainbow weave a wall of palm fronds, cloth, and netting at their shelter, Rarity was exhausted. The sun hadn’t even gone below the horizon and she already wanted to curl up and sleep for the next twenty years. It didn’t help that Rainbow had woken her up too early that morning. But on the bright side, if she went asleep early, she’d be better able to deal with Rainbow rising with the sun.
They eventually finished the final wall, and once again, Rainbow supported it with her back while Rarity secured it to the frame. It took a few minutes longer, but soon enough, they managed to put the last wall on their hut. With a satisfied sigh, Rarity stepped back to admire her work with Rainbow.
“Now that’s a shelter!” Rainbow proudly proclaimed. She slapped Rarity on the back with her good wing. “That’ll survive at least a few storms, eh?”
“I certainly hope so. I wouldn’t want all our hard work to be blown away in the first squall.”
It certainly wasn’t an impressive hut, but all things considered, it may as well have been a mansion for the two survivors. Despite the limited materials they had to work with, they’d managed to put four walls, a roof, and a simple door of hanging fronds on the planks of wood they’d scavenged from the airship’s hull. Inside was just enough room for two beds laid side by side, and they’d even laid a ring of stones a safe distance from the door to hold a fire. At least until the fronds dried out and started to rot, it’d make a splendid shelter for the two of them. Hopefully help would find them long before then.
“We should christen it,” Rarity said. “It’ll bring it good luck.”
“Christen it? With what?”
Rarity grinned. “I’m glad you asked,” she said, and with that, she trotted over to the trees. A moment later, she returned with a sandy bottle of champagne between her teeth, smiling proudly. She spat it out between her hooves and showed it to Rainbow Dash. “Müle & Chandon! The finest champagne money can buy, and it just washed up on the beach!” She shook the bottle a little before setting it on the sand. “A bottle of this costs as much as one of my premium exclusive dresses! I used to trade with the distributor in Canterlot when I wanted some; his wife really loved my work.”
Rainbow picked up the bottle and looked over the label—all in Prench. “This looks fancy,” she said, marveling aloud. “And it’s free, so it’ll taste even better, right? Everything’s better when it’s free!”
“I certainly don’t think CelestiAir will sue us for ‘stealing’ a bottle of champagne we salvaged from the wreck,” Rarity agreed, chuckling. “In fact, they should be thanking us that we’re putting it to good use!”
“Heck yeah! Let’s celebrate!” She planted the bottle in the sand, held the neck down with her hooves, and pulled the cork out with her teeth. Almost immediately, the bottle began foaming over, and Rainbow quickly placed her lips over the opening to suck up the champagne before any more of it drenched the bottle or the sand around it. She picked up the bottle with her teeth and tilted it back, sending a splash down her throat and champagne dribbling down her chin.
Rarity watched all of that with a mixture of mild disgust and amusement. “Erm… Rainbow, darling…”
Rainbow blinked. Setting the bottle down, she sheepishly chuckled. “Eh heh… sorry, Rares. But it’s really good!” She tried to wipe the neck down on her chest, frowning when she only made it a little sandier.
Rarity rolled her eyes and stuck out her hooves. “Oh, forget it, darling, a little spittle isn’t going to kill me. We aren’t exactly living the life of luxury right now, are we?”
“I dunno, Rares, that stuff’s really good. It makes it feel like we are.”
She handed the bottle over to Rarity, who immediately tilted it back and took a sip. The champagne danced and fizzed in her mouth, carrying a sweet hint of grapes over her tongue as it exploded like fireworks. She sighed and wiped her lips for wont of a napkin. “Mmmm, I know what you mean.” The bottle tilted back once more, and this time Rarity took a few gulps before passing the bottle back to Rainbow, giggling. “Look at us, passing a bottle of champagne back and forth like it’s a flask of whiskey.”
“Makes me feel like I’m waiting for the opening acts to get out of the way before me and the Bolts would go fly,” Rainbow said, stopping to down several gulps of champagne. “Me and Misty and Fleetfoot would pass Fleet’s flask back and forth when nopony else was looking. Spitfire knew, but she’d only give us shit if she caught us. Soarin’ would get friggin’ pissed if he caught us with the flask out. ‘Against regulations’ and all that.” Her throat bobbed as she took another gulp. “He’s the number two, so I guess he’s just covering his own flank for when Spitfire steps down. Like she’s gonna go out before he does, hah!”
Rarity gestured for the bottle and Rainbow passed it back. “What would you say if I told you that the most I’ve ever had to drink was at the Fillydelphia Fashion Fair four years ago?”
“I’d say that I didn’t think you were a lightweight, but now I’m reconsidering.”
“Oh, darling, you’re making that on an incorrect assumption.” She sipped from the bottle and licked her lips. “It was during the after party. I had a bottle of wine almost all to myself and took more shots than I can recount. I have a blip of a memory of vomiting in the back seat of a taxi carriage, and then the next thing I know, it’s three in the afternoon, I’m lying at the foot of my bed with wine stains all over my priceless dress, and somepony is beating my head with a sledgehammer.” She set the bottle back down and shook her head. “I don’t know how the paparazzi didn’t nail me during that whole fiasco.”
“Sweet Celestia, that’s quite something,” Rainbow admitted. She rolled the bottle between our hooves and frowned at it; it was already half empty. “Let’s see… well, ever since we all came of age and Pinkie started serving hard cider at her parties, I’ve been getting pretty blitzed at those.”
“‘Cider drunk’ is hardly ‘real drunk’, Rainbow,” Rarity teased.
“Yeah, I know. Oh! I know!” She grinned and drew on the bottle. “It was my first tour with the Wonderbolts after becoming a full member. We were doing a beach show at Maregate; it’s right near Fillydelphia.” Rarity nodded, so Rainbow continued. “We hit up the casinos after the show. I played a few hooves of blackjack and spent a little while at the craps tables, and then I went to the bar. Phew! That was a night I don’t even have the slightest memory of.” Chuckling, she added, “I woke up on my back on one of the sand dunes just outside of the city. Somewhere, somehow, I’d found a bottle of vodka in the night, because that was lying next to me, completely empty.”
“Oh, my.”
“Yeah, crazy, isn’t it?” Rainbow shook her head. “That’s not even the craziest part. I’d passed out with somepony, because I could tell that there was another depression in the sand right next to me, but they’d left before I’d woken up. Don’t know who it was, though. Probably one of the Bolts. There was a little orange hair in the sand, but it wasn’t from me. It was a different shade of orange. But there are so many Wonderbolts with orange hair. Good luck trying to figure out who it was.”
Rarity blinked. “Wait—did you…?”
Rainbow shrugged, a rosy tint glowing on her cheeks. “I don’t really know, Rares. Don’t remember it at all. But you’d think if I did, then that other pony would’ve said something later.” She smirked and added, “I’m not going to brag, but it’s something that you’d never forget.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” Rainbow offered her the bottle, and Rarity gladly took it. Throwing her head back, a big bubble floated up through the bottle. Finally, she set the bottle back down and stared at it. “We have to finish this thing, otherwise it’ll go bad.”
“We’re making good progress on it, that’s for sure.”
“Mmmm.” Rarity did some more damage to the bottle before Rainbow took it herself. Then, giggling, she leaned back on the sand and looked up at the darkening sky. “Here I am, stranded on a deserted island, and I’m still drinking way too much alcohol on this trip.”
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!”
There was only one thing that could tear Rarity’s eyes away from beauty, and that was beauty born from necessity. And right now, the only thing more beautiful than the lagoon on the south end of the island was the bounty of fruit hanging from the trees all around the south side of the hill. Much of it was as-yet unripe, but there were a few early fruits almost ready to fall off of their trees and bushes. The mere sight of it all made Rarity’s mouth water.
The fruits weren’t exactly what she’d expect from an island; there certainly weren’t any bananas, but she recognized a surprising number of the other fruits from high profile social events. On her left, she saw a collection of star apples hanging from the heavily laden branches of the host tree, and on her right, she found several clusters of sugar apples on their own trees. She stopped for a moment and chuckled to herself; even this far from Ponyville, there were apples everywhere, if not in the fruit itself then in the names of the native fruits, at least. And as luck would have it, Rarity spied several that were ripe or near-ripe. Her stomach growled in anticipation of a tasty meal.
She stopped next to a sugar apple tree and plucked one of the clustered green fruits off of it. It certainly wasn’t deseeded like she was used to, but it didn’t take much effort to work apart with her hooves. The thing came apart like cloves of garlic, and she greedily bit into them. It was sweet but not tart; it reminded Rarity of custard more than anything. She had to spit out a few of the shiny, hard seeds, but the sensation of flavor that she’d been missing for so long was nearly overwhelming. After all, she’d always heard that good food could be an aphrodisiac in its own right…
The rest of the sugar apple disappeared over the next several minutes. Sure, Rarity had swallowed several hard seeds, but she didn’t mind, and she idly stomped the ones she’d spat out into the ground. Maybe one day they’d grow to give more trees and their delectable fruit.
Next, she turned her gaze to a nearby star apple tree, staking it out as her next prey. The star apple fruits were smaller than her hoof, though much larger than grapes, which they resembled both in shape and color. She plucked one off of a branch and bit into it, using her teeth to open a gash in the inedible rind and squeezing out the juice and flesh. Sure, they weren’t as enjoyable as when she’d have them for dessert, cleaned, sliced, and removed from their skin, but they were still unimaginably sweet. It wasn’t hard to imagine herself eating these all day… but of course, just because she was stranded on an island, it didn’t mean that she could afford to let herself go. Rarity was determined to be the best-looking survivor she could possibly be when help came, no matter how long it took.
As she worked on stuffing her gullet with fresh fruit, however, she heard small wings flap above her. She looked up to see a familiar scarlet macaw looking down at her with angled head and curious eye. Smiling, she stood up and waved to it. “Oh, there you are! At least, I assume that you’re you, you birds all look so terribly alike.”
The macaw let out an excited squawk and began bouncing up and down on the tree branch. That left little doubt in Rarity’s mind that she was dealing with the same friendly bird as before. “Well, I found where you get your fruit from, and I did it no thanks to you,” she muttered. But she could see the macaw watching her closely, so she pulled a sugar apple off the tree and began to break up the individual pieces of fruit. When she had three or four, she held them in her hoof and outstretched her foreleg. “Would you like some? I’m sure you’re more than capable of getting them on your own, but it’s the thought that counts, right?”
The macaw squawked again, and with a fluttering of its colorful wings, it alighted on Rarity’s foreleg. The mare gasped in surprise as she felt the weight of the bird resting on her leg and its talons poking her flesh. It regarded the offered fruit in Rarity’s hoof with caution, but after a moment it shimmied down to her hoof and picked one up in its foot. Balancing on one leg, the macaw began to dig into the fruit with its massive beak, pulling apart the juicy, creamy flesh and cracking the seeds with ease.
When it finished, its beak was covered in the remains of the fruit, and it turned to Rarity and bobbed its head. Rarity giggled and bobbed hers back, and the bird shimmied back up her leg and stopped at her shoulder. The unfamiliar sensation of talons on her back made Rarity’s spine prickle, but when she looked at the bird, it playfully nibbled at her ear. “That was good, wasn’t it?” she asked it, though when she tried to rub her cheek against the bird’s downy chest, it shuffled back and out of reach. Now perched squarely on her hindquarters, the macaw opened a wing and began to preen.
“You’re remarkably comfortable with ponies for a wild parrot who’s likely never seen one before,” Rarity mused. “Or maybe you have?” She squinted at the macaw, which paused its preening momentarily to stare back. But, laughing, Rarity waved a hoof. “Oh, who am I kidding? If there had been other ponies before us, then sure we would’ve seen something of them by now. And it would’ve had to have been recent; I mean, you birds can live several decades, but just how old are you, exactly?”
The macaw fluffed up its wings and began poking at Rarity’s tail hairs, running them through its beak.
Rarity shook her head and started to walk around, gathering more fruit. “Some conversation partner you are,” she muttered under her breath. Rolling her eyes, she added, “Come now, Rarity, darling, you’re talking to animals now like you’re Fluttershy.” A beat. “And now you’re talking to yourself, too. My, this isolation must be really getting to you… me. Us?” Groaning, she slapped a hoof to her skull. “I am falling apart without gossip and somepony to share it with! Isolation is the cruelest form of torture for a mare like me!”
The macaw plucked one of Rarity’s tail hairs out of her dock, making her yip and jump. When she landed on her hooves again, she shot the macaw an irritated but thankful smile. “I suppose I needed that.”
She looked at the fruit scattered around and sighted a particularly large sugar apple hanging off of a branch. “I’ll have to revisit this place with a bucket or something later; without my magic, I can only bring one of you juicy fruits back at a time.” Then, plucking the sugar apple with her teeth, she set back off to the north, toward home. “Away!”
The macaw gleefully chirped and went back to preening its wings and its tail.
Rainbow’s wings twitched in her sleep. Over the course of the night, she’d spread out into a sprawling mass of limbs, her side resting against the wall of the shelter. “Mmmf,” she mumbled. “No, Spitfire… I mean, I would… heheh… you mean it?”
She rolled over, forelegs outstretched like she was caressing somepony. All that ended when she buried her muzzle in the soft sand between the two bed mats. Snorting and sneezing, gasping and sputtering, Rainbow jolted awake. White sand covered her nose, and when she forcefully exhaled, particles flew out and showered her chest. Her head throbbed, and she put her hooves to her skull to try and suffocate the pain that was equal parts alcohol and inhaling sand.
“I need a bigger bed,” Rainbow muttered. “That or some actual floors…”
There wasn’t a point to lying in bed any longer than she already had, so Rainbow forced herself to get up and go outside. The sun was nearly blinding overhead, and Rainbow hissed at it and shielding her eyes. But she’d already wasted enough time; she liked to be up by the dawn, and here she was, sleeping in until nearly noon. “Stupid alcohol…”
Much like Rarity before her, Rainbow’s first priorities were getting something to eat and drink, and relieving her bladder. She idly wondered where Rarity had gone off to, but she wasn’t too worried about that. They were stranded on an island together; it wasn’t like Rarity could really go anywhere, right? The fashionista would turn up sooner or later. Rainbow assumed she was at the beach, maybe trying to be helpful and hauling in the last of their salvage. They already had a pretty big pile of wood and other scrap they needed to sort through back at their camp.
Rainbow finished off the last of the water in the drinking pot; they’d need to boil more, otherwise they’d have to drink from the pond, which probably wasn’t the healthiest. If only they’d done it last night… but the champagne had held their attention much better than the necessities of survival had. At least there was enough to slake her thirst for the time being, which only added to the urgency she felt between her legs.
Her hooves kicked up sand as she trotted out of the clearing and towards some trees facing south. Once in the shelter of a crooked palm tree, Rainbow squatted and sighed. Of course, the rustling of some low fronds in front of her interrupted her peace and quiet, especially when Rarity’s head poked through the leaves and locked eyes with Rainbow.
Rarity blinked, swallowed, and quickly ducked back into the leaves. “Sorry!” she exclaimed. “Just… let me know when you’re done!”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and finished her business moments later. “Alright, Rares, it’s fine,” she said, taking a few steps away from the tree. “It’s not like you’re not familiar with what that’s all about…”
Once more Rarity advanced through the foliage, only more cautiously this time. “Sorry, Rainbow, I wasn’t paying attention,” she admitted, setting some strange fruit she was carrying in her teeth on the ground. “I was entertaining my passenger.”
Rainbow’s eyebrow climbed up her forehead. “Passenger?”
“Oh, yes!” Rarity finished emerging from the plants, revealing the red parrot sitting on her hindquarters with a piece of fruit in its beak. “I found this lovely little macaw while I was exploring earlier! He’s very friendly, and he loves fruit!”
The macaw angled its head at Rainbow and clicked its beak. Rarity smiled at it and offered it another piece of fruit from the bundle she’d put on the ground. The macaw bounced on her back a few times before taking the piece and quickly tearing it apart with its beak.
Rainbow was more interested in the fruit, though. “Where’d you find this?” she asked, snatching the fruit off of the ground before Rarity could pick it up again. She brushed some of the dirt and sand off using her coat, then bit off a few of the smaller bodies hanging to the center of the bundle. Creamy sweetness blanketed her tongue, and she quickly stuffed more fruit in her mouth, crushing the seeds between her teeth. “It’s good! Certainly beats grass!”
“There’s a whole ton of fruit bearing trees and bushes to the south!” Rarity exclaimed. “There’s a big hill overlooking this gorgeous lagoon, and the south side of that hill is covered in trees and fruit like this. I wanted to go and harvest what we could, but I need something to carry the fruits back in.”
The macaw shook its head and flung little pieces of the fruit stuck to its beak everywhere. Rarity winced as one struck her cheek, and she quickly wiped it off. “Oh, and this macaw hasn’t left my hindquarters since I fed it some fruit. If he was a pony, I would’ve accused him of being surprisingly forward with me,” she added with a giggle.
“Seems pretty tame,” Rainbow remarked, stepping closer to the bird. When she was almost nose to beak with it, she grinned. “He’s as colorful as I am! We should call him Rainbow Two!”
Rarity frowned. “Really, Rainbow? That’s the best you could come up with?”
“It’s certainly the most awesomest thing I could come up with!” Rainbow protested. When Rarity scowled at her, she rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Rares. Fine, what about Birdbrain?”
The macaw spoke for itself when it hissed at Rainbow and turned away, flicking its tail.
“Hey!” Rainbow shouted back at it. “I’m just being honest here!”
“I wanted to name it something more elegant,” Rarity said. She smiled at the macaw and tried to nuzzle it. “Scarlet? Dazzle? Ruby? I think all of those are wonderful names!”
The macaw tilted its head like it was thinking, considering Rarity’s names. Rarity smiled at it and managed to nuzzle its chest. Its feathers were soft and downy, like she was burying her nose in a pillow.
Then it extended its tail and pooped on Rarity’s flank.
Rarity shrieked in disgust and began jumping and bucking, and the macaw fluttered from Rarity’s back to Rainbow’s. While the unicorn writhed in the sand to try and get the bird droppings off of her coat, Rainbow sat down and put both her hooves to her muzzle to try and stifle her laughter. But even with that aid, it was too much for her, and she began howling as she watched Rarity’s reaction. Wiping tears from her eyes, she grinned at the macaw. “I like you! You’re great!”
The macaw chirped and warbled a few times before proudly preening its chest feathers.
“I’m just gonna call you ‘Chirp,’” Rainbow said. “What do you think of that?”
The macaw stopped what it was doing to run its beak through Rainbow’s mane, parting a few strands that’d been clumped together by sand and sweat. Rainbow giggled as the bird preened her, and when Rarity finally calmed down, a huge grin broke out across her muzzle. “He likes that one! Chirp! Hah! It’s such an awesome name!”
Rarity glared daggers at the bird as it innocently preened Rainbow’s mane. “I wouldn’t mind calling him ‘Chicken Wing’ after that,” she huffed. Storming back to the camp, she held her nose high and her eyebrows low. “I’m going to get something to gather fruit in. The farther that bird’s rear end stays from my beautiful ivory coat, the better!”
Rainbow watched Rarity trot back into the clearing and begin rummaging for something to collect fruit in. Turning to the macaw, she nuzzled it and giggled when it rubbed its head against her cheek. “Don’t worry, Chirp, I’m pretty sure she likes you.”
Rainbow Dash and Rarity trekked through the interior of the island, heading south. They’d each fashioned a pair of makeshift baskets from some of their salvage, tied together and resting across their backs like saddlebags. Overhead, Chirp flew from tree to tree, shadowing the pair’s progress and letting out little squawks.
Barely ten minutes of walking took the pair to the hill Rarity had found earlier. As soon as Rainbow crested it and looked around, her eyes went wide. “There’s this much fruit on this side of the island?” she asked. “This is… wow!
“I was amazed, too, when I first came here,” Rarity said. She stood on her hind legs and started pulling sugar apples off a tree, carefully guiding them into one of the baskets at her sides. “To think that there’s all this delicious fruit here, and nearly nothing on the other side of this hill! It doesn’t make much sense to me, to be completely honest.”
Rainbow sniffed at the ground and dug into it a little with her hoof. “I dunno, maybe the ground’s better over here? Applejack would know for sure. My guess is that it’s too sandy on the rest of the island for anything but palm trees to grow, but there’s actually dirt here, so it’s better for these trees.”
“I suppose it makes sense,” Rarity admitted. When she cleared off the low-hanging fruit of one tree, she moved to the next. “But I don’t think we need be wondering or complaining about it, darling. Let’s simply collect our harvest and return triumphantly to our camp.”
“We’re gonna eat like queens,” Rainbow said, dropping star apple after star apple into her basket. “This stuff is so good, I’m gonna get so friggin’ fat…”
“If you get fat on a deserted island with limited nutrition, then I wouldn’t know what to say.” With one basket full of sugar apples, she started filling the other with star apples. “We should be rationing this, after all. I suppose that’s one thing good for my body while we’re here; I’ll be able to finally stick to a diet, even if it is a diet borne of necessity.”
Rainbow sputtered. “A diet?” She turned around, her rose eyes wandering over Rarity’s svelte and limber form in blatant disbelief. “Rarity, you of all ponies are the last to need a diet!”
Rarity found herself taken aback. “Well, I mean, darling, there’s always room for a few pounds to trim here or there…”
“I mean, if you were talking about Pinkie Pie, then yeah, she’s a little pudgy, but with all the sweets she eats, I’m surprised she isn’t five hundred pounds.” Rainbow shook her head. “But you? Rarity, you’re like, the hottest. If you started losing weight, you’d start looking like a skeleton. Besides, trying to survive on an island isn’t the best time to start dieting. You need to keep your strength up, because otherwise, the sun will just suck it right out of you.” She blinked. “What?”
The source of Rainbow’s confusion was Rarity’s burning cheeks. “Oh, um, nothing, darling,” she managed, abashedly ducking her head. “I just… did you mean that?”
“Uh… mean what?”
“Never mind, darling.” Rarity quickly turned away, trying to hide the rosy fluster building on her face. Of course Rainbow Dash wasn’t paying attention to what she said; that was just her way. Swallowing hard, Rarity forced herself to make a strangled titter and quickly retreated to a star apple plant some ways away. “I think there’s some juicy ones, here. I’m going to… to go harvest them. Yes.”
Rainbow watched Rarity hurriedly trot away, one eyebrow raised. “…Okay.” Turning around, she went back to harvesting fruit again. “………friggin’ sexy, though, I swear to Celestia…”
Chirp added his two cents by landing on Rainbow’s back and snatching one of the star apples out of her basket. The macaw tore through the rind with its beak before scooping out the juicy insides, dropping the remains to the ground when it was emptied out. He watched Rarity go to a tree across the hill, and when she glanced over her shoulder, it whistled at her. The unicorn ducked her head and went back to work, trying to ignore Chirp and Rainbow.
Rainbow chuckled and rubbed Chrip’s head with the tip of her hoof. “Heh, you said it, little buddy.”
Rarity tucked the last sugar apple from the tree into her basket and grunted. The fruit in the baskets pressed on her back, and she shook and shimmied herself from side to side to get the backstrap to settle more comfortably over her spine. Still, she had two full baskets of fruit, and with the other two Rainbow had, they had enough fresh fruit to last several days, maybe a week. So long as Chirp didn’t eat it all; Rarity could see the parrot lounging on a tree branch, a stolen fruit in one foot.
She found herself standing on the south side of the hill, looking down at the lagoon below her. It was a pretty sight; the sunlight glittering off the crystal clear waters, the swaying palm trees, seagulls nesting on tall rocks—even the pure white sand looked inviting. More than ever, all Rarity wanted to do was pull up a chair and lounge on the beach. It didn’t help that the bloodthirsty green flies were back out again and mutilating her perfect hide.
Hoofsteps over grass alerted Rarity to Rainbow’s approach. “What’s up, Rares?”
“Admiring the view.” Rarity sighed and sat down. “Wouldn’t this just be perfect?” she asked, pointing to the lagoon. “Maybe one day after we go back home we can take a vacation here with the girls. It’s such a beautiful lagoon; it’d make a great island retreat were we ever to come back.”
Rainbow seemed to frown at that idea. “I don’t know, I’d think we’d get sick of this place after a while.”
“Well, yes, there is that, but has it really been so bad?”
“We’ve only been here for a couple of days, Rares. Yesterday we just buried a pony that’d washed up on the beach.”
Rarity’s skin crawled at the mention of the burial; she had been happy to keep it out of her mind for the time being. “But look at it this way, darling, this island has saved our lives.” She threw her hooves wide, gesturing to the trees around them. “It has food! Water! Shelter! Most importantly, it’s dry ground! And even if it’s lacking in the conveniences and essentials of modern living, it’s still a beautiful locale.” A sly grin. “With just a little bit of work, we could make this island quite the popular getaway.”
“Heh, look at you, ever the businessmare.”
“Fashion is my passion—pardon the rhyme—but business is my living. One must be able to market and sell her products if she wants to advance in life.”
“I mean, I just fly fast. That works for me.”
A white hoof to a white muzzle stifled Rarity’s ladylike chuckle. “Well, yes, I suppose our career paths do differ in regards to aspects like that.”
“That’s putting it one way.”
The wind blew through their tangled, sandy manes as they sat in silence, side by side. The itchiness from the sand in Rarity’s coat had started to subside since washing up on the island; she wasn’t sure whether to consider that a good thing or a bad thing. She knew that she looked horrible, at least by her standards; Rainbow just looked rough and sandy, but she still looked herself. The curls had long since fallen out of Rarity’s mane and tail, so they just hung from her body, slightly twisted but limp. The ends were frayed and ragged, and her hair was tangled and stiff. Perhaps it was for the best that she didn’t have a mirror right now.
Perhaps it was for the best that she had an excuse not to care.
There wasn’t any makeup on the island, true. Her shadow and eyeliner had washed away long ago, and as much as she felt naked without it, she felt… liberated. There wasn’t anypony else here watching her every move, no hidden cameras she always had to be ready to show her best side for. It was just her, Rainbow, a bird, and a whole lot of empty island. For the first time in forever, she felt like she could take the mask off, the mask of a beautiful an elegant lady, an intelligent and calculating businessmare. She could just be Rarity.
And the best part? Rainbow Dash seemed to think that she looked just as beautiful without everything that went into maintaining her masks. She still didn’t know why Rainbow used that particular phrasing; Rainbow likely was just saying things without thinking, as per usual. Still, it calmed her, and it was fresh and relieving to still be considered beautiful when Rarity herself would have been horrified at her own appearance right now.
She stood up. “What more do we have to do today?” she asked Rainbow. “The sun is already beating on into the afternoon. Too bad we missed the whole morning.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Bring this stuff back to camp? Boil water? Probably haul in more salvage? We only have a little left. Might as well get it taken care of now.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Now that the storm’s gone, air traffic will probably start showing up again in a few days. We should work on an SOS signal of some kind.”
“Do you think anything’s likely to show up today?”
Rainbow tilted her head back, looking up at the clouds. They were spotty and few; she expected nothing but empty blue skies tomorrow at this rate. “Can’t say, Rares. It’s been… what, three days since the storm? It’s probably hit the mainland by now. If there are gonna be any airships in the area, they’ll show up tomorrow at the earliest.”
Rarity smiled. “Good,” she said. “Then, Celestia willing, if this is to be our last day on the island, I’d like to enjoy it.” She started trotting down the south side of the hill, and after a few steps, looked back at Rainbow. “Well? Are you coming?”
A grin broke out on Rainbow’s face, and she stood up again. “Yeah, sure, I’m game.” Looking up to the trees, she whistled at the bright red macaw preening its feathers. “Come on, Chirp! We’re taking the food this way!”
Chirp raised his head long enough to watch Rainbow set off after Rarity. A moment later, with a loud cry, the macaw glided off of the tree and landed on her back. With its wings held open for balance, the macaw carefully plucked a star apple out of Rainbow’s basket and started chewing on it.
Rarity made it to the beach first. Shedding her baskets at the edge of the brilliant white sands, she galloped straight for the water, splashing into the gently sliding waves. Her hooves shattered pure crystal, and droplets of liquid glass flew into the air around her, catching the sunlight in brief bursts of brilliant color. The shore was so shallow here that Rarity went splashing nearly twenty feet out into the water before it got to her knees. Turning around, she waved to Rainbow, who’d just dropped her own baskets and was galloping into the water after her, Chirp flying to the safety of a nearby tree. “It’s so warm! Isn’t this great, Rainbow?” Her eyes widened when Rainbow abruptly changed course and galloped straight towards her, a wild smile on her muzzle. “Rainb—!”
Rainbow tackled Rarity right into a wave, sending them both into the water. They both emerged seconds later, finding their hooves on the sandy ground beneath the clear waves. Rarity coughed a few times, but she found herself supported by Rainbow’s shoulder until she finally cleared her airways. When that was done, she abruptly turned and swatted Rainbow’s cheek. “What in Celestia’s name was that for?!”
Rainbow rubbed her cheek but kept her smile up all the same. “You looked like you needed a good dunk!” she said, quickly jumping backwards when Rarity tried to hit her again. “Nuh uh! Gotta be faster than that!”
White hooves splashed through the water as Rarity lowered her stance. “Oh it is on!”
She broke into a gallop without warning, and Rainbow jumped backwards again before kicking up the surf around her in a full gallop away from Rarity. Giggling and laughing, the two mares chased each other across the shallows, stopping only for the occasional splashing of two bodies hitting the surf.
Rarity lied on her belly, watching the tiny waves ripple in and out of the lagoon. Above her, the skies had shifted to a brilliant amber, and hazy clouds drifted across the horizon from seemingly random directions. The hair on her face stood stiff with dried salt, a testament to how much time she’d spent in the water today. If she ran her tongue over her lips, she could taste the salt clinging to them.
Her left ear pivoted behind her, where she could hear Rainbow and Chirp having an argument of some kind. Rainbow had probably caught the macaw digging through their fruit supplies and was trying to scold it, for all the good that would do. Rarity didn’t know if the bird was a glutton or was simply taking advantage of the hard work she and Rainbow had done earlier that day. At the very least, Chirp seemed like he enjoyed their company, and when he wasn’t raiding their food supplies, the bird could usually be found comfortably perched on Rainbow’s shoulders or hindquarters.
Rarity’s ivory hooves pawed through the sand and she gently shook her head. If only she had paper and something to draw with. The two of them would’ve made a pretty picture.
The surf was like a lullaby as it washed over the beaches like silk on glass. If it weren’t for the fact that they were stuck here without the means to leave whenever they wanted, Rarity could almost imagine this was paradise. Almost. Bring some amenities of civilization and some bug repellant, and then it’d start looking like one. Plumbing, electricity, imported luxury foods, they’d all turn this little island in the middle of nowhere into a dream come true.
She flinched as she felt a tiny needle scrape at the flesh on her flank, and she swatted her tail at the offending monstrosity. Actually, forget everything else. She’d be more than content with the state of affairs if she just had some damn fly repellant to keep the shiny green devils away from her. They were carving her beautiful body up like an all-you-can-eat buffet. The bites she’d gotten over the past few days already itched horribly, and it took all of her willpower not to scratch at them.
The telltale buzzing of another abomination near her ear was enough to get Rarity to stand up and splash her hooves into the water. At least they didn’t follow her once she started getting wet. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a seapony, so she couldn’t spend all her time in the water. Maybe if Twilight was here, but no. She put a hoof to her chin and thought for a moment. When she got back home, she was going to get Twilight to teach her some more useful spells. Sure, she knew how to cast minor illusions and prestidigitation, but teleportation, sending spells, even something to keep the Celestia-forsaken flies away would be invaluable. With even just one of those spells, she could’ve made her time on this island much more tolerable.
Her horn flared on instinct, and a razor of pain drilled into her skull. Shivering, Rarity massaged the end of her broken horn, felt the crack in the tip with her hoof. At least it was finally healing. Another few days and she should be able to start casting spells again. Simply being able to use the invisible hand of telekinesis would be a godsend out here. She certainly wasn’t as good with her hooves and mouth as Rainbow was, and even then, their shelter could benefit immensely from Rarity’s intangible touch.
A stiff sea breeze blew through Rarity’s tangled mane. She looked to the south, between the two rocky ridges that protected the lagoon from the rough seas just beyond. The island she’d seen from the hill was barely visible beyond the curve of the world; at least that gave her a sense of how far away it was. It’d probably be a half day’s flight by wing for Rainbow, once hers was finally mended. Maybe they’d find something useful there. Maybe it’d be just as empty and desolate as this one. Maybe it wouldn’t even matter.
The growing shadow from the west ridge finally overcame Rarity. She pivoted about and looked at the rocky face of the ridge, picking out a simple path of ascent. It certainly wasn’t as sheer and treacherous as the east ridge, and besides, she knew she’d get a better sunset from that rocky line. She figured it was about time that she finally caught a sunset from this lonely haven in the middle of nowhere; she certainly never saw them from their shelter on the east side of the island.
Back on the shore, Rainbow Dash lied on her side, dozing in the shadows of the palm trees. Above her, Chirp simply watched Rarity, his beady eyes like tiny black stones from this distance. Rarity briefly rolled through the water on her way back to Rainbow, hoping that’d be enough to keep the flies away, and gently nudged Rainbow’s shoulder. The pegasus began to stir, and a few moments later, her ruby eyes opened. “Ungh… Rarity? What is it?”
“The sun’s setting,” Rarity said with a soft smile. “I was going to go watch it.”
“Oh. Cool beans.” Yawning, Rainbow tried to sit up but had to rely on her foreleg for support. “Celestia, I’m so friggin’ tired. I need a nap.”
“Rainbow, darling, you just were taking a nap.” Rarity pouted and stuck her lower lip out. “You don’t want to watch the sunset with me?”
Rainbow closed her eyes for a few seconds, then wordlessly stood up. “Okay, sure. Kinda can’t see it from here, though.”
Rarity immediately brightened and brushed shoulders with Rainbow. “We’ll go up to the ridge over there,” she said. “We’ll have a great view of it.”
“Works for me.” Rainbow looked up at the tree where Chirp perched. “C’mon, Chirp. Wanna see the sunset?”
Chirp squawked and fluttered down from the tree, landing securely on Rainbow’s back. Giggling, Rainbow stuck her nose in the bird’s feathers for a moment before turning back to Rarity. “Lead the way, Rares.”
Rarity stepped away, angling toward the ridge. She noticed just how torn up the sand around the lagoon’s center was, and how pure and flat it remained near the edges. For some reason, it made her feel wrong and horrible, like her and Rainbow had destroyed something perfect. She couldn’t help but step a little lighter as she crossed over into pristine territory, her shadow sending a little crab scuttling sideways into its hole in the sand.
Thankfully the western ridgeline wasn’t too rugged, and it only took a little bit of threading between rocks to make it to the top. When they did, Rarity raised a foreleg to shield her eyes from the light of the setting sun. The fat, red ball barely rested on the ocean to the west, floating on the water between the two western islands so close yet so impossibly far away. A flock of gulls briefly crossed over the sun, flitting from one island to the other to roost for the night. Chirp let out a small titter himself as he preened his back feathers while resting on Rainbow’s shoulders.
Rarity found a tuft of soft grass to lie down on, crossing her forelegs beneath her. Rainbow did the same, sitting just barely close enough that their stiff and salty coats brushed together. The calls of roosting birds added a soft melody to the rhythmic pounding of the sea on the shore.
“I find it comforting that the sun still sets, all the way out here,” Rarity murmured. “No matter what happens to us, Celestia and Equestria are both still out there. Life goes on.”
Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think it’s kind of a downer.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because nothing changed even though we’re gone,” she said. “Call it selfish or whatever, but like, it makes me feel small and stuff. We could die out here tomorrow and nothing would change. Celestia will keep the sun moving, and ponies will keep living.”
“I suppose I understand.” They fell into silence as the sun continued to disappear, turning the ocean into a rippling sea of fire. “But we are both still alive, darling. Really, that’s all that should matter, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Rainbow sighed and laid her head on her hooves. “I just… don’t want ponies to forget me, you know? I’ve worked all my life to be the best, because I want to be famous and I want to hear ponies cheering me on. I don’t want to be forgotten.”
“Believe me, I know exactly how you feel.” Rarity shifted and rolled her shoulders some. “I’m a social animal. I will fully admit that I crave the recognition that comes with attaching my name to my dresses and watching my business and image flourish.” She chuckled. “We’re not so different, are we?”
“Well, maybe apart from our opinions on fashion, I guess not,” Rainbow admitted.
“It’s okay, darling, you can admit it,” Rarity said. A sly smile crept onto her muzzle, and she leaned in closer to her friend. “I know how much you secretly like wearing dresses. Why else were you always modeling for me?”
Rainbow’s cheeks began to burn, so she hid them between her hooves. “That was like, one time, Rares…”
“I seem to recall it differently. And I mean, you never complained about the dresses I made for you when we attended the Gala and such. As I recall—”
Rarity nuzzled Rainbow’s shoulder and hummed to herself. “If you say so, darling,” she said. “But you don’t have to hide anything from me out here. It’s just the two of us, after all, you can drop the tomboy act whenever you want.”
“It’s not an act…” Rainbow feebly protested.
Rarity giggled. “Of course it isn’t,” she said, stroking Rainbow’s salt-caked mane. To the west, the sun finally slipped beneath the waves, bathing the world in a slowly deepening shadow. “Of course it isn’t."
Rainbow Dash bit into a savory sugar apple and hummed in delight. Breakfast was so much better when she didn’t have a simple bland meal of grass and water to look forward to. The fresh fruit that she and Rarity had picked yesterday was already paying off. And there was so much of it, too! Even if they picked four basketfuls every week, there were so many fruiting trees on the south hill that they’d never run out.
A set of claws tightened around her shoulder, and Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Here,” she said, picking up a star apple and showing it to Chirp, who was perched on her shoulder. The macaw gladly took the fruit and began working on the rind, and Rainbow went back to her own breakfast. “You’re gonna be so friggin’ fat,” she teased the bird as she plucked off another few cloves of the sugar apple. “I wonder how you even survived without ponies like us to give you free food.”
The macaw cooed between bites of its meal and playfully ran its beak through Rainbow’s mane. Giggling, Rainbow patted the bird on the head. “Yeah, yeah, love you too, Chirp.”
Palm fronds shifted behind her, and Rainbow craned her neck around to see Rarity staggering out of the shelter. Smirking, she scooped up a sugar apple and flung it at her. “Think fast!”
“Thi—waghh!” Rarity fell onto her haunches as the fruit struck her horn. Rainbow immediately burst out laughing, laughter which redoubled when she saw that she’d managed to impale the fruit on Rarity’s horn. Rarity frowned and pulled the fruit off, doing her best to wipe some of the juices out of her mane. “Rainbow! Not funny!”
“To you, maybe,” Rainbow snickered. Patting the sand next to her, she took another bite of her breakfast. “Mmmf… good morning, by the way.”
Rarity sighed and sat down next to Rainbow. “Yes, good morning. I would appreciate it if you used your words first next time instead of fruit.”
Rainbow giggled again and plucked the last few cloves off of the sugar apple’s core. “I warned you to think fast.”
“Thinking fast is the last thing I can possibly do after waking up from another poor night’s sleep on sand and palm fronds,” Rarity grumbled. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a proper mattress to sleep on, even something as simple as a twin!”
“I was gonna ask you how you slept, but I guess you answered that already.”
“Feh, darling.”
Rarity began working on her breakfast, smiling and letting out a little satisfied grunt. “Oh, this is so much better than grass.”
“I know, right?” Rainbow leaned forward to get a few star apples out of the basket, accidentally upsetting Chirp on her shoulder. The macaw squawked at her and flew over to the shelter to finish its meal on a more stable perch. “Sorry, Chirp.”
“I’m glad my little exploration found these,” Rarity said. After finishing off the fruit, she looked off toward the west. “Say, Rainbow, did you hear anything unusual last night?”
Rainbow blinked mid-bite. “Uhhh… no? I was out cold.”
“Of course you were.” She picked up another sugar apple but could only bring herself to nibble on a clove. “I’m not sure if I was dreaming or not. It might have been nothing, for all I know. It sounded like a fair bit of hooting and hollering, though, coming from the west.”
“I’d think if there was anypony else on this island we would’ve run into them by now,” Rainbow said. “We weren’t exactly the quietest two nights ago when we knocked out that champagne bottle.”
“I suppose you have a point.” Rarity grunted as she put her sore hooves under her and stood up once more. “But the west side of the island is the only side we haven’t explored yet. Maybe we should do that quickly?”
“Eh, sure.” Rainbow groaned and stood up next to Rarity, adjusting the sling around her wing and barrel with her teeth. “Gonna need to change this thing when we get back,” she muttered. “All that splashing around yesterday really messed it up.”
“If you want to change it now, there’s no rush, darling.”
Rainbow shrugged. “I need to get some more vines for it. Might as well just pick them up on the way back.”
Rarity nodded and fell in by Rainbow’s side. After a brief drink from their pot of clean water, the two friends set off into the island. Chirp alighted on Rarity’s shoulders this time, and she smiled and nuzzled the bird as they skirted the edge of the pond. All around them, the birds sang their morning songs and flitted from branch to branch, and a few rodents skittered through the low grasses and sands, fleeing from their advance.
The west side of the island was much like the north and east: low, flat, sandy, and decorated with palm trees. But as they got to the shore, they noticed that the waves seemed weaker here. Maybe a hundred feet out from the beach, a long sandbar rested just beneath the water’s surface, breaking up the tide before it hit the beach. The intermediate water was deceptively calm and still as a result, and shallow enough that Rainbow could just barely note the hazy shape of the sandy floor. The shoreline itself was also very straight, running almost in a perfect line from north to south, unlike the more irregular and wavy northern and eastern beaches.
Then Rarity gasped, stealing Rainbow’s attention from the surf. “What is it, Rares?” she asked, trying to see what Rarity was looking at. A split second later, she saw it: churned up sand, blackened sticks, scraps of wilting green leaves.
Rainbow looked up and down the coastline, and even back into the trees a bit, but she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Frowning, she advanced out of the tree line and onto the beach itself, immediately making her way toward the charred sticks jutting out of the sand. It didn’t take an expert to recognize the remains of a fresh fire, and the sand all around the firepit was churned up. Somepony—or several someponies, rather—had been moving around on the beach very recently. Recently enough that high tide hadn’t washed away the hoofprints, yet.
“There were other ponies here?” Rarity asked. Circling around the charcoal, she placed her hoof in one of the hoofprints in the sand. The print dwarfed her alabaster hoof, and she pulled it away in surprise. “And they must’ve been enormous!”
“Then where are they?” Rainbow asked herself. On a hunch, she moved further down to the waterline, and after some looking around, she found what she was looking for. There, in the sand, she saw several groups of prints on either side of a sharp, straight line. The sand in the line was packed down like something heavy had been resting on it.
Rarity saw what Rainbow was looking at and came over. “Is that a boat?” she asked.
“Looks like it,” Rainbow said. Frowning, she looked over the ocean toward the two islands in the west. “And I think I know where they came from.”
“But why would they come here?” Rarity asked. “They can’t be survivors from the Concordia, the hoofprints were too large. Perhaps they’re natives of some kind?” Shuddering, she stepped closer to Rainbow. “Do you think they’re dangerous?”
“If Daring Do has taught me anything… then probably!”
“That is not what I wanted to hear.” Frowning, Rarity looked at the hoofprints in the sand again. “Apart from these hoofprints being rather large, doesn’t something about them seem… off, darling?”
Rainbow cocked her head and examined the prints. “Yeah,” she said. “There aren’t a whole lot of them…”
Rarity looked between the giant prints in the sand and her own hoofprints up and down the beach. “There’s half as many per set,” she murmured to herself. Gasping, she turned to Rainbow. “I think they’re minotaur prints!”
“Minotaurs?” Rainbow asked, digging through the sand. Swallowing hard, she momentarily stopped digging, revealing something ruddy just beneath the surface. “I… I think that makes a lot of sense now, actually.”
Raising an eyebrow, Rarity trotted back to Rainbow. “What is it, darling?” she asked. “What did you—in Celestia’s name!”
Rainbow pawed at the sand a little more, revealing a set of bones. Tiny bits of sinew and flesh still clung to the ends, and the bigger bones themselves had been cracked open for marrow. But what was more was that the bones themselves were hollow, and to Rainbow, she recognized immediately what they were.
Rarity scrambled away from the bones in the sand like they were going to hurt her. A wave of nausea rolled over her and she found herself shaking and shuddering. She couldn’t believe it. Those were pony bones in the sand, with pony flesh still clinging to them, leftover tidbits from a meal.
Rainbow kicked sand back over the bones, not wanting to look at them anymore. “There… the meat on the bones was still fresh,” she said. “Whoever they belonged to, they weren’t dead for all that long.”
Rarity squeezed her eyes shut and focused on breathing. Little by little, her mouth stopped salivating and the nausea passed. “Do you think they were from the Concordia?” she asked when she could finally speak again.
“They had to be,” Rainbow said. “That or that pirate freighter. Unless there’s a bunch of native ponies on one of these islands, but I don’t think that’s it.”
“Celestia,” Rarity murmured. “There were other survivors? I can’t believe it…” She swallowed hard. “And now they’re food. They’re food!” Her chest heaved as she started to hyperventilate. “Why, I didn’t even know that minotaurs ate ponies! They could come for us next! We could be the next ones on the menu! I don’t want to be eaten! Oh, Celestia, why couldn’t I have drowned at sea?!”
“Rarity!” Rainbow shouted, startling the unicorn out of her panic. Sitting down in front of Rarity, Rainbow put her hooves on her friend’s cheeks and forced her to make eye contact. “We’re gonna be fine, okay? Those dumb minotaurs won’t find us. They won’t even know we’re here. We just have to be careful about it, okay?”
Rarity nodded and closed her eyes. “Okay,” she said after a few breaths. “Okay, but what do we do?”
Rainbow looked out over the sea and thought things over for a moment. “Alright. Let’s think this through.” She paced over to the marks in the beach from the boat. “The minotaurs don’t live on this island, for whatever reason, otherwise we would’ve run into them already. So that’s good.” Her eyes turned to the two islands to the west. “They’re probably from one or both of those islands, considering the boat landed on this shore. I don’t know about the south one. But I guess it’s a good thing that our camp is on the east side, so there’s less of a chance for them to find us by accident.”
“And what if they do find us?” Rarity asked. “What do we do then?”
“We’ll have to fight, I guess,” Rainbow said, shrugging. “I don’t plan on being made into fried pegasus wings without throwing a few punches and kicks. And once you get your magic back, then they can’t touch us!”
“I’m not sure about that, Rainbow. I’m not much of a fighter.”
Rainbow scoffed and chuckled. “Rares, don’t you remember the wedding at Canterlot? You totally busted some changeling skulls with me, there! Plus, you bucked a manticore in the face and then knocked Applejack into next week when she touched that big rock you were fantasizing about!”
Rarity’s cheeks turned bright red. “One more word out of you and I’ll beat your head into the sand.”
“See! Exactly what I’m talking about!” Smirking, Rainbow helped Rarity stand up. “And then when you get your magic back, you can mess them up that way! You don’t need any fancy spells to go deal with minotaurs! You can like, shoot them with horn lasers or just fling them really friggin’ far with your telekinesis! And then when my wing heals up, they won’t even be able to catch me! We’ll be unstoppable!”
White hooves kicked at the sand for a moment. “I suppose you make a fair point,” Rarity said. “But until such a day comes, and Celestia I pray that that day is never, we should do what we can to lie low. I don’t want to let them know we’re here if we can help it.”
“Yeah, fair point, Rares.” Rainbow shuffled her free wing and fiddled with the sling around her other. “Let’s try to not use fires during the day when they could see the smoke, and we’ll try to stay to the east half of the island. Though I do want to keep an eye on the south and west seas, in case we can get a glimpse of these minotaurs.” Shrugging, she added, “I want to know what we’re up against. Is it just a couple of them? Or, like, a whole army?”
Rarity looked over the hoofprints in the sand. “It only looks like there were a couple here last night. Maybe four?” Her gaze shifted toward the mound of sand over the pegasus bones. “Why would they come here to eat their… erm, meal, instead of on their home islands?”
Rainbow shrugged. “If I knew everything about the minotaurs, then I’d already know how to get off of this stinking place, I’m sure.” She started to walk back toward the center of the island. “Okay, so we’ve got a plan. Good. Now back to the same old, same old.”
“Yes, what next?” Rarity asked, trotting up alongside Rainbow. “You said last night that we should get an SOS signal set up. Any thoughts on that?”
“Well, this changes things a bit,” Rainbow said. Her eyes followed Chirp as he flitted through the trees, occasionally squawking and joining the chorus of birds around them. “I was thinking of making a big ‘SOS’ on the beach, but if there’s minotaurs in boats about, I don’t want them to see it. They’ll know that we’re here, and it’s not gonna do us all that much good if they find us before an airship does.”
Rarity nodded in agreement. “So what then? I don’t imagine us running and jumping around on the beach is going to do much for a passing airship many miles away.”
“A big bonfire, maybe,” Rainbow said.
“But I thought you said that we didn’t want to light fires in case the minotaurs were looking this way?”
“We won’t really have much of a choice,” Rainbow said. “The smoke from a fire would be noticeable to a passing airship, especially if it’s a big enough one. And if they notice a fire, then they’ll come closer and take a look. That’s how we get home.” She swallowed hard. “At least, I hope.”
Rarity bowed her head. “It’s all we can do, I suppose.” Sighing, she looked around as they made it back to their shelter, as if she expected something to have changed in the time that they were gone. “Well, if we’re going to make this bonfire, we’ll need a lot of wood. Shall we get on that?”
Rarity panted and wiped her brow. In front of her sat a pile of driftwood and palm fronds almost as tall as the tip of her horn. It was the product of an entire day’s work, an entire day of breaking fresh fronds off of palm trees and separating the driftwood they’d salvaged but couldn’t use from the more useful planks and boards. At least it hadn’t been all work and misery for the unicorn; she’d found a set of grooming combs and brushes inside of a suitcase they’d scavenged the other day, and she’d immediately put both to good use on working the tangles out of her mane and coat. Rainbow Dash even sat still long enough for Rarity to help groom her. Even the stunt flier had limits on how much messy mane she could tolerate, apparently.
Dinner was a simple meal of grass, fruit, and water. Though the grass was much blander than the fruit, it would help them conserve their fruit rations for the time being. Though the south hill was covered in fruiting plants, the grass grew back much faster than the plants could bear new fruit. Even though neither wanted to admit it, they were both starting to think long-term. As much as they wanted to believe otherwise, they knew that rescue was hardly a guarantee, and now with predatory minotaurs roaming the nearby islands, they had to be ready to take what they could and run into hiding if they were ever discovered.
To that end, after dinner, they found themselves sitting in front of their shelter, moving fruit between the baskets. They used the largest one they had and filled it to the brim with equal parts sugar apples and star apples. When they were finished, they had enough fruit stored away to last them a couple days of hiding somewhere in the jungle.
Rainbow looked at the basket and sighed. “Now if only we had some way to carry water with us.”
Rarity nodded, her eyes slipping to the big pot just inside their shelter. While it was great for holding a lot of water and getting it cleaned and boiled, it wasn’t exactly the most portable solution when it was full. And as far as they knew, the pond in the center of the island was the only source of fresh water apart from the rains. If they were to be driven away from that source by something, then they’d die from dehydration in a few days.
…Then again if there was something bad enough to force them to flee their shelter for a few days, they were likely going to die anyway. Or worse.
“Say, Rainbow,” Rarity asked. “What do you think happened to that ‘Captain Squall’ pirate and her crew? Do you think they survived the storm?”
Rainbow shrugged. “They were using a big freighter as their ship instead of a cruise liner like we were. It probably had a lot sturdier construction, depending on how well those pirates maintained it. But if they flew into the eye of a Cat Three, then they’d be just as screwed as we were.”
“You have a point, but for the sake of discussion, let’s assume the worst.”
“Is the worst, like, them dying, or them living?”
Rarity blinked. “Erm… worst for us, darling. Them surviving the storm. They could be out here somewhere, wondering what happened to the biggest ransom they so ever briefly held in their hooves.” She leaned in closer. “These islands were on the way to wherever they had their secret pirate hideaway, Rainbow. They could be looking for us!”
“Is that really so bad, though?” Rainbow asked. “I mean, yeah, those pirates are a bunch of sucky losers, but they want to ransom us back to Equestria! They aren’t gonna hurt us, they want us in one piece because we’re really valuable.”
“So we hope,” Rarity said.
“That’s, like, totally what Squall told us when they first captured us, though.”
“That was before the storm came through and destroyed the Concordia and probably killed a number of her crew.” Rarity tilted her head toward the sky, where she imagined a menacing freighter puttering its way across the sky. “I just don’t know, Rainbow. If Squall gets her hooves on us again, there’s no guarantee she’ll be pleasant.”
Rainbow was quiet for a while—at least until she stood up and kicked at the sand in frustration. “This sucks!” she yelled, stomping around their home clearing. “We’re in the middle of Celestia knows where and we can’t just simply call for help because there are minotaurs who’ll eat us to the west and a crazy pirate bitch to the south! Friggin’ frig, this makes me want to pull my feathers out!”
“Rainbow, please,” Rarity stood up and put her hooves on her friend’s shoulders. “We’ll… we’ll do it somehow, okay? Help will come, and we’ll get out of here. It’s only a matter of time.”
Rainbow fell to her haunches, her wingtips poking through the sand. “I don’t know how much time we have though, Rares. I’m worried that something nasty is gonna get us first. Sure, we know how to survive and find food and all that—we’ve done it all already—but minotaurs and pirates? If we’re not ready, those could be the end of us. Then it doesn’t matter if help ever flies this way, because we aren’t gonna be around to get it.”
“Then we should prepare,” Rarity said. “We have sticks and knives. We can make weapons to defend ourselves if we have to. My magic will be coming back soon, but we can’t rely on that to deal with all our problems. I’m no Twilight or Starlight, I’m a seamstress. Fighting isn’t my forte, but you were right.” She smirked and tossed her sandy mane. “I can put up a hell of a fight when I need to!”
“Heh, that you can.” Standing up, Rainbow shook some of the sand out of her feathers. “Okay, let’s do that, then. The Wonderbolts might not have participated in combat for a long time, but they’re still a military branch. I still had basic training, so I know a little bit about fighting like Equestria’s finest.” Her head turned toward the pile of driftwood, now mostly sorted and scattered about their camp. “We’ll need to find two good sticks we can use to practice with. Preferably something sword or spear shaped.” Once more, Rainbow’s devilish grin took over her muzzle. “I’m gonna show you why us pegasi are proud of our warrior heritage!”
Rarity stared at the stick lying on the sand. It was about three feet long and maybe two inches in diameter, with one end wrapped in cloth. Across from her, Rainbow held hers in her mouth, though she buried the tip in the ground and spat it out with an annoyed grumble. “Well until you get your magic back, Rares, you’re gonna have to hold it in your mouth.” Her eyes flicked to the cloth-wrapped end and she snickered. “And now you covered the hilt in sand. Good luck getting that off your tongue!”
“This is preposterous,” Rarity huffed, picking the stick up with her hooves and trying to brush as much sand off of the cloth as she could. “Why are we sparring with makeshift swords of all things? Why not hooves and horn? I certainly don’t have the neck strength to swing a sword with any amount of force, particularly when it’s merely a blunt club held between my teeth. And I have no intention of undoing the years of corrective dentistry I went through as a teenager by swinging a club with my mouth.”
“Cuz usually, fighting with a sword is safer and more versatile than just bucking things.” She waited until Rarity groaned and picked up the sword again, gagging as she felt sand touch her tongue. “Besides, you already have the hoof stuff covered. After seeing you fight, I don’t think you need my help with that.”
Rarity grumbled and tried to mutter something, but the stick and cloth in her mouth might as well have been a gag; she couldn’t form anything articulate with her voice. Rainbow tried to hide a giggle and walked over to the nearest tree, dragging her sword along with her. “Alright, I’m gonna show you some basic swings and stuff, and then just try to do what I do. But first, stance.” She chuckled and added to herself, “I feel like my gym teacher back in fifth grade when we learned some basic stuff. Uh, Cloudsdale was Commander Hurricane’s home for a long time, so we remember our heritage,” she clarified when Rarity raised a brow. “We all learn a little about sword fighting when we’re young.”
With her sword resting against the tree, she looked Rarity over. “Spread your legs a little bit and try to hold the sword perfectly level. Left or right side doesn’t matter, though we usually hold it to the right so we can put more power into the swing by swinging right to left, since most ponies are right-hoofed and all that…”
White hooves shifted through the sand as Rarity tried to do as Rainbow told her. The ‘sword’ felt alien and heavy in her mouth, and she really wanted to spit the thing out and wipe down her tongue, but she knew that she’d only end up getting more sand on it if she tried. Rainbow helped her with the final points of her stance using her hooves, showing her to keep her left front hoof extended a bit so she could leverage the sword better by stepping into it as she swung from right to left. “Don’t hold it too tight in your teeth, either,” Rainbow said, pressing on the exposed end a bit to illustrate her point. “If your sword gets hit too hard, you want to be able to drop it instead of it breaking your teeth. It’s better to be disarmed for a moment than to break the teeth around your bars and not be able to wield anything at all.”
Rarity wordlessly nodded and slackened her jaw a little bit, letting the sword rest in the gap between her molars as comfortably as she could. When Rainbow pushed on it again, it had a little give but Rarity could still keep it locked in her mouth. “Good.” Then, turning to the tree, she pointed to the bark. “Watch what I do, and when I’m done, try to repeat it.”
The pegasus snatched her dummy sword between her teeth and stood in front of the tree, naturally slipping into her battle stance. After a second to shake off the rust, she struck at the tree in slow, precise motions. Rarity watched the way her body moved, from the way she stepped into her hooves and recoiled from the strikes, to how her shoulders rolled and neck bent as she threw her weight into the blow, to the lithe and firm muscles rippling under her sandy coat, starting at her neck and all the way back to her taut, sharp flanks—
“See? Easy,” Rainbow said, burying her sword in the sand once more. “Now you try.”
Rarity snapped back to reality. “Oh, ah…” was all she could manage around the sword in her mouth, though to be fair, she wasn’t trying to say anything articulate in the first place.
Rainbow’s eyebrow rose. “You were watching, right, Rares?”
“Mmhmm,” she said with a hasty nod. To be fair, she was watching, though maybe not exactly what Rainbow had meant. Stepping up to the tree, she fidgeted with her grip on the sword and took her first swing. She shied back from the impact, but even through that hesitation she felt the sword jump in her mouth and the shockwave travel down her neck. For some reason it had been more violent than she’d expected, but maybe that was just all in her mind. It was supposed to represent a weapon after all, even if it hardly looked like it. Maybe that’s what made it worse.
Beating up a defenseless tree took nearly an hour as Rainbow tried to drill the basic strokes and swings into Rarity. Occasionally, she’d have to stop and work something out herself that she’d forgotten from her classes long ago. Often she’d bring up anecdotes about the motions she put Rarity through, explaining what they were for and why they were used. She’d share stories about drilling with the other Wonderbolts, like how Soarin’ once sprained a wing in a bout with Blaze, or how Fleetfoot was really into sparring and had been a scout sent to investigate the ruins of the old royal palace in Everfree the year before Nightmare Moon returned. She hadn’t been able to locate the Elements of Harmony like she was supposed to, but both Rainbow and Rarity agreed that it’d turned out for the best. They needed the Elements right where they were when Luna returned the following year.
“Alright, that’s good enough for now,” Rainbow said as Rarity’s splintered stick cracked after the last blow against the tree. Above them, Chirp squawked and craned his neck at the loud crack; the macaw had been doing his own thing for much of the day, but with dusk approaching, he’d returned to their camp to roost for the night. Rarity spat out the broken stick and tried to shake her sweaty mane out of her face while Rainbow brushed her shoulder. “I was hoping to get a little practice fighting in but I guess that’s not happening now, is it?”
“I suppose not,” Rarity agreed, shuffling sand between her hooves. Her jaw ached and she knew her neck was going to be unbelievably sore in the morning; sleeping on a bed of moss and palm fronds certainly hadn’t helped her delicate spine since washing up here, and this was certainly going to make it worse. How she missed the pampering and care of the Concordia’s spa, even if she’d only had the opportunity to visit it once.
“Sore,” Rarity grumbled. “I feel like that tree did more to me than I to it.”
“That’s training for you!” Rainbow teased, nuzzling Rarity’s sweaty cheek. “That’s how you know you learned something.”
“Twilight would be so proud, I’m sure,” Rarity said. She took a step back toward the shelter, where their food and water waited for them, and immediately winced. “Ouch! What I wouldn’t give to get a massage right now!” Her eyes flicked over her shoulder in hopeful anticipation of Rainbow’s response.
Unfortunately, Rainbow’s thoughts went somewhere else. “Too bad that cool massager didn’t make it…”
“Yes, well…” Rarity drew herself up and took a breath. “If we think of everypony that died in the storm, then I don’t think our minds will ever rest easy. As callous as it may sound, we should forget them.” She swallowed hard. “It’ll make it easier for us to live with ourselves, that’s for sure,” she added in a low voice.
Chirp squawked from the tree, but Rainbow was silent.
“You don’t like that idea, do you?” Rarity asked. She knew the question was unnecessary but she asked it anyway.
“We never really did a memorial for them,” Rainbow said. “We just said a few stupid words when we buried Jetstream.”
“Then let’s do it,” Rarity said, pushing aside her thoughts of sore muscles and aching joints. Rainbow needed this, she could tell, and it might be therapeutic for her as well. Trying to tease a massage out of her could wait. “Let’s gather some wood we can burn for a small fire. It’s getting dark, and soon it’ll be too dark for any minotaurs to see the smoke. That’ll be a good time to do it.” She nuzzled Rainbow’s shoulder, bringing her friend back from her absentminded thoughts. “Does that sound good, darling?”
Rainbow nodded. “As good as we can make it,” she said. “I just hope we can do them right.”
“Me too,” Rarity murmured, watching Rainbow shuffle over to their pile of salvage. “Me too.”
Luna’s moon hung low in the sky like an enormous, glistening pearl. The bottom rested almost perfectly on the shifting ocean water, a shimmering ivory foot that touched the shoreline of the sandy island. Millions of stars danced in the sky, flickering and sparkling in the black void of the night.
Rainbow and Rarity stood at the eastern shore of the island, staring at the moon. Between them stood a small pile of wooden scraps and rubbish, supplemented by leaves and moss; basically, whatever they could afford to burn. The crashing waves of the tide roared and rolled up the sand, up to their hooves—and stopped.
Rainbow took out her makeshift fire starter and set to work on creating a spark. She’d gotten better at it—it only took a few strikes for her to form a coal, and she carefully nestled it in some dried moss and palm bark to grow. In a couple of minutes, she’d raised a bright and crackling fire, like a small beacon of hope between the two shipwrecked outcasts.
At some unspoken signal, the two ponies stood up and picked up the fire, which rested on a large cutting board swollen with seawater. They held handles they’d jammed into the board earlier in the day in their mouths, and wincing at the heat scalding the sides of their faces, the two set off into the water. The waves washed around their fetlocks, crashed against their knees, and surged up to their shoulders before they finally advanced beyond the breaking point. With only their necks and heads still above the water, they set the memorial fire down on the waves, where it floated and bobbed for a few seconds before the current began to draw it back out to sea.
The pair of friends waded back to the shoreline, shivering as waves broke over their backs in the cool night air. They huddled side by side in the sand, watching the light that they’d lit drift further out into the darkness. They didn’t know how long the flame would last, how long it’d take for an errant swell to topple it into the sea. They didn’t know if anypony or anything else would see it as it embarked on its journey across the waters, or if they would be the only ones. But did it matter? Neither seemed inclined to think so.
“Do you want to say anything?” Rarity asked, breaking the silence that’d lasted between them since the birds settled down for the night.
“Do you?” Rainbow asked back.
Rarity shook her head. “I never have words to say for things like this. I don’t ever feel like anything I say would be the right thing to say.”
Rainbow shrugged. “That’s about how I feel,” she admitted. “You know me, I’m not one for words. I’m surprised you aren’t, though.”
A somber chuckle from the ivory unicorn. “Frivolous gossip and touching eulogies are two very different realms, Rainbow. I’m only experienced in the former, I’m afraid.” Sighing, she added, “Still, I guess I should at least say that I’m… I’m sorry that you’re all gone, fellow ponies of the Concordia. If there was anything I could’ve done to save you, then I would’ve done it. Now, I can only remember.” She swallowed. “I suppose that’ll have to suffice.”
Rainbow bowed her head; Rarity knew that her brash friend was collecting her thoughts. “I don’t regret getting on this flight,” Rainbow began. “I didn’t meet all that many of you, but I’m sure you all were awesome. Those of you I did meet, yeah, you were awesome. If only I could’ve shown some of my awesomeness back to you. Hell, if I’d managed to save one of you, then I wouldn’t feel as bad as I do right now.”
Rarity wanted to hug her friend, to tell her once more that none of this was her fault and that she’d be alright, but she stopped herself. This was Rainbow’s time to vent, and she needed it. The Element of Loyalty had to unburden herself of her perceived betrayals and slights. Hopefully once she did that, she’d stop blaming herself. Rarity couldn’t stand to see Rainbow in pain like that.
“Maybe some of you survived and are hiding on those islands out there,” she said after a moment’s pause. “If you are, stay safe from the minotaurs. If not… then I guess you’re in a better place. An awesomer place. And Rares and I will stay here, and we’ll survive, so that we can tell somepony what happened. Your families deserve to know.”
Her nostrils flared as she raised her head into the moonlight. The gentle rays of Luna’s moon gave Rainbow’s sandy coat a certain luster; for a moment, Rarity thought her friend was made of pure silver, but that vision vanished after a blink. “I know we couldn’t, didn’t help you… but if all of you could help us right now, we’d appreciate it. We need it more than anything.”
Her tail swished in the sand, somehow resolute but listless at the same time. When she didn’t say anything more, Rarity slid over and pressed her damp coat against Rainbow’s. “Much better than mine,” she lightly teased. “Maybe you should get a career in public speaking.”
Rainbow snickered, and her good wing slid out from between their sides to wrap around Rarity’s shoulders. Rarity felt Rainbow’s blue feathers tighten around her, pulling her closer against Rainbow’s side. Even damp and still dripping a little water, Rainbow’s downy pegasus coat was soft and warm against Rarity’s sodden unicorn one.
Their chests rose and fell in unison, and Rarity found herself resting her head on Rainbow’s shoulder. Together, they watched the little flame dance and bob on the ocean, a feeble beacon, a fragile memory, in honor of those who slipped beneath the waves, never to return again.
Rainbow Dash sat with her back to a palm tree, forehooves behind her head. She’d made a sort of makeshift seat for herself in the soft sand at the edge of the tree line, safely nestled under the shade of the palms. She was supposed to be keeping her eyes set on the northern horizon, alert for any puffs of black smoke in the big blue empty of the sky, but her attention kept wandering to the sand and surf around her. The ocean was like one big, blue, roughened sapphire, the white sands like opals. She snorted to herself—Rarity’s colorful terminology was rubbing off on her.
But it wasn’t merely the boredom of staring at the sky for several hours that was causing Rainbow’s attention to wander; it was also the heat. Rainbow had known as soon as she’d woken up that today was going to be the hottest since her and Rarity washed up on the island. By noon, she was drenched head to hoof in sweat, and even venturing out into the sunlight for a minute left her panting. She could feel ultraviolet rays from the sun forcing their way through her coat and scalding her hide below, so she knew that limiting her exposure to the sun wasn’t only for the sake of her own comfort, but for her health as well. The last thing she needed to be on top of hot and sweaty was horribly sunburnt beneath her coat.
She envied Rarity for a moment, but only for a moment. Though Rarity didn’t have to sit on the beach and stare at the sky all day, and somehow keep herself awake through all of it, she’d gone to collect some more water and fruit to add to their provisions. Really, Rainbow would’ve been happier to do it the other way around, but Rarity had insisted that Rainbow’s sharp pegasus eyesight would be put to better use looking for airships coming from the north. And while Rainbow would normally enjoy just being lazy all day, the heat and humidity were making that hard, and she couldn’t even take a nap to pass the time. Not like she really could with the weather, though.
Also the flies. She felt like their attacks were getting worse the longer her and Rarity stayed on the island. An entire new generation of the monstrosities was being raised purely on pony flesh, she was certain of it.
Something gray and small moved out of the corner of her eye, and she perked up her ears and tried to spot the source. After a few seconds, the gray lump scuttled again, and Rainbow recognized a small crab scurrying along the waterline. Licking her lips, she stood up and stalked down from the sand, her eyes fixated on the little sand crab as it burrowed itself back beneath the waves. It must’ve been trying to reposition itself with the changing tides, though it’d chosen a poor time to do so. Rainbow stood over the spot where she saw the crab disappear, just inside the swash zone of the surf, and shoveled some sand out of the way with her hoof. As soon as she saw the gray body surface and try to get away, she snatched it between her teeth and chewed it up. The crab was crunchy and salty—just as she remembered them tasting. Really, it’d been too long since she’d gone crabbing along the coast. The little creatures were great snacks.
Rainbow almost felt like a shudder of ecstasy ran through her body. She’d only eaten the same three things for the past few days: grass, star apples, and sugar apples. The crunchy, salty taste of the crab was so much different from the sweet and tart flavor of the apples or the cool, muted flavors of grass. Her mouth watered at the thought of more, and she completely abandoned her job after a quick glance to the sky. Airships weren’t all that fast, and she had plenty of time to go crabbing before the next ghost ship could possibly wander into sight of the island. Without a second thought, she started wandering along the shore, eyes trained on the swash for any movement.
She found two more crabs without much difficulty; the beach was practically full of them. The tides were changing, and that meant the crabs were moving, which made Rainbow’s job much easier. She just had to watch for gray bodies scurrying to lower waters, then digging up the sand in the lulls between surges. Some of the crabs were pretty fat and juicy; with all the fruit just inside the island, the gulls probably didn’t prey on them as much as she would’ve imagined. Rainbow didn’t mind; more for her.
A vision of white moved just at the edge of her sight, and Rainbow looked up to see Rarity approaching. Without her usual mask of makeup, Rainbow noticed that Rarity’s face looked decidedly plain, but the contours were all there. And on top of that, the unicorn’s royal purple mane was plastered to her face and neck in sweaty tatters, and no matter how hard she tried, Rarity couldn’t get all of it off of her coat by shaking her head. The sweat made her face glisten in the sun like a light all its own, and her fluttering eyelashes still managed to capture the mare’s charm and confidence, even if the fakes had fallen off long ago.
Rainbow’s wings fidgeted at her sides, but she forced them to stay still.
“Rainbow, darling, what are you doing?” Rarity asked, moving within earshot of her friend. “Your muzzle is all covered in sand!”
Rainbow’s tongue darted to the blue hair lining her muzzle like it didn’t believe Rarity; a salty, gritty taste a moment later confirmed that she was telling the truth. After a brief shudder, Rainbow shrugged her wings. “Crabbing,” she said. “You wanna help?”
“Crabbing?” Rarity echoed with some measure of disgust. “You’re eating crabs?”
“Pegasi love seafood!” Rainbow protested. “It’s super high in protein and energy! We need it since we’re flying all the time, and the oils help our feathers grow! We’ve been eating seafood since long before Commander Hurricane’s time, and it’s not like fish or crabs have hooves like us.” She pawed at the ground, uncovering a burrowing sand crab, and ate it right then and there to prove her point. “You should try it! They’re like, salty, crunchy candies or something. Not as good as fresh fish, but they’re great snack stuff.”
Rarity pressed a hoof to her lips; whether she was actually trying to suppress a gag or merely doing it for the effect, Rainbow couldn’t tell. “I’ll pass, Rainbow. Even as necessity presses down around us, I refuse to stoop to such barbarism as hunting and killing our food!”
Rainbow’s eyes were rolling even before she could think to stop them. “C’mon, Rares, don’t be such a sissy. They’re just stupid crabs. I’ve had, like, four or something and they haven’t complained too loudly!”
“I’m sure they were, you just don’t speak crabanese.”
Rainbow’s blue hoof found another one, and she flipped it up the beach to Rarity. “Come on! Just one! You can step on it first if you’re afraid it’ll try to pinch you or something, but they don’t even have claws.”
Blue eyes dropped to the little creature scuttling through the sand back to the safety of the water. Swallowing hard, Rarity raised her hoof. “If Fluttershy learns of this and stops speaking with me, it’ll forever be on your head, Rainbow.”
“Relax, Flutters kills fish and mice to feed to her bears and snakes on a daily basis. She’s probably the most bloodthirsty out of all of us.”
Swallowing hard, Rarity drove her hoof down on the pitiable little creature, then plucked it off the ground and tried to chew and swallow it before she could stop herself and think about what she was doing. Rainbow watched as her friend’s face contorted, and she struggled to fight a rising urge to laugh throughout the whole ordeal. When Rarity finally swallowed, the unicorn stuck her tongue out, shuddered, and grimaced as she sank to her knees. “Mmmrfff,” she moaned, pressing a hoof to her lips. “That was dreadful!”
“How’d it taste?”
“Like I’m going to be sick!” Rarity rolled onto her side, clutching at her stomach. “It was so… salty! And it crunched! Celestia, I felt it twitch!”
Rainbow finally broke down laughing. “Wow, I didn’t think you’d actually do it! This is amazing! Hahaha!”
A wave of sand went flying in her direction as Rarity stood up. “I can’t believe you made me do this,” she grumbled. “I feel like a whole bucket of water isn’t going to get the taste out of my mouth!”
Slowly, Rainbow’s laughter subsided. “Sorry, Rares, but that was too good an opportunity to pass up.” She trotted over to Rarity and patted the unicorn’s back. “How about we go back to the shelter and get you something to eat. One of those star apple things should really get the taste out of your mouth.”
“And the sand,” Rarity muttered. “How do you even eat them without washing them first?”
“I’m not a foal, that’s how,” Rainbow said, perhaps a little too proudly for a mare in her twenties. “A little sand doesn’t hurt anypony.”
“Yes, but a hoof to the back of the head might.”
“A hoof to the back of—ow! Rarity!”
Rarity smirked and strutted a few paces ahead of Rainbow. “How about we break for lunch, darling, and we’ll figure out where to go from there. The way I see it, you owe me one, and I intend on cashing in.”
Rainbow rubbed the sore spot on the back of her head and caught up to Rarity. “Alright, sure, fine. What do you want?” Chuckling, she added, “Thank Celestia your wardrobe didn’t crash with us so I don’t have to try on any stupid dresses.”
“No ‘stupid dresses’, but my back is horribly out of order from all this mayhem we’ve suffered through over the past few days,” Rarity said. Smiling at Rainbow, she brushed her side against her friend’s. “You think you can pass for something resembling a masseuse with at least two functioning brain cells?”
The first thing Rarity did when she and Rainbow made it back to their shelter was eat several cloves of a sugar apple and chase it with nearly a bucket of water. She honestly couldn’t fathom how Rainbow thought eating crabs was okay, and not only acceptable, but tasty as well! But as Rainbow had told her, it was a pegasus thing, and Rarity, being a unicorn, was entirely unfamiliar with it. She idly wondered whether Fluttershy had likewise ever partaken in such crustacean carnivory.
Once she’d gotten the taste out of her mouth (if not the memory of the sensation, utterly horrifying and alien to her), she trotted inside their shelter, motioning with a flick of her tail for Rainbow to follow. Rainbow did just that, eying Rarity with mute interest as the unicorn flopped down on her bed of fronds and mosses and rested her chin on crossed hooves. “Well?” she asked, watching Rainbow expectantly. “Are we going to get started?”
Rainbow might have had a groan or something to say, but she bit it back and moved toward Rarity. She had gotten the unicorn to eat a sand crab, so it was only fair that she pay her back. She straddled Rarity, maybe a little bit uncomfortable by the compromising position, and put her hooves on the mare’s shoulders. “I have no idea what I’m doing, Rares.”
“It’s really not that difficult,” Rarity insisted. “Haven’t you had massages before? I thought the Wonderbolts would have masseuses on staff before and after their shows to tend to their sore fliers.”
“You remember the spa, don’t you?” Rainbow asked. “It wasn’t really my thing. I don’t like ponies touching my wings.”
“Such a foal,” Rarity said with a derisive snort. “Start at my neck and simply move your hooves in slow, regular circles. Do remember to apply some pressure, darling; just because I may look like a porcelain doll, I will not break as easily as one.”
Shrugging, Rainbow set her hooves to work. As she worked on Rarity’s neck, she could feel the taut muscles lying beneath her pearly coat. Her hooves slowly caused them to relax, and she flinched when one of the muscles suddenly gave way and seemingly melted, eliciting a happy sigh from her friend. “If I hadn’t seen you play tennis, Rares, I’d be impressed,” she said. “You’ve got that varsity athlete build on you.”
“Then my exercise regimen has been paying off,” Rarity happily cooed. “Dieting is good for keeping the fat off of your frame, but exercise tightens the skin and fills in the space with muscle. It gives you a sleek but firm form and fills in your curves stunningly.”
“I’ll say,” Rainbow murmured under her breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing!” Rainbow jammed her hooves a little harder into the space between Rarity’s shoulder blades, and the fashionista flinched and squeaked. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to do that.”
Rarity relaxed again and focused on her breathing exercising. “No, no, darling, I’m quite alright. I’m tough enough to withstand a little punishment. Please, keep at it.”
“If you say so,” Rainbow said, shifting further down Rarity’s back. Her hooves pressed on a sore spot, and Rarity’s spine cracked under the pressure. Rarity moaned and her eyes fluttered while Rainbow just did her best to keep herself professional. Lower and lower her hooves worked, until they got to the outwards bulge of Rarity’s hips. There, Rainbow hesitated, unsure of how far to go.
“Why did you stop?” Rarity asked, all but answering that question for her. “You’ve been doing splendidly, darling, but I would appreciate some attention around the base of my tail.”
“Why you gotta say it like that, Rares…” Rainbow muttered. Swallowing hard, she allowed her hooves to drift the final few inches into terrain she’d never dared to cross.
As much as Rarity tried to keep her form svelte and lean, she knew precisely which contours to emphasize and exaggerate. The effect was subtle at a glance, but Rainbow found herself well past ‘a glance’. Rarity, for her part, merely hummed and smiled, oblivious to the growing fluster on Rainbow’s face.
When it was finally over, Rainbow withdrew her hooves like she’d been burying them in the hot coals of a fire. Rarity trilled and stretched, her neck popping a few times as she worked her head left and right. “My, you’re good at this,” she praised, forcing herself to rest on her flank, supported by one hoof in the sand. She noticed the breakout of red on Rainbow’s face, and she raised an eyebrow even as the corner of her muzzle tweaked upwards in amusement. “Why, Rainbow, what’s wrong? You seem quite beside yourself.”
Rainbow looked at her hooves, then at Rarity’s cutie mark, and then finally at Rarity herself. “I did not expect when I crash landed here that I’d be feeling up your butt, Rares.”
“Please, Rainbow, that was hardly ‘feeling up’ my butt, that was merely one friend giving another a much-needed massage.” She blinked twice, looking sweet and innocent, fully knowing and enjoying the discomfort she was causing Rainbow. “Are you perhaps implying that I need to lose weight?”
“No!” Rainbow protested, immediately trying to backpedal away from that notion as fast as she possibly could. She could smell the horrors such a dangerous road led to from miles away. “Your butt is great! Perfect! There’s never been a butt as awesome as yours!”
Rarity put a hoof to her lips to smother the ladylike giggle trying to escape. She was, perhaps, taking too much pleasure from this, but she couldn’t help it that Rainbow got so cute when trying to deal with a proper lady like herself. A part of her wanted to push the teasing further, but she finally reined it in; it wouldn’t be kind to toy with her friend like that. Even if she liked to imagine she was quite striking with her sweat-slicked mane and fringes of sand lining her muzzle from her crabbing earlier in the day.
But here she had to admit that her refined grace didn’t have anything on Rainbow’s rough-and-tumble look out here in the wilderness. Even removed from civilization and merely struggling to survive, Rainbow had an innate athletic beauty that Rarity found herself admiring. Here, Rainbow looked completely in her element, in the excitement of the wild. Rarity, by contrast… well, Celestia only knew how awful she looked, but it was likely nowhere near as stunning as Rainbow.
Rainbow was still fidgeting awkwardly in the sand, trying to right the derailed train in her mind and lead the conversation away from Rarity’s body. Rarity decided to offer her a lifeline and finally stood up. “Do you perhaps want to go to the lagoon, Rainbow?” she asked. “It’s a wonderful day for it. It’s much too hot to even lie in the shade; the shallow water will do us good.”
Rainbow happily took the opportunity to change the subject. “Yeah, that sounds pretty good. I can at least listen for airships. Maybe later we can go scale the east ridge and see what we can see from there; it’s taller than the hill we got the fruit from, so who knows how much we’d be able to see?”
“I certainly wouldn’t know,” Rarity said, following Rainbow out of the tent. “But I suppose there’s only one way to find out!”
Once more, the natural beauty of the lagoon astonished Rarity as she and Rainbow emerged from the trees. Instead of climbing up the south hill and back down, they’d skirted around the eastern shoreline, taking in a little bit more of their island. Rarity found it amusing that for however many days they’d been stuck there, they still hadn’t done a full walk around the perimeter. It would hardly take more than an hour, maybe two, she reckoned. It wasn’t terribly big; maybe a couple of miles across at its widest.
Of course, the unexplored didn’t necessarily mean untapped potential. Most of the eastern shore was just more of the same: white sands and palm trees on a gentle, curving beach. At least it was peaceful, and though she’d kept a wary eye trained over the waters for minotaurs, she’d felt much safer than if they had been walking along the west side.
Once more, Chirp had come out of the trees to join them, though the macaw seemed disappointed that the two ponies weren’t climbing the southern hill to get at the fruit. Still, the bird had decided to use Rarity as its perch this time, and after a wonderful (if rough) massage Rainbow had given her, the bird’s talons felt like a lovely dose of acupuncture. Between Chirp and Rainbow, Rarity felt like she had all she needed to run a basic spa when she needed it.
Rainbow wasted no time galloping into the water, leaving Rarity and Chirp at the edge of the gently lapping shore. As soon as it was deep enough to splash around it, Rainbow flung herself into the crystal water, drenching herself from head to hoof. She emerged with a prismatic splash, shaking droplets of glassy liquid everywhere and ruffling her good wing. “I needed that!” she exclaimed, falling to her knees and letting the water slide over her shoulders. “It’s too friggin’ hot! Celestia needs to turn off the sun for a couple of minutes!”
“If only we could tell her,” Rarity mused, stepping into the water after Rainbow. Chirp let out an annoyed squawk and fluttered back to a crooked palm tree hanging out over the edge of the lagoon, beady eyes watching Rarity as she made her way over to Rainbow. In the smothering heat of the day, the surf felt like ice on her coat. It was warm, yes, being in the shallows, but the deep well of the ocean just outside of the lagoon made sure that it didn’t get too hot. It was the perfect temperature, and once at Rainbow’s side, Rarity followed her example and sunk her shoulders below the tiny waves.
“We could’ve picked a worse island to wash up on,” Rainbow said, lowering her head until her chin just barely rested in the water. “I think we’re pretty lucky.”
“I suppose the fates have to reward us in some way for everything we’ve been through,” Rarity said. “If we were truly lucky, then I don’t think we’d be here, darling.”
Rainbow shrugged. “True enough, I guess. But I mean, we could’ve ended up with the minotaurs, or just in the middle of the ocean with no land around. We’d be screwed either way.”
“A fair point.” Rarity dipped her head under the water. The salt that’d built up on her ears and across her face dissolved, if only for a moment; she knew it’d be back as soon as the water coating her face evaporated. Below the surface, the world was quiet and peaceful. If only she was a seapony, then she could go anywhere and not have to worry about being limited to a tiny chunk of sandy land only a few square miles in total.
When she broke the surface again for air, she found Rainbow looking at her. “Feels good, right?”
“I’m just glad I discovered it,” Rarity said. “It’s the perfect remedy for a day like this one.”
“Yeah.” Rainbow’s eyes drifted toward the eastern ridge at the mouth of the lagoon. “I’m cooled off enough to go hiking. Want to come with?”
“May as well,” Rarity said. “There’s always the water to come back to. If I lie here any longer, my legs may turn to jelly!”
“Or marshmallows,” Rainbow teased, poking her hoof into Rarity’s soft cheek. “I didn’t think it was good for little mallows to be in the water like you are.”
A deep-set frown unfolded over Rarity’s muzzle. “I am not a marshmallow,” she protested, holding her frown despite Rainbow’s hooves playing with her cheeks.
“Heehee… Of course you aren’t, Rares.” She let go of Rarity’s cheeks and stood up, shaking the water out of her wing and coat. “Ready?”
Rarity followed suit, and soon the two of them were marching across the lagoon toward the eastern ridge. They kept their hooves in the water, enjoying the slightly cooler air hovering around the lagoon while the stifling sun beat down on them from above. Though they both regularly glanced toward the north, they didn’t see or hear anything resembling an airship. Rarity idly wondered just how long it’d be before one made its way this far south.
Rainbow stopped at the base of the ridge. Lots of craggy and fractured rocks made up the ridge, and grasses grew out of the cracks where sand and dirt had accumulated over time. It also jutted out a bit over the lagoon, providing some shade along the water. More battered rocks poked out of the shallow sands beneath the ridge, where Rarity could see several spiky black and purple balls just beneath the surface.
“Sea urchins!” Rarity exclaimed, splashing through the water to take a closer look. She was exceedingly careful with where she placed her hooves; the last thing she wanted to do was step on one and get a nasty prick to the frog of her hoof. Most of the urchins had a body only two or three inches in diameter, but their spines were often much longer than the width of their bodies. Who knew that such little spiky creatures had chosen the sheltered cove of the lagoon to make their home?
“Huh. Neat,” was all Rainbow said, giving them a quick look. Then she set her eyes on the ridge above her. “Been awhile since I’ve done some climbing. This will be fun!”
Rarity stood back and let Rainbow work herself into position. “You go find the easiest way up, darling, and I’ll follow.” She smirked when Rainbow rolled her eyes. “This ‘marshmallow’ is far too soft to do the hard work of trial and error up this treacherous slope.”
“Lame,” Rainbow groaned. She found a few hoofholds and started off, carefully scaling the craggy wall. “I hope you’re watching me.”
“Oh, I am, darling,” Rarity assured her, sitting down in the water a safe distance from both the ridge and the urchins. “Show those rocks who’s the boss… while I sit in the cool water, safe from both the sun and the flies.”
“Meh,” Rainbow grumbled, continuing her climb. Despite her teasing, Rarity watched her friend carefully scale the ridge with keen interest. Rainbow seemed like she knew what she was doing; she placed every hoof with care and only moved after testing the rocks to make sure they wouldn’t slip or roll. Over the next ten minutes, she made great progress, almost making it to the top.
Then one of the rocks shattered under her hoof.
Rarity gasped as Rainbow scrambled for purchase on the rock face, barely managing to hold on with three hooves anchored in precarious positions. Her wing opened and fluttered, trying to provide enough lift to secure her position. “Rainbow!” Rarity exclaimed, standing up and splashing through the water back toward the ridge. She flinched and yelped in pain when she felt something pierce the bottom of her hoof, nearly causing her to fall over. Instead, she sat back down on the sand, holding up her right front hoof and noting the tip of a black spine sticking out of it. About two inches of spine protruded from the bottom of her hoof, and Rarity noted a little bit of her own blood running through the hollow spine and out the bottom after a few seconds. Needing little more motivation than that, she carefully grasped the spine in her teeth and gave it a few gentle tugs. A horribly bitter taste settled over her tongue, at odds with the salty taste of seawater she expected, but she managed to remove the spine without breaking it under her skin.
Then water splashed over her and, startled, she looked to her right. Rainbow broke the surface with a cough and a sharp cry of pain; it wasn’t too hard to see why, with the numerous long, black spines sticking out of her flank and side. Rarity wasted no time in helping her friend get out of the rocks, this time being more careful to avoid the urchins lurking beneath the water.
They immediately sat down on the closest bit of dry sand they could find. “Goodness, Rainbow, are you alright?” Rarity asked, ignoring the spines for now in favor of checking Rainbow for any other wounds. Spines could be dealt with easily; broken bones, not so much.
“Stupid fucking rocks!” Rainbow swore, writhing in pain from the spines in her side. “They gave out on me and—agh! Get them out! They burn!”
If Rainbow had been hurt worse than getting pricked by sea urchins, Rarity was confident that her friend would’ve been more concerned about that than the spines. Moving to Rainbow’s left, she carefully began pulling the spines out, one by one. Rainbow shook and moaned as Rarity removed each spine, but soon she was finished, leaving seven narrow gouges in Rainbow’s hide, each one gently bleeding.
“Let’s get you back to shelter,” Rarity said, helping Rainbow stand. “I think that’s enough rock climbing for today.” She shook her head at a finger of dizziness poking at her brain; the excitement must’ve been too much. “Let’s rest and eat some food.”
Rainbow silently nodded and soldiered on with Rarity. “Yeah… food sounds good.”
Rarity and Rainbow labored through the sand and trees. Their hides still stung and burned from where the urchin spines stuck them, and the intense heat on the windless day wasn’t helping much either. They were covered in sweat, and in Rainbow’s case, a little blood as well. Even though her wounds weren’t that wide or deep, for some reason, they refused to stop bleeding. It looked like Rainbow was sweating blood over her left cutie mark.
As for Rarity, she could hardly walk. The bottom of her hoof burned, and the sand touching the puncture in her frog added a fresh sear of fire with every step. Every fourth step left a red mark in the sand, and soon, she was trying to hobble along on three legs, using Rainbow for support just as much as Rainbow needed her to even move.
“Almost there,” Rarity panted, spotting their shelter through the crooked palm trees. “How are you feeling?”
“Miserable,” Rainbow whimpered. Rarity noticed that she was shivering now, and she immediately stopped to make sure Rainbow was alright. Rainbow stared forward with a dazed look, her eyes finding it difficult to focus on Rarity. “Urchins aren’t poisonous, are they?”
Rarity bit her lip. “I don’t know, darling,” she admitted. But seeing as how the pain wouldn’t go away and Rainbow looked on the verge of passing out, she was starting to think that they were. “Do you feel sick? Lightheaded?”
“I feel like I’m gonna puke,” Rainbow said. “My ass burns and I’m really dizzy.” She swayed as she took a step forward, nearly falling over, and Rarity had to catch her. “I just wanna lie down…”
“Okay. Let’s get you down, darling.” Once more putting her shoulder to Rainbow’s side, Rarity helped her friend stagger back to their camp. Chirp followed them from overhead, letting out quiet, concerned squawks as Rainbow dragged her numb hooves through the sand. When they finally got back, Rarity had to gently let Rainbow down on her bedspread; Rainbow didn’t have the strength to lie down on her own.
Rainbow squeezed her eyes shut and whined as she shook. Her forehooves pawed at the sand and tangled themselves in the fronds of her bed. Teeth grinding together and her whole body shivering, the proud Wonderbolt looked deathly ill and frail. “Stop spinning,” Rainbow moaned, curling up even more. “Why won’t the ground stop spinning?”
Rarity’s breath caught in her throat and her heart began to beat faster. There was little doubt left that those urchins were poisonous. Her hoof was starting to swell and she couldn’t put any weight on it, but while she’d only taken one spine to the hoof, Rainbow had been stuck with seven in her flank. There was a lot more poison circulating through her light and small body than in Rarity’s, and her flank had already ballooned into red, puckered wounds. Rarity wanted to help… but she didn’t know what she could do to help.
“Just… j-just breathe, Rainbow,” she said, trying to reassure her friend. “Maybe fix your eyes on something and just breathe. I’ll be right back with some water and something to bandage your wounds with, I promise.”
“Okay,” Rainbow squeaked. She drew another shuddering breath and tried to focus her eyes on the corner of their shelter; her gaze was listless and kept wandering with the spinning that only Rainbow could see. Rarity patted Rainbow’s leg, then walked outside to fetch some of their limited cloth supplies to bandage Rainbow’s flank.
While outside, she saw Chirp watching her from the top of their shelter. “Oh, Chirp, what do I do?” she asked the bird as she dug through their salvage. “How can I help her? You have to know, right?”
Chirp didn’t say anything. The macaw just ruffled its feathers and watched Rarity.
Rarity found a salt-crusted shirt inside a battered suitcase, and she put it on her back for now. “This’ll have to do,” she muttered to herself. She struck off in the direction of the lake, not wanting to bandage Rainbow with salty rags that would almost certainly make her injuries hurt worse than they already did. She hoped that the cool water dripping off of the cloth would help soothe Rainbow’s pain, at least a little bit. Anything she could do to help.
By the time she’d returned, Rainbow had curled up into a shivering, shaking ball. Rarity laid the wet bandages on Rainbow’s flank; they immediately began to turn red as they soaked up her blood. Rainbow let out a little gasp at their icy touch to her burning flank, but she otherwise didn’t move.
“Take a drink, Rainbow,” Rarity said, quietly setting the bucket of water in front of Rainbow. “Can you raise your head and drink?”
Rainbow inhaled and grunted, trying to sit up at least a little bit. After a few moments of struggling, however, she gasped and flopped back to the ground. “Everything hurts,” she squeaked, closing her eyes again. “Everything hurts…”
Rarity anxiously chewed on her hooves. She knew Rainbow needed to drink water, otherwise the heat and her bleeding would just sap more and more of her strength. And strength was what Rainbow needed the most of if she was going to tough it out through the poison. But if she couldn’t raise her head, then she couldn’t drink, and Rarity didn’t have a cup or anything she could use to help Rainbow drink. Maybe if they had a coconut shell, but they hadn’t started harvesting coconuts, and she wasn’t going to take the time to go hunting around for one.
But that didn’t mean she was out of options. Maybe she could help her drink. After taking a few drinks out of the pot to satisfy her own thirst, she put the pot next to Rainbow’s head and tried to support her. “Here, let me help,” she said, using her hooves to try and maneuver Rainbow’s head to the pot. “Just a little bit. You can do it.”
Rainbow squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. “I can’t,” she hissed through them, her chin trembling in pain and effort. She repeated her cries a few moments later when Rarity tried to encourage her to move. “I can’t! Rarity, stop, it hurts!”
“But you have to drink, Rainbow,” Rarity pleaded with her. “Please, drink!”
“I can’t,” Rainbow whimpered, and her breathing turned ragged. The sudden change was enough to frighten Rarity into complying, and she gently laid Rainbow’s head back down on her bed. “Celestia...” Rainbow moaned. “Somepony, kill me now...”
Rarity started to panic. She needed to do something. If Rainbow didn’t drink, Rarity was almost certain she’d be dead by morning. Between the sun and her bleeding, she needed something to drink to stay hydrated. The poison would just kill her faster otherwise.
An idea struck Rarity, and it brought a tinge of red to her cheeks. If she couldn’t bring Rainbow to the water, then maybe she could bring the water to Rainbow. And in lieu of cups or glasses, she had to improvise. Sliding the pot a bit closer, she laid down next to Rainbow. “Tilt your chin up,” she said, using her hoof to help Rainbow do so. Then, sticking her muzzle into the water, she filled her mouth and pressed her lips to Rainbow’s. Rainbow jolted in surprise, but it was the only thing Rarity could think of to help Rainbow drink. After flooding Rainbow’s mouth with water, Rarity took her lips away and let Rainbow swallow. Then she did it again, and again, despite the blush building in her cheeks.
Once Rainbow had swallowed several gulps, Rarity pushed the pot away and sat up. She wiped the water dripping off of her chin and abashedly looked away. “Are you… better?” she awkwardly asked, still feeling a little embarrassed at what she’d done.
Rainbow’s head feebly moved on her bedspread. “Thanks,” she whispered, still shivering.
Chewing on her lip, Rarity lied back down next to Rainbow. This time, she spread her forelegs around her friend, holding her shivering body next to her own. Grunting, Rarity managed to pull Rainbow right against her, tucking her friend’s head just below her chin. Rainbow’s shivers lessened a bit with somepony warm to hold onto, though she remained almost as limp as a ragdoll.
“Sleep,” Rarity whispered, stroking Rainbow’s mane. “You’ll feel better, darling, I promise. I’ll be right here while you do.”
Rainbow remained wordless. Instead, she clung onto Rarity like her life depended on it.
Hours had passed, and she’d remained vigilant through all of them. It wasn’t like she could sleep, anyway, at least not yet. Her hoof still burned and throbbed, and she couldn’t put any weight on it until the swelling went down. Besides, she didn’t want to leave Rainbow while she was in such a precarious position. She didn’t know if the urchins’ poison was enough to kill Rainbow—she prayed it wasn’t—but Rainbow grew noticeably weaker as the minutes and hours dragged on. The pegasus hadn’t fallen asleep so much as she’d simply passed out from pain and exhaustion. Rarity wanted to let her rest and fight off the poison, but she was also afraid that Rainbow might die in her sleep. As a compromise, she forced herself to remain in the shelter, not leaving Rainbow alone for even a second. Her forelegs were still wrapped around her friend’s torso, holding her close.
‘Friend.’ Something about that felt off to Rarity, now. She’d replayed what she’d done over and over again in her mind. Surely there was an easier way, a better way, to get Rainbow to drink, right? She could’ve tried again to support Rainbow’s head and get her to sit up, more gently this time, but she’d been afraid of disturbing the tenuous balance that had so far kept Rainbow in the realm of the living. Was that really the only way she could get Rainbow to drink?
It didn’t take long for Rarity to realize that she wasn’t still thinking about what had happened because of the logistics and what she’d done. She kept thinking about it because of how it’d made her feel. She hadn’t felt disgusted at kissing a friend or even neutrally distant by justifying it as what she simply had to do. Every time she thought about it, she’d feel a pleasant heat in her cheeks as a blush settled across her face. She enjoyed it, and it embarrassed her. It wasn’t that Rainbow was a mare—Rarity played ball with either team, so to speak—but it was because Rainbow was Rainbow Dash, one of her closest friends. She’d known the Wonderbolt for so long and never felt anything toward her. Why now?
Rarity craned her neck back and looked down at Rainbow’s face, fitfully sleeping in her embrace. Rainbow wasn’t beautiful in the Canterlot elite sense, but she had a firm and fit body, honed and tuned from years of athletics and sports competitions almost since the day she was born. It certainly made her visually attractive in spite of how much Rainbow disregarded her appearance. But it was more than that, Rarity realized. Rainbow cared, and in a world where ponies would lie to her face and try to kiss up to her with insincere flattery in the hopes of earning favors, that meant so much to her. That was Rainbow’s true beauty, and Rarity loved and adored beauty in all its forms.
She nuzzled Rainbow’s forehead, feeling sweat and salt stick to her nose. Her and the girls had been drifting apart over the years, it was true, but now it seemed like her and Rainbow were beginning to draw back together through something more. She honestly didn’t know how Rainbow felt—her friend was terrible at conveying her emotions even when she was actually trying to do so—but even if her feelings were one-sided, she hoped it’d make them better friends when this nightmare was all said and done.
Rainbow trembled and whimpered in her sleep, and Rarity tried to give her a comforting squeeze. At this point, she merely hoped that Rainbow would survive until the end of the nightmare. She honestly didn’t know if she’d have the strength to go on if Rainbow died and left her all alone. Chirp wasn’t all that good company, and the bird was still feral, even if he did like following the two of them around; he didn’t really count.
Rarity shifted some and pressed her ear against Rainbow’s neck. She could hear Rainbow’s heart, but it was weak and fluttering. How much weaker could it get before it stopped entirely?
Squeezing her eyes shut, she buried her nose in Rainbow’s sandy mane. “I know you’re strong, Rainbow,” she whispered. “You’re the strongest pony I know. You’ve done so much, pushed so hard for your dreams, and you went and chased them and achieved them, darling. Once you set your mind on something, nothing short of Celestia herself can stop you—and I think you’d give our princess a good run for her money.”
She smiled faintly, but it was bittersweet, when she spoke again, it was almost as much to muffle Rainbow’s ragged, shallow breathing as it was to soothe herself. “Those nasty urchins aren’t stronger than you, Rainbow. I know that. You’ll beat them in the end. I’m just so sorry that you have to suffer like this.” She swallowed hard and blinked a few tears out of her eyelashes. “I wish I could do something. I really do. If I had any way of easing your suffering, you know I would do it. You shouldn’t have to hurt like this.”
A single sniffle was all that escaped Rarity’s muzzle. “You’re one of my best friends, Rainbow, and I love you just like I love the rest of the girls. Celestia only knows how they must be feeling right now. I know they’d never say it to each other, but they must all be thinking that we’re dead, lost at sea. Please, Rainbow, please pull through, if not only for me, then for them as well. Let’s go back to Equestria together and show them that we’re still alive. Don’t make me have to go back by myself. I can’t go back only by myself…”
Rainbow didn’t react, but Rarity hoped that she heard her words in her sleep anyway. Rainbow would live, she knew; she knew that Rainbow would live. Anything else simply couldn’t enter her mind. But Rainbow had to fight it out first. And as much as Rarity wanted to fight it out with her, she could only watch from the sidelines and try to cheer her on.
Finally, Rarity felt a calling that she couldn’t ignore. She disentangled her limbs from around Rainbow’s body as gently as she could, then stood up on sore legs. Not moving for so long, coupled with Rainbow’s weight on her legs, little as it was, had left her stiff. Still, she bent over and planted a kiss on Rainbow’s cheek, then stroked her mane.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?” she whispered. “Just sleep, and when you wake up, we’ll get you something to eat and drink.”
Then she hurried away, hesitating at the door for a few seconds before she disappeared out of sight.
Rainbow slept on and on. Rarity watched her as she moaned and grunted in her sleep; it was hardly peaceful by any stretch of the imagination. The important thing was that Rainbow was sleeping, and if she was sleeping, she could recoup her strength. She slept through dinner, but Rarity was loath to wake her up. Instead, she peeled a few star apples and set aside several cloves of sugar apple and left them by Rainbow’s muzzle. If she woke up, she’d have something to eat.
In the meanwhile, however, Rarity couldn’t bear to stay inside their shelter any longer. She’d already wasted an entire day looking after Rainbow, but now Rainbow finally seemed to be stable. Her breathing was still ragged, but her airways sounded clear and her heart beat steadily on. Rarity figured that the worst of the poison had to have passed; now Rainbow’s body just needed to clear it out entirely.
With Rainbow all taken care of, Rarity finally felt like she was stable enough to be left by herself for a little bit. The swelling in her hoof had finally subsided, so she could move around without much pain now. She needed a walk around the island to work some of the soreness out of her legs and to clear her head. Today had been an incredibly stressful day, and unless she did something to unwind, she’d be too high-strung to sleep later.
Dusk had fallen when she stepped out of their shelter, their sandy hollow filled with shadow and the sounds of birds settling in for the night. Rarity didn’t know where Chirp was, but she assumed that the macaw had his own nest somewhere that he retired to at night. Though Chirp seemed to prefer Rainbow over her, Rarity would’ve enjoyed the bird’s company. It would have made the night feel less lonely.
Rarity made it to the east shore and turned left, heading north. She walked close enough to the water that the rolling waves would occasionally splash around her fetlocks, but no higher. She wasn’t really interested in getting wet when the sun was already down and she wouldn’t have a good way of drying herself. A steady breeze beat in from the south, keeping the worst of the flies and mosquitos at bay. It was calm and tranquil, a feeling that had been seemingly missing from Rarity’s life as of late.
She took a moment to appreciate the irony of it all. The island was serene and peaceful, but her and Rainbow were barely clinging onto the edge of survival. The lagoon to the south looked picturesque and perfect, but the rocks around the east ridge were home to urchins that could kill a mare if they stuck her enough. And the oceans surrounding the island were still and harmless, but not that long ago, they’d swallowed an airship and all of its passengers save a hoofful. Even the islands, green and pleasant as they’d seemed before, were home to minotaurs that’d pick the meat from Rarity’s bones if they got the chance. This sandy island that they’d washed up on was both a blessing and a curse; it’d saved their lives, but it made no promises to keep them safe. That much was on their shoulders.
Soon Rarity found herself on the north shore heading west. She could almost imagine the depressions in the sand where she and Rainbow had washed up days ago. Off to the left, Jetstream was buried somewhere under the sand, her pretty face never again to see the sun. Rarity shuddered as she walked past where she thought the grave was. Jetstream was just one of possibly hundreds who drowned at sea, yet hers was the only body to have washed up on the island. Rarity didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hoof, her and Rainbow only had to bury one body. On the other, those other ponies were lost at sea, and nopony would ever know for sure what happened to them. Their remains were fish food; she just hoped that a burial at sea would satisfy their souls so they could move on to the afterlife.
When she started along the west shore of the island, Rarity moved up closer to the trees, ready to dart between them at a moment’s notice. She didn’t see any canoes or minotaurs in the water, but she didn’t want to take any chances. Without knowing more about their patterns and habits—without seeing one, even—Rarity had no idea whether the west shore would ever be safe for her and Rainbow. She felt confident that the minotaurs lived on the islands to the west, and maybe even the one to the south, but she didn’t really know. And why would they limit themselves to at most three of the four islands in the group? What made this one special?
Darkness beat on, and soon it started getting harder to see. By that point, however, Rarity had worked nearly three-quarters of the way around the island. She angled inland a little bit to avoid the rocks at the base of the western ridge and started climbing that. Unlike the treacherous eastern ridge, it wasn’t too hard to walk up to the top of this one, and as soon as she did so, Rarity flopped down on her stomach. She nibbled on a little grass just for something to do, and soon she found herself just watching the sky as it darkened to night. Before she knew it, the diamonds of the night lit up the dark blanket, and Luna’s moon hovered over the water. Rarity could imagine the dark alicorn raising the heavenly body, so far away now in Canterlot. She knew how her friends felt, but how did the princesses feel? What was Equestria saying?
Rarity crossed her forelegs and watched the moon. The newspapers and tabloids had to be going into a frenzy. Rarity was the head of a fashion company known across the nation, Rainbow was a Wonderbolt, and both were former Element Bearers. Everypony would be wondering what happened to them when they realized that her and Rainbow never made it to the Confederacy. While she knew almost exactly what the newspapers would say—“Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Airship Missing in Celestial Sea Storm”—the tabloids would always be more creative. She was sure that they’d come up with any number of headlines from alien abductions to kidnapped by pirates to simply faking their deaths and living out the rest of their days together on an island somewhere. All of them preposterous, stuff nopony in their right mind would read.
She snorted. Sometimes the tabloids were closer to the truth than anypony gave them credit for.
Still, watching the moon got her wondering. Luna guarded the dream world, right? If so, why hadn’t she found them yet through their dreams? Rarity didn’t think it’d be that difficult, especially since their disappearance would worry even the Princess of the Night herself. Luna would have every reason to try to seek them out as they slept…
Rarity dreamt that night. She dreamt of the Concordia going down in flames with her still trapped on it. Her pearly white hooves wrapped tight around a railing as the ship took the plunge into the sea below, wind howling across her face, her voice torn from her throat. The icy splash that broke and mangled her body into unrecognizable pieces. The last choking gasp as what was left of her torso slipped beneath the waves.
She awoke with a start just as light began to dawn outside of the shelter. When she realized she was still on dry land, she hunched over and focused on breathing. Her heart pounded and she could still feel the fingers of salt water around her muzzle. Her mouth was dry, and she immediately went to the bucket to get a drink. Even still, the feeling of water on her muzzle left her shivering.
And then another detail stood out to her: there had been no Luna. Maybe Rarity had subconsciously summoned that nightmare into existence to try and attract Luna’s attention per her revelation the previous night, but the Princess of the Night remained absent. Normally, Luna would be there to guard a pony’s dreams against nightmares nowhere near as awful as that, but there had been nothing. Not even a glimmer of the guardian of the dream world.
Rarity swallowed hard. Either Luna wasn’t looking for their dreams, or something was keeping her from finding them. She didn’t like either prospect all that much.
In the meanwhile, all she could do was focus on the here and now. She was still alive, Rainbow was still alive, and for now, it was up to her to keep them that way. Worrying about why their divine intervention wasn’t coming to save them could take place later; right now, she needed to make sure Rainbow recovered from her poisoning and that they had what they needed to live another day.
She turned to the side and looked down at Rainbow. The pegasus had stopped shivering during the night, and now her breathing was much smoother. It was still weak and labored at times, but she seemed to be on the upswing. Rarity smiled and stroked her cheek. This whole ordeal had scared her, but it looked like Rainbow was pulling through. Barring something entirely awful happening, Rainbow would hopefully be back to full speed in a few days.
Rainbow groaned, and Rarity jerked her hoof back. One after the other, blue eyelids fluttered open to reveal bloodshot, ruby eyes. Rarity brushed some of Rainbow’s mane out of her face and smiled. “I hope I didn’t wake you, Rainbow. Are you feeling better?”
“Mrff…” Rainbow grimaced and tried to stand up. “I gotta… help me outside, Rares.” She shuddered and wiped away some drool dripping from her lower lip. “Quick.”
Gears clicked into place in Rarity’s head, and she didn’t waste any time getting Rainbow onto her hooves and shepherding her outside of their shelter. No sooner did Rainbow stagger through the door and around the corner did she fall to her knees and vomit into the sand. She retched and heaved until she could only cough up bile, and then she rolled onto her back. A few seconds later, a small smile crept onto her puke-stained muzzle. “I already feel much better…”
“At least you gave me enough warning,” Rarity said, kicking sand over Rainbow’s mess. At least there wasn’t a whole lot of it; Rainbow hadn’t really eaten anything since she fell on the urchins. “Let’s try to get some water and food in you, okay? You need the energy.”
Rainbow wiped her chin clean and then ran her fetlock through the sand to get it off. “You gonna kiss-feed me again?”
Rarity started blushing and anxiously cleared her throat. “I was doing what I had to to get you to drink…”
Fuzzy blue ears twitched in the sand. “Yeah, totally,” she said, chuckling. She tried to sit up, winced, gasped, and ended up on her back again. “I’m just gonna lie here for a while,” she said, grimacing. “Still too weak to move… Stupid spiky death balls…”
“Yes, I do think some breakfast is in order,” Rarity said, taking a step away. “Can you roll over, at least? You should probably eat while lying on your stomach, darling.”
“I make no promises…”
Rarity left Rainbow to that little exercise while she went back to their food supplies. They were starting to run low on fruit; they’d have to go make another run soon, or at least, Rarity would. In the meanwhile, she just needed to focus on making sure Rainbow got her bed rest and didn’t try to exert herself too much, too soon. She knew that was easier said than done; Rainbow hated lying around doing nothing, and she’d probably be trying to walk around and help sooner than she should.
She returned with several star apples and a sugar apple to share. While Rainbow nibbled on her food—it was clear her appetite hadn’t fully returned yet—Rarity happily watched the life flickering beneath her lethargy. “I was worried, you know,” she said, fiddling with a star apple between her hooves. “I believed you’d pull through, but there was a while yesterday where you were in really bad shape. I didn’t want to… be left alone.”
Rainbow swallowed a star apple and licked her lips. “I don’t leave my friends behind,” she finally said after several seconds of silence. “I’m not going anywhere, Rares. Not now, not ever.”
Her words stoked a rosy warmth in Rarity’s cheeks. “You don’t know how glad I am to hear that, darling,” she said, popping a sugar apple clove into her mouth. “I couldn’t do any of this without you. Even if I had the knowledge and the know-how, I’d be completely at a loss after a few days of loneliness.”
The corners of Rainbow’s muzzles turned upwards. “I’m surprised you think I’m good company.”
“Your social skills and mannerisms leave much to be desired, that much is true…” She shoveled sand with her ivory hooves, marveling at the gritty feeling against her frogs. “But I don’t think there’s much need for those things in our situation. To tell you the truth, you seem like you’d be the most at home here out of either of us or any of our friends. Something about the wild and unknown just suits you, darling.”
That got more than a little smirk from Rainbow. “Heh, I suppose you’re right. Applejack would probably do well, too; she’s pretty resourceful when it comes down to it.”
“Necessity is the mother of invention, after all,” Rarity agreed. “Myself, on the other hoof; this is absolutely not the environment I thrive in.”
“Aww, come on, Rares, you’ve done pretty great so far.” Another pause for another bite, and Rainbow wiped some of the dribbling juice off her chin. “You’re, like, a lot tougher than I thought you were.”
Rarity’s eyebrow rose. “Whatever do you mean by that?”
“Like, when we first got here and I realized that we were gonna be stuck here for a while, I thought you were just gonna die and be whiny and miserable the whole time.” Rarity’s brow lowered, but Rainbow continued. “But I don’t think I’ve really heard you whine since we got here, and you’ve been tough and done what needed to be done so we could even survive this long. You saved me from drowning at sea, and then you dragged me out of the water when we washed up here. Now you’re taking care of me and trying to keep this place together without me, while I’ve just been lying in agony inside all day, and you haven’t complained once the entire time.” She offered Rarity a genuinely proud smile. “You’re awesome, Rares.”
Blushing, Rarity parted her salt-stiff mane and slung it back over her shoulders. “You’re too kind, Rainbow. You give me too much credit; I’m merely doing what we have to to survive.”
“And doing a damn good job of it.” She popped a few more cloves of sugar apple into her mouth and lowered her head onto her fetlocks. Yawning, she closed her eyes and stretched her leg even though it made her wince. “I’m just gonna lie in the sun for a bit. It feels nice, at least right now.”
“I’m sure it won’t feel so nice when it’s directly overhead,” Rarity said. She stood up and started walking back to the shelter. “I’m going to get some more food and water; we’re almost out. Just holler if you need me!”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Rainbow mumbled. “I’m just gonna go back to sleep, where I don’t feel like shit.”
Rarity chuckled and shook her head. “You do that, Rainbow.”
By midday, Rainbow Dash was strong enough to start walking again. Though nausea and dizziness lingered at the edges of her mind, she could at least move under her own power. But she was still weak, and she knew it, so she only moved in short spurts, stopping to rest every so often.
The sun felt great on her coat; even though she knew it was probably hotter than it felt, the poison had left her feverish, so she embraced all the warmth she could get. It helped keep the shivers at bay, and several times she caught herself dozing under its light.
Rarity came and went, though she lingered around the shelter when she could. Rainbow rolled her eyes as the unicorn watched her from the shade of a cluster of palms. While she appreciated everything Rarity had done for her, she hated having Rarity worry over her like a mother hen. At least Rarity seemed to know that, because she wasn’t constantly asking Rainbow how she was feeling or if she needed anything. The only things Rainbow needed were rest, food, and water, and thanks to Rarity, all three were readily found at their shelter. She’d already done enough hard work to make sure Rainbow could recover.
Rainbow grunted and forced herself to stand on her shaky legs again. Once she rose to her full height, she staggered across the sand, focusing on moving one hoof at a time. It was careful work to keep herself from falling over, especially with the lingering pain in her left flank, but she slowly trudged closer to the beach. Rarity’s ears perked when she saw Rainbow on the move, and after a few seconds, she too got up and followed Rainbow out to the beach.
She didn’t get very far before Rainbow decided that she’d found a good enough spot to lie down on. The soft sand on her stomach and legs felt like a feathery mattress, so she sighed and laid her head down as well. Now sprawled out on the beach, Rainbow hummed to herself as she absorbed the sand’s heat through her chest while a stiff ocean breeze kept her from overheating in the harsh sunlight. When she felt Rarity settling down next to her, Rainbow smiled. “This is the life, ain’t it, Rares?”
“Given how our week has been, it’s certainly nice to have some peaceful moments like this,” Rarity agreed. She sighed and her hooves pushed through the sand, rearranging it into a little pile in front of her. “I still contend that the lagoon would be a wonderful island getaway locale, venomous sea urchins excluded.”
“And then there’s the minotaurs we haven’t seen yet and the stupid Celestia-damned flies. I’m just amazed that the mosquitos aren’t worse, given that there’s a big pond of nearly stagnant water in the middle of this island.”
“It would certainly take some work. I never did say that it was feasible, just that the vistas are splendid.”
“I guess you’re right.” Rainbow’s ears pivoted out toward the crashing waves, and she flickered her eyes open. White sand raced down the shoreline until it met the emerald waters, blending with the foam and spray the waves tossed onto the beach. A flock of white birds wheeled over the water, occasionally diving down low and emerging with a fish pinned in their beak. Rainbow could understand why Rarity liked this place so much in spite of everything that’d happened; it really was calm and peaceful.
Rarity, Rarity, Rarity… Sometimes Rainbow really wished she was better at reading ponies. Ponies like the Wonderbolts were easy to deal with; they rarely veiled their thoughts or intentions and just spoke openly with each other, even when that openness sometimes verged on bluntness. There weren’t any games to play around. But Rarity was different. She lived by the definitions of polite and high society; there were layers to her words and actions, and ponies like her would almost never directly approach a topic they had reservations about or considered impolite. They also hated it when ponies like Rainbow tried to just slice through the veil and get to the point. They’d become defensive, and then it’d take even more effort to get an answer out of them.
All of this together meant that Rainbow couldn’t just ask Rarity the question on her mind. She likely wouldn’t get an answer, and it’d only make things awkward. And the last thing Rainbow and Rarity needed was to feel uncomfortable around each other when it was only them and Chirp on the island. But it was still something Rainbow wanted to know, given all that’d happened yesterday.
“So…” Rainbow started, fidgeting with the sand. “About yesterday…”
“What do you mean?” Rarity asked. Her voice wavered a bit.
“I think you know what I’m talking about.”
“Oh.” The waves filled in the silence between them.
Rarity seemed too flustered to speak; that all but confirmed Rainbow’s thoughts on the subject. She lightly rested a wing on Rarity’s back. “If you’re worried about what I think… well, I’m certainly not going to complain about a hot mare swapping spits with me.”
Rainbow wanted to snicker when she saw how embarrassed and confused Rarity was. Eventually, the unicorn was able to force out a few words. “I… well, I didn’t really have another option…”
“Did you at least enjoy it? Ponies tell me I’m an awesome kisser.”
“Which ponies are these? The ones in your mirrors?” Rarity teased her. Then, clearing her throat, she added, “It was… different. You’re a beautiful mare in your own way, Rainbow.”
This time, Rainbow didn’t hide her light hearted chuckle. “Is that just another way of saying I’m awesome?”
“If you want to look at it that way, I suppose.” She hesitated for a second. “And… me? You think I’m attractive, too?”
Rainbow looked at her friend. “Rarity, you’re always attractive. Even when you don’t think you are. You’re like a literal goddess of beauty and fashion. Not even being stuck on an island with no makeup and covered horn to hoof and sand can change that.”
“I’m certainly glad to hear that,” Rarity admitted. “And while I’m not about to give up the makeup regimen that gives me such a dashing appearance when we get back to Equestria, I’m happy to know that you don’t think lesser of me for the state I’m currently in.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Oh! Thank you, darling.”
Rainbow slid a little closer and wrapped her wing more firmly around Rarity’s barrel. Now that she’d carefully opened the door, she decided to poke her nose in more directly. She only had so much patience for dancing around the point. “If you ever wanna actually make out, though, I’m totally game for that.”
Rarity gasped and huffed, but Rainbow knew it was just a show; it was the response a lady should give when being approached so directly. But she saw the way Rarity’s pink tongue licked her lips and felt the way her shoulders shifted as she carefully corrected her posture. “My, how very forward of you, darling.”
“Would you rather I used my tongue instead?”
“Rainbow!”
“What?”
“Sometimes I can’t believe you,” Rarity said, her cheeks turning red. “Really, I feel like I need to teach you how to think about what you’re saying. And your manners! That’s no way to tactfully court a lady—!”
Rainbow pressed her lips to Rarity’s, swallowing the last of her words. She kept their muzzles pressed together with a single blue hoof, while the other reached for one of Rarity’s hooves and pressed down on it. Rarity’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment, but then they drifted shut. She moaned softly, but eventually her hoof gently pushed off of Rainbow’s chest when she needed a moment to breathe.
The two mares stared at each other. Smirking, Rainbow casually looked away and focused her attention on the waves. “You were talking too much.”
Rarity didn’t say anything for several seconds; she just looked at Rainbow like she was in some sort of befuddled daze. Eventually, though, she smiled and went to looking at the waves as well. “I can tell that you’re feeling much better already, Rainbow.”
“I am. What gave you that idea?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just a hunch.”
“It’s a pretty good one.”
“Indeed.”
The waves continued to wash in and out, in and out. The two mares on the beach happily watched them, but their thoughts weren’t on the ocean itself. Rarity shifted slightly and rested her head against Rainbow’s neck, and Rainbow pinned Rarity against her with her wing, her wingtip trailing in the sand by Rarity’s side. Together, both mares watched the sea—together, alive, and happy.
As the day beat on, Rainbow’s strength slowly returned. By nightfall, she was almost back to her usual self, apart from a slight ache to her stomach that wouldn’t go away. She knew that by morning, she’d be one hundred percent once more. Nothing was going to keep her down for long, not even a close brush with death.
And it wasn’t just the rest that helped her recover quickly; the attraction growing between her and Rarity kept them both in high spirits. Though neither would directly admit it—Rarity was too proud to let herself fall for another pony and it was uncool for Rainbow to be all lovey-dovey—what had happened on the beach had only intoxicated them to desire more. Their feelings were finally beginning to surface, and all Rainbow wanted to do was hold Rarity in her forelegs and kiss her all night long. She was almost certain that Rarity felt the same way, and she didn’t blame her. Not everypony got to make out with an awesome mare like her.
They changed their bedspreads before they went to sleep that night, replacing the dry and browning palm fronds and moss with new, softer, greener material. This time, however, they pooled them into one big spread in the center of the shelter instead of two separate spreads divided by a line of sand. When they retired for the night, they laid down next to each other and held on tight, sharing their warmth and company as the wind gradually picked up and the wildlife began to fall silent.
By the time morning came around, the skies were dark and angry, and the harsh winds bent the boughs of the trees. Each made a quick run to the trees to relieve themselves, and then they both hunkered down inside their shelter before the rains could hit. Chirp even sought them out, flying inside their shelter to protect himself from the wind and rain. Once more the bird perched on Rainbow’s hindquarters, calmly preening himself as the skies finally tore open and began to drown the island.
Rainbow and Rarity watched the rain beat down on the sand outside from the safety of their shelter. The trees surrounding their sandy cove broke up the wind somewhat, but even that caused the beams to creak and the fronds lining their roof to ruffle. If they’d built their shelter out in the open, the storm would’ve taken it down. Rainbow knew they would have to make repairs anyway once the storm had passed; at least it wasn’t as strong as a hurricane. Then they might really have lost their shelter.
The hours beat on, but the rain never let up. A small pool of rainwater had formed by now in the hollow, its surface rippling and splashing in the storm. Chirp still sat on Rainbow’s back, his head turned around and tucked into the feathers on his back as he napped. All was peaceful in the midst of the storm, save Rainbow herself; the mare was unbelievably bored, though as much as she wanted to roll around or move in the slightest, she didn’t want to disturb the macaw resting on her hindquarters.
Rarity saw how tortured Rainbow looked, so she smirked and nosed Rainbow’s cheek. “Bored?”
“Bored,” Rainbow grumbled. “There’s nothing to do. The dumb storm’s just gonna keep us inside all day.”
“I guess we couldn’t have good weather forever,” Rarity said. Her eyes drifted up to the roof of their shelter, where a few dribbles of water poked their way through the fronds. “At least our shelter is holding up nicely.”
“Yeah, thank Celestia for that.” Rainbow sighed and placed her chin on her crossed forehooves. “This would be the perfect day to just sit back and read a Daring Do novel. If only we had a few books with us.”
“They wouldn’t have survived the sea anyway,” Rarity said. After a moment, she brightened up at a new idea. “Perhaps we should make one of our own for this!”
Rainbow cocked her eyebrow. “Huh?”
“Let’s imagine for a second that we’re in one of Daring Do’s books,” Rarity said. “Think about it. Our situation has all the trappings of one: two ponies survive a shipwreck and wash up on a deserted island, where they have to find the means to survive until help comes. It’s the solid premise for one of her books isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I still don’t know where you’re going with this.”
“What if there’s more to this island than meets the eye?” Rarity asked. “There are four islands here, and we know that there are minotaurs on at least one of them, but for some reason they don’t set hoof onto this island all that often. Why wouldn’t they? It’s a perfectly fine island, and living on a small archipelago like this, I would assume that one would want to make use of every inch of land available.”
“Uh huh…”
“And then there’s another thing. Have you seen Princess Luna in any of your dreams since we made landfall here?”
Rainbow opened her mouth to respond, but closed it and thought a minute. “No,” she admitted, her eyes falling on the sand. “And I’ve had some pretty nasty nightmares since we washed up here. Where is she?”
“A question I want to know the answer to as well,” Rarity said. “If Princess Luna found us in our dreams, we could easily explain to her what happened and where we are. We’d be off this island in a few days. But she hasn’t seen us yet. Why is that?”
“Good question,” Rainbow said. She chewed on her lip for a few seconds. “She either thinks that we’re dead or she can’t find our dreams for some reason. Or maybe something’s happening back in Equestria; I don’t know.”
“Let’s assume that everything is alright back home. If it isn’t, it’s not like we can do anything from here. That leaves two options, and I don’t think the princesses would give up so easily on us. It’s hardly been a week or so; I’ve lost count of the days, honestly.”
“We should make a calendar board or something,” Rainbow suggested.
“Perhaps, but that’s not important right now. That leaves us with one logical explanation: something is keeping Luna from finding us and our dreams. But what?”
Rainbow thought, trying to put together tropes and pieces from all the Daring Do books she’d read over the years. “It has to be something about this island,” she said, frowning at the sand like it was about to betray her. “Something about this island is keeping the minotaurs away from it, and it’s stopping Luna from finding our dreams.”
Rarity nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking, too. But what?”
“I don’t know, Rares,” Rainbow admitted. “But there’s only one way to find out.”
“And that is?”
“We need to do some better exploring,” Rainbow said. “We have to comb this island over from end to end. There has to be something here that explains it. Maybe an ancient temple or something! There’s definitely some weird stuff going on here, and we’re gonna solve that mystery!”
Thunder rumbled above, and the rain redoubled across the sand. It came in so thick that the two ponies could barely see the end of the sandy hollow on the opposite side. The wind picked up, whipping across the puddle in the hollow and forming tiny little waves on its surface.
Rainbow sighed and rested her head on her hooves again. “But we gotta wait, first…” she grumbled.
Rarity giggled and rolled onto her side, pressing her back against Rainbow’s wing. “I don’t particularly mind,” she cooed, snuggling up to Rainbow. “More time for us.”
Hour after hour, a gray sheet of falling water clouded the world around their shelter. Hour after hour, cool winds weaved their way between the walls of their shelter, sending the occasional shiver down Rarity’s spine. Hour after hour, the two ponies sat side by side, watching the rain gradually fill up the pool in the sand before them.
Rarity felt Rainbow shift at her side; she was starting to grow restless and bored. Even Rarity, who had learned from a young age that patience was a virtue, couldn’t help but feel increasingly agitated and energetic the longer they remained confined to their shelter. The monotony would be the end of her, the swaying palm trees and heavy rains the last sensations she would experience before going mad.
Rainbow sighed and rolled onto her back, taking away the support Rarity was leaning on. “Celestia, kill me,” Rainbow muttered, staring up at the roof of their shelter. “I’m so friggin’ bored.”
Rarity had to clear her throat; it’d been some time since she’d last spoken. “Any idea on how long the storm will last, darling?”
“Like, the rest of today, at least,” Rainbow said with a shrug. “The rain’s too heavy for me to give you a better answer. It’s like trying to see through a heavy blanket that somepony put on your head.”
“Mmm.” Rarity stretched her forelegs out ahead of her, digging shallow trenches in the wet sand. Days and nights replayed in her head, and she came to a realization. “We’ve only been here for a week, haven’t we?”
“I guess? I wasn’t really counting.” Rainbow sighed and sat up, her stiff back cracking and making her wince. “We’ve still got another week then until somepony finds us.”
“Hopefully,” Rarity said. “If we keep getting rough patches of weather like this, then actually searching the islands here will be something of a hazard for our would-be rescuers.”
“Rescue ships are sturdier than big cruise liners like the Concordia,” Rainbow assured her. “They can weather tougher storms. So long as no big hurricanes go plowing over the islands, then they should be fine.”
“Certainly comforting to think about.” A deep bass rumble of thunder in the distance rattled the foundation of their shelter, and the rain seemed to redouble in its fury. “Of course, at this rate, it seems like these storms may be our undoing before they even get here.”
“Eh, that’s what the big hill’s for,” Rainbow said. She twisted her torso this way and that, working out the stiffness in her muscles. “This island probably gets pounded by storms all the time, but it’s still here, and there’s still a lot of vegetation. I bet Chirp’s been through a bunch of bad storms before. Right, Chirp?”
The macaw raised his head slightly at the mention of his name and eyed Rainbow for a moment. After a few seconds, he fluffed up his wings and flipped his head around, burying his beak in the feathers of his back. Balancing on one foot in the sandy and dry corner of the shelter, Chirp closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
Rainbow smiled at the fluffy bird and rolled back onto her stomach. “See? Chirp’s not worried. This weather is foal’s play to a badass bird like him.”
“I bet he just appreciates the nice, dry shelter that we made to keep the rain out,” Rarity said, tossing her salt-crusted mane from one side to the other. But after a moment’s thought, she grinned and snatched the comb and brush she’d salvaged from the shipwreck. Without a moment’s hesitation, she galloped out into the rain, drenching herself in seconds.
Rainbow watched her from the dry shelter. “What are you doing, Rares?” she asked her. “You’re gonna get soaked to the bone!”
“That’s the plan!” Rarity sung back. She fanned out her mane, letting the water permeate every strand of hair. “I’ve been covered in salt and sand for a week! This is fresh water! I can finally be clean!”
On instinct, Rarity tried to pick up her comb and brush with her magic, and a shaky blue glow surrounded them. But a few seconds later, her horn sparked and fizzled, and she ended up dropping both onto the wet sand. She ended up falling on her flank and started rubbing her horn, feeling the small notch in the tip. A few drops of bright blue mana oozed from the end of her horn before evaporating into the air.
“You alright, Rares?” Rainbow asked, stepping out into the rain. She placed a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder while the unicorn rubbed her horn. “Still not healed yet, is it?”
“Another day or two and it should be fine,” Rarity said. “I didn’t split it that badly, and horns heal quick, so I shouldn’t be without my magic for much longer.” She looked longingly at her comb and brush. “It only complicates things in the meanwhile.”
Rainbow traced Rarity’s gaze. She bent over and picked up the brush, settling it between her teeth, and started working over Rarity’s coat. Rarity rolled her shoulders and hummed softly as Rainbow teased the salt and sand out of her white hairs. “You’re too kind, darling. Shall I return the favor when you’re finished?”
“Mmrf…” Rainbow grunted around the handle of the brush. She blinked away some of the water rolling into her eyes and focused on brushing down Rarity’s fine body. Even after a week of slim eating, the unicorn’s figure was still soft and shapely.
Rarity could feel her brushing around her flanks and tail with careful interest, so she flicked Rainbow’s nose with the tip of her tail. “Behave yourself, darling,” she teased, sticking her tongue out. “You haven’t even properly courted me yet.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and went back to work. Within a few minutes, she’d completely brushed Rarity’s coat down, removing a week’s worth of sand and salt in the process. She spat the brush out into her hooves and handed it back to Rarity. “Here.”
Rarity gestured with her hoof. “Spin around, darling,” she said, taking the brush away from Rainbow. Rainbow did as she was told, and soon Rarity began returning the favor to her friend. Now it was her turn to admire her friend’s body, in the way her small but strong muscles shaped her figure around strong but light bones. The network of thick and bulky muscles around the base of Rainbow’s wings intrigued her. They were all part of a whole pair of limbs unicorns and earth ponies lacked, one whose shape was always different from pegasus to pegasus and often required specific tailoring to get a tight dress to fit perfectly. For a moment, Rarity tried to imagine what it would be like to have six limbs instead of four. How could a pegasus gallop and flap their wings at the same time? That much multitasking had to be confusing without practice. She could see now why Twilight had struggled for so long after suddenly sprouting wings.
Her brush slipped around the base of Rainbow’s right wing, and the pegasus flinched and lurched forward a bit. At first, Rarity thought she’d hit a sensitive spot, but then she saw how Rainbow hunched her head forward a bit and turned her shoulders inwards. A devilish grin broke out on her muzzle and she momentarily set the brush aside. “Are you ticklish there, darling?”
“No…” Rainbow protested, lowing her head further.
“Are you sure?” Rarity asked, and she darted the tip of her hoof into the space between wing and back. Rainbow jumped again, instinctively flapping her good wing as she tried to get away from Rarity. “I think you are!”
“Rarity!” Rainbow protested, scuttling away from the unicorn. “Stop!”
“I should file this information away for safekeeping,” Rarity teased her. “I suppose now it makes sense why you don’t want anypony touching your wings.”
“Rarity, I will hurt you!”
“A risk I’m willing to take.” Shaking her head, Rarity gestured to the sand in front of her. “The rain’s starting to lighten up, and I haven’t even finished your coat, darling. Now get back here and be a good mare, and I promise I won’t tickle you. Much.”
Rainbow sighed and slowly trudged back. “I’ll dump sand on you while you’re sleeping if you do. Don’t think I won’t…”
The rain finally began to abate as evening approached. Rarity and Rainbow watched from the safety of their shelter as for a moment, the skies grew lighter while the rains passed. Then the sun began to set, and once more, the dim twilight glow fell upon their sandy island.
When night truly fell, the two ponies started a fire, safe in the knowledge that the smoke couldn’t be seen under the cloudy sky. They threw the pot onto its stand above the fire and waited for the water to come to a boil, but more than that, they used the warmth to dry off. Though they’d tried to use some of their rags to dry off after grooming each other earlier, the air was simply too humid to get all the water out of their coats. Rarity hadn’t enjoyed sitting inside still damp for several hours, but she didn’t regret it. She felt like brand new, reborn through the rain into something cleaner and nicer. She felt like herself once more.
“I’d kill for some s’mores right now,” Rainbow muttered, staring into the fire.
Rarity felt a twinge in her stomach. How she missed food that she once took for granted! Finding the fruit on the south hill had been a huge break for her and Rainbow, as it promised them a steady supply of food, but even the taste of star and sugar apples was starting to grow old. She eyed some of the trees around her, their tops heavy with coconuts, and rubbed the end of her horn. In a few days, she was going to try to knock those down and break them open. At least it’d be something different to eat.
Rainbow sighed and rolled onto her side, immediately filling her clean coat with sand. It took all of Rarity’s willpower to hold her protest, because she knew Rainbow didn’t care, even if it bothered her. As for herself, she tried to sit as narrowly on her tail as she could to keep the sand out of her fresh and clean coat. She didn’t want to undo all the effort it had taken to clean herself during the storm earlier.
A break in the clouds offered a faint beam of moonlight that made Rarity’s coat almost glow in the pale light. She craned her neck back, eyeing the lunar body, counting its craters before the clouds covered it again. Though it brought up old worries and questions, Rarity didn’t bother to voice them again. Both her and Rainbow knew the stakes, and they both knew the same questions they couldn’t answer. There wasn’t much of a point in bringing it up again.
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what things were like back home. “What do you suppose our friends are doing right now?” Rarity asked the night, without turning her head towards Rainbow.
“Probably trying to find a way to figure out what happened to us?” Rainbow suggested. “Twilight’s poring over every map of the ocean between here and the Confederacy, Pinkie Pie’s throwing parties or something to raise money for an expedition to find us, Fluttershy’s probably talking to fish or something to figure out what happened, and Applejack is…” Rainbow frowned for a moment. “I dunno. Apples?”
Rarity chuckled. “Hard to see how apples would help find us and get us off of this dreadful island.”
“I’m sure she’d find a way,” Rainbow said. “Maybe she’s building her own personal airship out of apple trees. They certainly have more wood than they know what to do with.”
“It’s powered by apples, of course.”
“Ha! I bet she could make the compass out of an apple core and some string, too!”
“And the only thing for the crew to eat would be apples and apple-based dishes.”
Rainbow stood up and mimed herself adjusting a hat. “‘I reckon the wind’s traveling northerly at seventeen apples per hour, y’all!’” she said, imitating Applejack’s country accent. “‘Quick, shift the ballast to starboard, move them apple barrels! What do you think, first mate Apple?’”
Rarity giggled and saluted Rainbow. “There be pirates in these skies, captain! Make sure that the crew polishes their swords with apple oil! The apple-blighted hooligans can’t stand the sting of it!”
Both ponies broke out in raucous laughter. “Oh man, if only AJ was here to hear this,” Rainbow said, wiping a tear from her eye. “She’d get all grumbly and insist that we’re stereotyping her.”
“It’s not stereotyping if it’s true, is it?” Rarity asked, earning another amused snort from Rainbow. “I think she’d be hard-pressed to convince us otherwise.”
“Watch, she’s actually going to be the one to find us in an airship made from apple trees. It’s totally gonna happen now.”
“If it means we can safely get home, then I wouldn’t complain even if the whole thing was made from apple peels!”
“Heh. True that.”
The pot began to bubble, so Rainbow stood up and kicked sand over the fire, smothering the flames and saving what was left of the fuel. “I bet we’re gonna have a ton of glass globs under this thing,” she said, eyeing the glowing grains.
“Maybe I can make jewelry out of them,” Rarity said. “A reminder of how we survived.”
“Maybe I’ll wear one,” Rainbow said, shrugging.
Rarity inwardly smiled. Getting Rainbow to wear any fashion accessory was a challenge in itself. She wasn’t going to squander this opportunity by calling attention to it.
Rainbow yawned and arched her back. “Why does sitting around doing nothing all day make you so tired?” she whined. “Seriously, I already want to hit the hay.”
Rarity stifled a yawn herself. “I know what you mean, darling.” She blinked several times to try to force back the tendrils of sleep. “I certainly haven’t exerted myself, but maybe it’s just our natural rhythm. I mean, we haven’t had any artificial lighting asides from a fire to keep us up, so…”
Her words trailed off when she saw Rainbow wasn’t listening; her attention was focused to the east, toward the shore. “What is it?” Rarity asked, looking in that direction. She held her breath for a moment to try to pick out the faintest of noises over the crash of the surf and the trilling of the tree frogs deeper in the island, but couldn’t hear anything different.
Rainbow obviously could. “It sounds like… singing,” she said, wandering over to the beach. “Sad singing. Don’t you hear it?”
Rarity stood up and followed Rainbow across the sands. Her ears pointed this way and that, but she couldn’t pick up anything out of the ordinary. At least, not until she stepped past the trees and set hoof onto the beach itself.
Rainbow stopped by the edge of the water, her eyes staring out over the tumbling waves. As Rarity approached, she started to make out something different from the splashing of the waves. It was a pair of voices, soft, faint, and mournful, humming and sighing into the night sky. They were both female, and they sung a melody without words, only emotion.
“My,” Rarity whispered, standing still in awe at what she was hearing. “It’s… beautiful.”
It even left Rainbow speechless and jaw slightly slack. The two ponies listened as the voices climbed and danced their way around the register, never out of tune, never off-beat. A mezzo-soprano voice anchored the rhythm and flow of the song, while a much higher and livelier coloratura danced and played around it, almost like a happy child running in circles around her mother in the park. There were no true breaks or transitions between solos and duets; one voice would stop singing for a moment, letting the other shine, before joining in again and adding her melody to the song. To Rarity, who had attended countless operas while on social calls in the big cities, the voices were unlike anything she’d ever heard, and likely anything she would ever hear again.
“Are those sirens?” she asked Rainbow, straining to find the source of the voices in the darkness of the rolling waves.
“Do you know anypony that can sing like that?” Rainbow asked her.
Rarity shook her head. “Their singing is so magical. I could listen to it all night!”
She took a few steps back from the lapping surf and lied down on dry sand, Rainbow joining her a moment later. The song went on and on as they lied there, long into the night. Rarity didn’t know why the sirens were singing or how they could manage it for so long without wearing out their voices, but she wasn’t about to complain. The music was beautiful, but it was also sad. It stirred a homesickness inside of her. She felt out of place, lost in the sea. She wondered if sirens were ever truly at home when their home was the vast oceans; maybe that’s what they were singing about. Lost in the endless expanse, without someplace definitive to call their own, and only each other for company.
She was glad that there were two voices out there. If it had just been one, she might have wept from the loneliness.
Rainbow’s wing tightened around her barrel, and she nuzzled Rarity’s cheek. Rarity smiled and leaned her head against Rainbow’s neck. They didn’t say anything, for even speaking would ruin the beautiful duet sung by two souls somewhere deep in the black waters of the night. It went on and on and on, never ceasing, never pausing. The stars themselves were the audience, the moon a sad mourner observing from afar. Sometimes the song would fall into one voice holding a long, drawn out note, and then it would resume again with a different melody and a different rhythm. Rarity figured it was how they changed songs, but the whole thing blended together so perfectly that she couldn’t hear the difference.
“I wish I could sing like that,” she murmured. “Random musical numbers are great and all, but they don’t have anything on this.”
“It’s certainly pretty,” Rainbow agreed. “If only we had a boat or something. We could go out there and ask them for lessons.”
“Indeed.” Sighing, Rarity smiled and closed her eyes. “It’s certainly pretty, though. I hope they keep singing.”
Rarity woke up right where she’d fallen asleep on the beach. The sirens’ song had been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hoof, it was beautiful, beautiful in ways Rarity couldn’t describe with words. But on the other, it was sad, and some of that sadness had followed Rarity into her dreams.
She felt tears matting the hair around her eyes, left over from her dream. As gingerly as she could, she dabbed at them with her fetlock, trying to make sure she didn’t get sand in her eyes. The feelings of loneliness and loss that the sirens had weaved into her dreams stuck to her brain like glue, no matter how much she tried to gently shake them out.
Something mumbled at her side, and Rarity felt a blue wing tug on her shoulders. Rainbow Dash was still asleep by her side, her chin and cheeks covered in damp sand, legs sprawled out on the beach. Her hooves would occasionally twitch, and her wing would pull on Rarity every so often.
Rarity smiled and brushed Rainbow’s cheek. “I see you’re sleeping just fine,” she whispered. She didn’t have to worry too much about being quiet. The crashing waves nearly drowned out her words entirely.
Her eyes turned to the sea. The waves almost looked gray in the early morning light, blocked and scattered by thick clouds. She tried to imagine where the sirens had gone between their performance last night and now. Maybe they were still near the islands, or maybe they were already a hundred miles away. What was life like when you had the huge emptiness of the ocean to explore? Did sirens ever get sentimental about places they swam to? Did they ever have a reason for going where they went and singing as they pleased?
If only Twilight was here. Rarity was sure Twilight would know a thing or two about sirens. She wondered if they were all as nasty as those three that Twilight had encountered through the mirror those years ago. The ones singing last night certainly didn’t sound like they were performing with malice. Maybe they would sing again tonight. She certainly hoped they would.
Rainbow started to stir, and in a few minutes, she opened her eyes. Yawning, she licked her lips, but recoiled at the taste of salt and sand. It took her another few seconds to take in her surroundings and notice Rarity at her side. “Rares?” she asked, rubbing at her eyes. “Where… did we spend the night out here?” she asked. She yawned again, stretching her jaw wide. “I don’t remember falling asleep…”
“Neither do I,” Rarity assured her. “It was almost like a lullaby. Next thing I knew, I was waking up next to you.”
Blue cheeks turned a shade of rose. “Yeah. Huh. Still, I think that’s the best sleep I’ve had since we got here.”
“If only we could get them to sing every night.”
“You think they’re still around?”
Rarity shrugged. “I don’t know the habits and patterns of sirens. Maybe, maybe not. I suppose we’ll only know for sure if we hear them again.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She smirked and added, “Think they’ll want to join us for a random musical number sometime?”
“I certainly wouldn’t mind making their acquaintance—presuming, of course, that they don’t want to lure us into the sea and eat us.”
Rainbow blinked. “Do they do that?”
“If you ask any salt-streaked sailor, they’ll say so,” Rarity claimed. “They say sirens try to lure stallions off the decks of their ships, then drown them and eat them. Some ships even carry unicorns whose sole purpose is to cast a silencing spell around the ship to keep the crew from hearing their songs.”
“Huh. Never knew that.” After a moment, she shook Rarity’s shoulders a bit. “Good thing we’re both mares then, right?”
Rarity giggled. “I’m sure that will help us greatly,” she said. “We’ll have to ask them the next time they’re around.”
The two ponies sat on the beach for a while, but minute by minute, Rarity’s glum face returned. Rainbow noticed it and nosed Rarity’s shoulder. “What’s wrong, Rares?”
“Their song was so beautiful and so sad,” Rarity said. “It must have stuck with me into my dreams, because my dreams were sad, too.”
“Oh?” Rainbow asked. “What were they about? I mean, if you don’t want to talk about them, that’s cool, too. Don’t mind me.”
Rarity rolled her eyes; typical Rainbow. At least she was trying to be empathetic. “I dreamt that I was home. I don’t know how long I was supposedly gone in the dream, but it had been some time. But everything was different. Our friends were gone and moved on, my boutiques were all sold out to different companies, even my little Sweetie was grown up! And she hardly recognized me, and none of my ex-clients cared that I was back! They’d… they’d forgotten about me, Rainbow. I was an unwanted ghost from days long past and nopony wanted me!”
She shook and shivered. “I don’t want Equestria to forget about us,” she whimpered. “I don’t want to go back home only for home to not come back to us. If nopony ever finds us…”
Rainbow interrupted Rarity before she could continue her train of thought. “Rarity, you’re worrying too much,” she assured her. “We’ve barely been here more than a week! We’re still probably the talk of Equestria! Nopony’s gonna forget about us, I promise!”
Rarity nodded. “You’re… you’re right, darling. I’m just being foolish.” She sniffled and dabbed at her eyes. “I suppose it was just the sirens’ song. It must have colored my dreams.”
“Probably.” Rainbow hugged Rarity close, then turned her eyes skyward. “Sun’s coming up. Wanna get breakfast? We’ve got a big day of exploring ahead of us. We gotta comb this island over from shore to shore. Maybe we’ll find something!”
“I suppose you make a fair point,” Rarity said. She nuzzled Rainbow’s cheek and gently stood up, shedding the wing from her back. “Let’s go make sure that Chirp hasn’t eaten all of our fruit yet. We’ll need to get more at some point.”
“Yeah. Little guy’s like a pig or something, he eats so much.” Rainbow also stood up and waited for Rarity to go first. “After you!”
After topping off with some food and water, Rainbow and Rarity started walking north through the heart of the island. Chirp joined them after a few minutes, evidently having spotted them from the trees nearby. The macaw perched himself squarely on Rainbow’s back, contentedly preening his wings while Rainbow and Rarity walked through the tiny jungle.
Once they made it to the north shore, passing by Jetstream’s grave, the two friends turned west and started combing over the northwest part of the island. It was one of the few spots on the island they hadn’t touched yet, now more than a week into their stay. But apart from some scrap left high in the sand on the western end of the island’s corner, it looked almost the same as everything else.
“There’s some good wood here,” Rainbow said, eyeing the salvage on the shore. “We should at least make sure it’s not gonna wash away. Who knows when we’ll need it.”
Rarity seemed less than thrilled about that prospect. “Don’t we already have a sizeable stockpile of wood and scrap back at our camp? I don’t want to drag all this across the island. I’ll get splinters in my tongue!”
Rainbow wanted to groan; it was too early to be arguing with Rarity. “We might need it, Rares,” she said. “You never know. Look, I’ll go pull this stuff out of the sand, and maybe you can look around this area some more. Save us some time.”
“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for,” Rarity said. “It’s just sand and trees as far as the eye can see.”
“Then, I don’t know, look for something that isn’t sand and trees.” Rainbow shook her head and trotted down to the beach. “Come find me if you find something!”
Rarity sighed and disappeared into the trees, leaving Rainbow alone on the beach. With the peace and quiet afforded to her by Rarity’s absence, she set to work, hauling up wood and salvageable scrap, creating a sort of depot in the trees to access later. She made sure to leave it out of sight of the western beach. The last thing her and Rarity needed were the elusive minotaurs spotting a pile of obviously recovered scrap. Though apart from those hoofprints in the sand, they hadn’t seen anything of them. By now, Rainbow was starting to wonder if it was all just their imagination.
No, it wasn’t that. She’d seen the bones in the sand. Being a pegasus herself, that wasn’t something her mind had just made up to mess with her. Maybe she should consider herself lucky that she hadn’t seen any minotaurs yet instead of wondering if her mind had just made it all up.
“Rainbow!” Rarity called out from the interior of the island. “Come quick! I think I found something!”
Rainbow paused and raised an eyebrow. She didn’t expect Rarity to actually find something. What could be out here in this stretch of the island?
“Coming, Rares,” Rainbow said, leaving the rest of the scrap behind for now. She wandered between the trees, spotting Rarity’s white coat not too far ahead of her. When she made it to the unicorn’s side, she looked around, only seeing sand and trees. “What is it?”
Rarity pointed downwards, into the sand. “Here,” she said, pushing it aside. Charred bits of wood and a few oddly-placed stones emerged from the grit. “It looks like an old campfire. I don’t know how old, though.”
“A campfire?” Rainbow stepped forward and started digging with her own hooves. Sure enough, a ring of stones and little bits of burnt wood emerged from the sand. Some black specks she assumed were ash came with it as well. “If this thing was buried in sand, it had to have been here for a while. Maybe the minotaurs left it here some time ago?”
“I don’t think they were minotaurs,” Rarity said, and she slid something across the sand to Rainbow. Rainbow narrowed her eyes at it and gasped when she realized what it was. “I found it not too far from here, too. Somepony left it here.”
Rainbow picked up a weathered and rusty horseshoe. It was slightly bigger than her own hoof, and she doubted that the minotaurs had the technology to work with metal on tiny islands like this one. That was all she needed to see. “So we’re not the first,” she said, looking around herself as if she might be standing in the middle of a graveyard. “I wonder how old this stuff is! You think there’s a conveniently placed journal somewhere around here?”
She expectantly looked toward Rarity, but the unicorn simply shrugged. “I didn’t find anything of the sort.”
“You know, I was kind of hoping that you’d coincidentally have that one on you, too,” Rainbow grumbled. She dropped the horseshoe to the ground and looked around. “So, ponies have been here before. Awesome. But why?”
“Maybe they were castaways like us?” Rarity offered.
“Or maybe they were after something!” Rainbow grinned. “Didn’t you say that you thought there’s something on this island that’s stopping Luna from finding us? Maybe these ponies were looking for it! A hidden temple or something!”
Rarity frowned. “I think that’s a bit of a stretch, darling.”
“Maybe. But it’s something to hope for!” She excitedly began to brush through the sand and sediment around the campsite. “Come on! Let’s do some digging! Maybe we’ll find something!”
Sighing, Rarity followed Rainbow as she started sweeping sand aside with her wing. “And here I was hoping that we wouldn’t have to do any more dirty work…”
Rarity and Chirp watched Rainbow work from the shade of a nearby palm tree. After a brief foray back to their shelter to recover the shovel, they’d returned to the campsite and started digging through the sand. They’d each taken turns at it, though right now it was Rainbow’s turn. So far, they’d uncovered a few interesting tidbits: the firepit, another horseshoe, a rusty first aid kit with bandages and gauze inside, and a compass. Rarity had to shake the sand out of the compass when Rainbow uncovered it, but after that, the thing worked fine. Even though she could orient herself by the sun, a working compass would probably come in handy sooner or later.
After some time, Rainbow finally buried the shovelhead in the sand and fell back to the ground. “I’m not sure we’re gonna find anything more here,” she said. “The ponies that made this camp didn’t leave much behind when they left. Just that stuff we’ve found.”
“Here I was hoping to find something that would provide us some insight.” Rarity sighed and stood up, Chirp wobbling on her shoulder as she shifted positions. “There certainly has to be some reason they were here.”
“Yeah, but there’s nothing here.”
“Hmmm…” Rarity flipped the compass around, getting a detailed look at its scratched and tarnished surface. “The iron needle isn’t too terribly rusted, and the compass still works. Its brass shell is tarnished in spots, but not all over.” She tapped her chin and thought. “If I had to take a guess, I’d say this compass was made sometime within the last twenty years.”
“Really?” Rainbow asked, taking the compass from Rarity. “How can you tell?”
Rarity tossed her salty, sweaty mane out of her face. “I work with gems all the time, and the properties of basic metals and alloys aren’t all that much different. They’re things I learned in my technical schooling when I was studying to become a designer.”
“Huh.” Shrugging, Rainbow passed the compass back. “Okay, so there were ponies here twenty years ago or something. That’s pretty neat, but why? What happened to them?”
“I don’t know,” Rarity said. But then an idea hit her. Smiling, she poked Chirp’s chest feathers, getting the macaw’s attention. “I know someone who might, though.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Chirp? Why might he know?”
“Think about it for a second, darling,” Rarity said. “Look at how friendly Chirp is. He’s obviously comfortable around ponies. But he’s also a wild animal. Why would a macaw be so friendly with us if he hadn’t seen or interacted with ponies before?”
“Good point.” Rainbow trotted a little closer and stood almost nose to beak with the big bird. “Did you know these ponies, Chirp? You know what happened to them?”
Chirp turned his head to the side, watching Rainbow with one eye. Then, squawking, he fluttered up to a nearby tree, clinging onto the palm fronds for a second before flying further southwest.
Rarity watched the bird hop from tree to tree, hesitating between each jump and looking back at them. “Should we follow him?”
“Duh!” Rainbow exclaimed, trotting after the macaw. “That’s what he wants!”
“How do you know that, darling?”
“I’m a pegasus! We’re practically siblings!” She blinked. “Or cousins. Or something! C’mon, we don’t want him to fly too far!”
They followed Chirp through the island, warily watching their right as they got closer to the west beach. The waters between the islands were a little choppy today, and a layer of haze made the far islands shimmer and dance, blurring their details. Rarity thought she saw a simple outrigger canoe in the water several times, but every time she blinked and looked again, it disappeared. Perhaps her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Still, the two ponies stayed within the safety and shelter of the trees as they moved southwards. Chirp remained a couple of wingbeats ahead of them the whole time, always looking back over his shoulder to make sure they were following. Eventually, his flight took them to the western ridge, where the two had watched the sunset together a couple of days earlier. There, Chirp came to a stop on the rocks, his talons scraping off the stone.
Rarity frowned and looked around them. “We’ve already been here,” she said, lifting up a loose stone and pushing it around with her hoof. “I didn’t notice anything particularly interesting here last time. Apart from the view, of course.”
“Maybe there’s something we’re missing,” Rainbow said, her good wing held open for balance as she shuffled around the rocks and grass. “We didn’t exactly give this place a good search when we were here. Let’s take a look.”
Shrugging, Rarity started nosing through the rocks alongside Rainbow. It wasn’t a very large ridge, and there was more grass than rocks, so there wasn’t much to look at. She did take the opportunity to munch on a few blades of grass, however. It might have just been her imagination trying to make it taste better, but she felt like the grass at different corners of the island had different flavors. It was a tasty treat to enjoy after a day of walking in the sun and digging through the sand, though.
Her hoof slipped on a rock near the edge, and she lunged back towards solid ground as the rock clattered away from her. Rainbow’s head shot up when she heard the commotion, and she galloped back to Rarity. “You okay, Rares?” she asked, helping Rarity stand.
“I’m fine, darling, just had a simple misstep.” Rarity turned around and looked over the edge of the ridge to where the waves crashed into the rocks below. “I suppose I could have had it worse had I followed that rock over the edge as well.”
Rainbow joined her and looked down. Her face screwed in concentration after a few seconds, and she pointed to the breaking waves. “Why’s there a gap in the surf down there?” she asked.
Rarity followed her hoof to where she was pointing. Sure enough, the waves would crash and foam white over the rocks, except for a small stretch a couple of feet across. “Odd,” she said, moving further along the ridge to get a better look. “What would cause that?”
“Maybe we should take a look,” Rainbow said. “Come on, I think I see a way down!”
Rainbow started to make her way down the rocks, though Rarity hesitated to survey the landscape before following. “Watch out for urchins, Rainbow! They love to hide in the rocks, and we don’t need a repeat of that accident!”
“Believe me, Rares, I’m watching for those little pointy assholes!” She threaded her way down the rocks, carefully picking a path along the most stable. Rarity followed a few steps behind, relying on Rainbow to test the path. Eventually, the two found themselves on the very edge of the rocks, where the submerged sand abruptly fell away to their left.
“There’s a hollow in the rocks here,” Rainbow said, watching the waves sail into a small chamber before crashing against the rocks in the back. “That’s why we couldn’t see them breaking right away.”
“Is that it?” Rarity asked, trying to look around Rainbow’s shoulder on the narrow space they had to stand. “Surely we didn’t come all this way for nothing.”
Frowning, Rainbow began to walk closer to the hollow. After a few steps, she stumbled forward, and Rarity reflexively bit down on Rainbow’s tail to haul her back. Shaking water off of her dripping muzzle, Rainbow pointed downwards with her wing. “The sand just stops. I think it’s an underwater cave!”
“Really?” Rarity asked. “Does it go somewhere?”
“Only one way to find out!” Rainbow exclaimed. She took a deep breath, and before Rarity could stop her, she jumped down into the water.
“Ugh! Rainbow! Why must you insist on being like this!” Rarity nervously looked at the waves; she didn’t know if it was high or low tide or if they were changing. Swallowing hard, she inched closer to the drop off. “Fine. I guess we’ll be that way then.” She closed her eyes and inhaled as much as she could, then leapt into the churning waters after Rainbow.
Rarity broke through the surface of the water on the other side. At first she could hardly see anything, save for whatever sunlight managed to follow her through the water. It illuminated a small, open space with suffocatingly thick air. Water dripped off of somewhere above her and into the waves surrounding her body. Somewhere, hooves echoed off of the rocks, making her all the more confused and disoriented.
“Rainbow?” she shouted, surprised at how loud her voice sounded in the little cave. “Rainbow, are you there?”
“Yeah, Rares, chill,” Rainbow shouted back from somewhere nearby. “I’m looking for a light.”
“A light?” Rarity’s hooves found something solid to hold onto, and she hauled herself out of the water. “We’re in a cave, Rainbow! I don’t think there’s a flashlight just sitting here waiting for us!”
“No, but there are… aha!” Rarity vaguely saw Rainbow’s outline bend down and pick something up off the ground. A moment later, she heard wood clatter on the ground and a shower of sparks fall onto it. It took several tries, but Rainbow managed to light the damp torch, finally shedding some light on them. She spat out the flint she held between her teeth and dropped the ring of steel she held in her feathers next to it and smiled. “We need to remember these on the way out. So much easier than spinning a stick back and forth!”
Rarity shook her coat off and moved a little closer to the torch to try and warm herself up. “Certainly useful in the future, but more importantly, where are we?”
The cave they were standing in was barely tall enough for them to stand fully upright. A small stone platform ringed three quarters of the edge where it abruptly fell off into the water below. Next to them, a tunnel led further inward, and a few bugs crawled between the damp stones. Rarity made sure to stay well clear of them, using Rainbow as a shield.
“I think we’ve found what we’re looking for,” Rainbow said, straining to see down the dark tunnel. “Come on, let’s check it out.”
Rarity swallowed hard. “Are you sure about that, darling? This is… ominous.”
“You’re just upset because it’s dark and dirty and filled with bugs.” Rainbow stuck out her tongue and bopped Rarity on the nose. “You can stay here if you want.”
“Stay here? With the bugs?” Rarity moved a little closer to Rainbow. “I’d much rather stay with you. At least you’ll distract them with your colors and everything.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Picking up the torch, she hunched over and started walking down the narrow tunnel. “Eh shee wuh e ot.”
Rolling her eyes, Rarity fell in behind Rainbow. “Elegant as ever, darling…”
They walked the length of the tunnel, keeping a close eye out for anything strange or different about it, but all Rarity could see was smooth, wet rock and creepy crawlies. There certainly weren’t any cobwebs or bats, though, so she could at least check that off her list. Centipedes were disgusting, but at least they weren’t spiders.
The tunnel opened up again into a larger chamber, this one slightly more regular than the last. Rarity was the first to notice it, and she immediately struck off toward a corner. “This cave was expanded,” she said, eyeing the stone. “The edges have been squared off, or at least, I assume they were. They’ve weathered horribly. And is that…” She raised her head a bit and brushed at a dark spot on the wall. Beckoning for Rainbow to bring the torch closer, she strained to make out any detail until the light fell on it. When it did, she saw faded blue stains on the rocks in semi-regular patterns. “…paint?”
Rainbow spat out the torch, letting it burn on the floor so she could speak. “Cave paintings! Wow! This is just like a Daring Do book!” Her eyes darted over nearly every wall in the hopes of finding something valuable, but all the paint was too badly worn away to make anything out. “This has to be what those other ponies were after! There’s something under this island!”
“Maybe it can explain why the minotaurs rarely set hoof here,” Rarity said. She eyed another tunnel leading deeper into the mountain, but this one looked more like a hallway instead of a natural tunnel. “Perhaps we should explore further?”
The light shifted in the cave as Rainbow picked the torch up again. “Ure!” she exclaimed around the wood in her muzzle, moving down the hallway. “Eh-ee el in uh-en-oh!”
“I can’t understand you in the slightest with that thing in your mouth,” Rarity muttered, following Rainbow through the tunnel. Rainbow flicked her tail but continued onwards, Rarity close behind. They passed by several carved alcoves that perhaps held something once upon a time; now, they were just empty.
The hallway elevated some, perhaps ten feet in all, before leveling out again. Rarity saw the light glowing off of rocks in front of them, but she wasn’t ready for Rainbow to flinch and jump back, bumping into her. “What is it?” she asked, a tone of worry creeping into her voice, and she struggled to see over Rainbow’s shoulder.
The torch fell to the ground with a thud. “It’s… i-it’s a skeleton.”
Rarity forced her way past Rainbow’s side, but she immediately wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t just a pile of rocks at the end of the hallway; half of a pony’s skeleton stuck out from under the stones, a unicorn by the looks of it. Tattered clothing still clung to the skeleton’s forelimbs, and its mouth was open wide. Whether that had happened before or after the pony died, Rarity didn’t know.
“Cave-in killed them,” Rainbow said, looking at the rocks. She left the torch where it was and moved a little bit closer. “Pinned their legs. They couldn’t escape.” She swallowed hard. “Celestia, I feel like this place gets nastier by the day.”
Rarity picked up the torch and moved it a bit closer to Rainbow. She set it down at the side of the hallway before speaking. “There has to be something on the other side of this cave-in,” she said. “They had to have come from somewhere.”
Rainbow nodded and thought for a moment. “Help me take the rocks down, okay? They don’t look like they’re stacked too thick…”
Cracking her neck, Rarity moved to Rainbow’s left and placed her hooves on the rocks. “I certainly hope so. Otherwise we’ll have to start making trips to that other room just for somewhere to put all the stone.”
“We’ll make do.” Working her hooves into a gap, Rainbow pried out the first stone and heaved it down the hallway. It loudly clattered and rolled before it came to a stop. She smiled faintly and wiped her hooves. “Well, that’s one!”
Rarity sighed and started digging into the wall. “Yes, one and a million more…”
Rainbow heaved and pulled at the rocks blocking the hallway, stopping only to wipe some of the sweat from her brow. Though she’d originally been gung-ho about getting past the cave-in, exhaustion was starting to take its toll on her. Moving hundreds of pounds of rocks out of a hallway was slow and tedious without any tools or Rarity’s magic, and more than once she winced as a rock chipped or cracked her hoof. Though most pegasi didn’t wear shoes, she was starting to wish that she had some protective steel covering them like Rarity did.
They must have been at it for two or three hours before they managed to open a gap in the hallway. Rolling the last stone out of place, Rainbow collapsed onto her flanks and tried to slow her panting. “We’re… we’re through!” she exclaimed, weakly smiling. “Take that, you stupid cave-in! Rainbow, one, rocks, zero!”
Rarity raised her head from across the hall. “It certainly wasn’t an easy fight…”
“Yeah, but now we can see what else is down here!” With a deep breath and a grunt, Rainbow found her hooves again and wobbled a bit as she stood up. She waited until Rarity stood too before working her way over to the gap in the rocks. “We should be able to squeeze through right here. Mind Mr. Bones, though.”
“Shouldn’t we do something about the skeleton, though?” Rarity said, eyeing the still half-buried remains. “We should at least lay them to rest.”
Rainbow turned around and cocked her eyebrow. “You wanna do more digging right now to get him out of there?”
“Mrff…” Rarity scrunched her muzzle. “Not particularly…”
“It’s underground, I’m sure that’s good enough. Now come on!” Wiggling her rear end like a cat about to pounce, Rainbow put her hooves on the gap in the rocks and started pulling herself through. “Let’s see what we’ve got!”
Squeezing through the gap wasn’t too much of a problem for a pony as small as Rainbow, though the rocks did chafe and scratch at her coat. If anything, the thick vines binding her wing to her side caused most of the problem. The rocks tried to grab and claw at them, and any time she leaned too hard on the broken wing, it felt like somepony whacked her in the side with a sledgehammer. But with a little squirming and careful maneuvering she made it through to the other side, her hooves nearly slipping out from under her on a thin layer of slimy algae.
She frowned and brushed the slime off on the nearby wall, then turned back to the gap where Rarity was watching her from the other side. “What do you see over there?” Rarity asked.
Rainbow looked the other way and squinted into the darkness. “Not much. Toss the torch through.”
Rarity disappeared for a moment and Rainbow saw the shadows shift on the other side of the rocks. A moment later, Rarity returned, the shortening torch held in her mouth. She spat it through the rocks and grimaced. “It’s getting awfully short, Rainbow,” she warned. “I don’t think there’s more than an hour left on it.”
“Hopefully we’ll be in and out by then,” Rainbow said. “Now come on through and we can take a look ahead.”
She picked up the torch and stood back a few strides to give Rarity room to squeeze through. With a sigh, Rarity climbed through the gap in the rocks, grunting and wincing as they poked at her delicate sides. With a little effort, she too forced her way past, and she gingerly placed her hooves down on the slimy floor.
“I can’t wait to do that the other way,” she said. “But let’s hurry on for the time being. I do not want to be trapped down here when the torch goes out.”
Rainbow shrugged; she wanted to tell Rarity that there was only one way in and one way out so far, so getting lost would be difficult, but she couldn’t speak very well with the torch in her mouth. Instead, she led the way further down the hall, sliding the torch a bit further to the left to keep the burning end away from her face. The heat the flame threw off was already making her uncomfortable, and the soot started sticking to the sweat on her cheek.
The hallway went on for a short while before it opened up into yet another room, this one larger than the others they’d seen so far. Its ceiling vaulted up twenty feet, and the rough remains of statues lined the walls. There were several sconces for torches, and Rainbow quickly deposited the remains of her torch into one so she wouldn’t have to carry it anymore. Its light illuminated pictograms and glyphs higher up on the wall, faded almost to oblivion, and threw long shadows across the floor.
Rainbow Dash was nearly speechless. She’d gone to a hoofful of temples and ancient ruins with Daring Do before, but this one felt even more special. She’d discovered it without Daring’s help, and now it was just her and Rarity writing their own story. Even if they couldn’t figure out what these ruins were, it was certainly something she couldn’t wait to share with her friend when she got back home.
“This is amazing,” Rarity breathed, her blue eyes wandering over every weathered detail in the chamber. “We must be under the south hill right now. There’s nowhere else on the island that raises this high up!”
“To think that there was all this awesome stuff right under our hooves the whole time!” Rainbow exclaimed. She was practically ready to start hopping around in excitement. “Who built this place? What was it for? What’s that?”
She trotted closer to a large stone dais in the middle of the room. It was nearly ten feet in diameter and intricately carved and inlaid with gold. Unlike everything else in the room, it still seemed to be in pristine condition. The edges where ancient chisels had worked stone were still crisp and sharp, and the four raised mounds on the dais were perfect to every last detail. It didn’t take Rainbow too long to recognize one of them based on its large hill and horseshoe-like coast.
“This is some kind of map!” she exclaimed, pointing to their island while Rarity curiously stalked closer. “See? That’s our island! And those are the other islands around here!”
“A map?” Rarity asked. “But… but why would there be a map this detailed underground? And if the rest of the place is so horribly weathered and destroyed, why is this table so pristine?”
“I dunno, but there has to be something special about it!” She looked around the room again, and this time she raised her eyes slightly to four pedestals surrounding the dais. They all looked nearly identical save for intricate carvings on each, each depicting the four kinds of pony: pegasus, unicorn, earth, and crystal. Only the lattermost of the four had something resting on it in the form of a gemstone statuette of a crystal pony.
Rarity saw it too and frowned. “Where are the other three?” she asked. “The collection is incomplete.”
“Good question,” Rainbow said. She began to snoop around the columns, wondering if maybe they’d just fallen off. “There has to be something more about this place. You don’t just put a big temple thingy underground with all these weird statues and stuff for it to do—hello!”
She bent over and picked up a waterproof sack lying on the ground. She could tell from the weight that there was still something inside, so she moved it to the dais to get a closer look. “Hey, Rares, check this out!” she said, unfastening the sack’s opening. She dumped the contents out, revealing crumpled parchment and a small notebook. “This must’ve been that pony’s notes!”
Rarity started walking over to Rainbow but stopped and cocked her head. “Rainbow, do you hear that?” she asked, looking back the way they came. “It sounds like… water.”
Rainbow blinked in surprise and swung both her ears in Rarity’s direction. Sure enough, she heard the sound of waves slapping against stone. Her eyes drifted to the stone around them, where she saw and obvious waterline at their chest height. “The tide,” she breathed, sharing a concerned look with Rarity. “Crap! Half this place is underwater when the tide comes in! That’s why all those paintings and stuff down there were worn to nothing!”
She shoved the contents of the pouch back inside and slung it over her shoulders. Rarity watched with horror as the torch on the wall sputtered once or twice, barely giving out any more light. Her eyes darted to the walls and she chewed on her lip. “The water doesn’t fill this room,” she said, eyeing the hallway nervously. “We could stay here and wait it out.”
“If you want to spend six hours with water up to our necks, then sure,” Rainbow said, pushing past her. “Grab the torch! We need to go!”
She didn’t wait to see if Rarity did as she was told; she needed to see where the water was at. A quick gallop took her back to the cave-in they’d partially cleared earlier, and she flung the satchel through the gap before she tried to squeeze in after it. Once she picked it up again, she scrambled to the staircase and looked down, only to watch in horror as the water lapped against the stone steps about halfway down.
The light caught up with her as Rarity squirmed through the gap, and then she stopped at Rainbow’s side. She looked down at the water and her pupils shrank in fear. “That’s nearly above our heads,” she worriedly whispered, dropping the torch. “We can’t get out through there!”
“We have to swim through it now,” Rainbow said. “A few more minutes, and it’s gonna be at the ceiling of that hallway.” She swallowed hard and turned to Rarity. “Leave the torch here and grab onto my tail. I’ll lead the way.”
Rarity looked at the water once more, then back at Rainbow. “Rainbow, are you sure?”
“Hey, Rares,” Rainbow said, putting her hooves on Rarity’s shoulders. “Do you trust me?”
Rarity’s throat bobbed, but she shakily nodded.
“Okay,” Rainbow said, nuzzling Rarity’s cheek. “Just hold on. We’ll get out of here.”
She turned around and waited until she felt a tug on the end of her tail. Then, adjusting her bag, she stepped down into the water. Normally, the water was warm when she was in the sun, but below the ground, it felt deceptively chilly. And the further down the stairs she went, the higher it rose, until she was paddling to keep her nose above the water. With the feeble light of the torch behind them, she looked over her shoulder to make sure Rarity was doing okay. Though she got a worried look from Rarity, whose horn was scraping the ceiling as she tried to keep her nose in the air pocket, the unicorn nodded, tugging a little on Rainbow’s colorful tail, firmly clenched between her teeth.
With that encouragement, Rainbow pushed onwards, making agonizingly slow progress. She could feel the tide trying to push her and Rarity back into the chamber, but she fought and struggled against it. The water came in surges in lulls, and she would try to brace herself against the wall with the surges and swim forward in the lulls. In that way, her and Rarity made it to the first room—the first, dark room.
Rainbow took several breaths now that she had a higher ceiling to work with and she wasn’t feeling crushed between stone and water. She could hear Rarity panting behind her, but the unicorn refused to let go of Rainbow’s tail. And after a minute more of breathing, they pushed onwards into the last passageway, this one too short to hold any air against the ceiling.
Rainbow knew that they almost had to do it all in one go, so she pushed as hard as she could, trying to use her wing like an oar to propel herself through the water. Her tail tugged on her dock as she towed Rarity’s weight behind her, but she pushed on. There wasn’t any air here, and she knew there wouldn’t be any in the cave. Their only bet was to get outside before they ran out of air.
The salt stung her eyes, but she forced them open anyway. The glittering sun danced through the waves not too far ahead of her, and just the sight of it gave her enough inspiration to push onward just a little bit more. Without wasting any time, she pushed and swam and struggled, and just when she felt her lungs were about to burst—air.
Rainbow sucked down as much air as she could, coughing lightly. Rarity emerged next to her with a splash, heaving and coughing. Together, the two ponies managed to ride the surf into the nearby rocks, and there they laid, clinging to solid ground for dear life while they recovered their breath.
When her heart slowed down a bit, Rainbow rolled onto her back. Rarity still panted lightly at her side, and her eyes were closed, but the relief on the unicorn’s face was almost palpable. When Rainbow shifted toward Rarity, the fashionista opened one beautiful, blue eye. “We’re alive,” she breathed. “I didn’t think we’d get out of there!”
Rainbow didn’t waste any time with words. She just pushed her muzzle against Rarity’s and closed her eyes.
The two waterlogged, half-drowned ponies stumbled their way back to their shelter some time later. Almost as soon as they were within sight of their hut, Rarity collapsed in the sand. Groaning, she rolled over onto her back and stared up at the sky. “I wonder how many times the sea will try to claim my life before it finally succeeds or we get off this blasted island.”
“Hopefully that’ll be the last time for a while,” Rainbow groaned. She staggered over to their shelter, dropped the satchel inside, and brought out their basket of fruit. Placing it between the two of them, she sat down next to Rarity and started helping herself to a meal. “At least we’re alive and we learned something.”
Rarity forced herself to sit up so she could eat as well. “I suppose it’s something,” she said. “But what does it all mean? We know that there’s some sort of shrine beneath this island, but what is it for?”
“Don’t know, but I think I know somepony who might.” She went back to the shelter, retrieved the dripping satchel, and brought it back outside. “Maybe there’s something in that pony’s notes that were left there. I didn’t really get a chance to look at the journal itself before we had to get out of there.”
Once more she unfastened the protective flap, and her blue hooves fished out the journal. Its corners were a little damp from the seawater and all the swimming she’d done with it, but when she opened it up, she could still make out the writing on the pages. She gingerly pulled apart the pages, her eyes scanning across them for anything interesting.
Rarity cleared her throat. “Well, what does it say?”
“Huh? Oh! Right, sorry.” Rainbow flipped back a bit. “Well, the book’s by some dude named Uncharted Lands. I think Daring Do might have referenced him in one of her early books, but I don’t remember. It’s been too long since I read them. Anyway, he had a small vessel and some crew that he was using to explore and map the oceans, and they ended up getting shipwrecked here.” She raised an eyebrow at Rarity. “I guess we weren’t the first, huh?”
“So it would seem. Does he know anything about what these islands are, or what that temple is?”
“Hmmm…” Rainbow flipped through a few pages, quickly glancing over the contents. “Ah! Here’s something. ‘October seventeenth: After exploring the island for a few days, I believe that we’ve stumbled upon the remains of a tiny pony nation once known as Ponynesia. The land we’ve seen so far matches what little records we have from some of the first ponies to cross the seas ages ago. The island upon which we’ve made camp has a large hill near its southern banks that overlooks a serene lagoon. From this hill, we can clearly see three other islands along the horizons. The seas between the islands were once supposedly busy with ponies in outrigger canoes, but now there’s almost no trace of them. My crew is assembling a raft from the remains of our ship to explore some of the other islands while we wait for rescue.”
“Ponynesia?” Rarity asked. “Hard to imagine that there were once ponies living out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Apparently there were. I’ve certainly never heard of it.”
“But where did they go? How come we haven’t seen any trace of them apart from whatever we saw beneath the island?”
“Well, don’t you think there has to be a reason that the ponies aren’t here anymore but the minotaurs are?” Rainbow asked. She flipped through the book some more. “It looks like they spent the next week putting together a raft and tried to sail it to one of the nearby islands, but they were attacked along the way by minotaurs in canoes. They managed to fight them off, but their raft was damaged and the minotaurs came back with more canoes and bigger numbers.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Hmmm… ‘October twenty-sixth: I don’t know how I’m alive to be writing this right now. The minotaurs destroyed our raft in the open waters and started picking off the survivors of my crew as we floundered about in the waves. Somehow I managed to swim away and return to where we started without being attacked or drowning at sea. Now it’s just me, left to suffer alone until the end comes for me.”
Rarity shivered. “Pleasant fellow, wasn’t he?”
“He kind of got boned over really hard,” Rainbow said. She flipped a few more pages through the book. “That’s interesting, though. He thinks that the minotaurs don’t come to this island because they might believe it’s sacred or cursed or something. He did see canoes going between the other three islands, though, so he thinks they live on all of them. They kicked the ponies out and took the land for themselves.”
“Does he have anything to say about the temple?” Rarity asked. “I’m going to make the assumption that the skeleton we saw down there was his. Did he leave us any notes before his dreadful passing?”
Old pages flipped as Rainbow went to the last entry in the book. “‘December twenty-fourth: I’m writing this entry from within an ancient structure buried beneath the island. I don’t know what it’s purpose is, but I can feel a sort of energy here. There’s old magic at work in this chamber, if the sensation in my horn is anything to go by.’ Say, did you feel anything like that, Rares?”
Rarity shook her head. “I’ve been dealing with a migraine for over a week straight, Rainbow. The only thing my horn is sensitive to at the moment is pain.”
“Yeesh. Sorry, Rares. That sucks.”
“Perhaps a bit of an understatement, but accurate nonetheless.”
Rainbow shook her head. “Where was I? Oh, here. ‘There’s a map of the islands on a dais here, which I find quite odd. Why would the citizens of Ponynesia need to detail their four holdings with such precision? And surrounding this dais are four pedestals, upon which four pony figurines—earth, pegasus, unicorn, and crystal—once resided. I say once, for only the crystal figurine remains. I do not know where the other three were, but if I had to guess, I would posit that it may be more than just a coincidence that there are three other islands and three missing figurines. I will have to see if I can translate some of these glyphs and runes to find more information, but given the layout of the chamber and the energy I can feel in the air, I suspect that they may be more than just simple pieces of art.’”
“Three missing figurines, three other islands,” Rarity mused. “Do you think his hunch was correct? That these other figurines are in the minotaurs’ hands now?”
“It’s really the only possible explanation,” Rainbow said. “But about that mystical power stuff… do you think that’s what’s keeping Luna from finding our dreams?”
Rarity’s eyes widened and she nodded. “Of course! That would make sense! Bear with me, darling, because I think I can see how this all ties together.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Really? How?”
“Let’s see. So these islands—Ponynesia—were once inhabited by a small group of ponies. They built a shrine underneath this island that has magical properties we don’t understand. This shrine put up some kind of wards around the islands that are blocking scrying and possibly other magic from peering into their holding. Then minotaurs came from somewhere else and ultimately wiped out the ponies, but they refuse to come here for possibly supernatural reasons. That leaves us with some breathing room and a solid base of operations.”
“Huh.” Rainbow looked up at the sky. “So there’s only two ways that we get off of this island, from what I can tell. Either we lie around and wait for an airship or something to stumble across us, or we figure out a way to take down whatever magic is stopping Luna from finding our dreams.”
“Precisely what I figure, darling.”
Rainbow nodded. “Well, one of those two ways involves a lot of lying around and waiting for somepony to find us, and who knows how long that could take. We don’t know either if the magic hides the islands from the sky. That’d be the kind of spooky stuff ancient ritual magic would do, you think?”
“Celestia, I hope not,” Rarity said. “That dramatically reduces our chances of being found.”
“But we don’t really know one way or another,” Rainbow said. “We were only a day’s flight south of our flight path, so you’d think there’d be an airship wandering along the horizon or something, but there’s been nothing since the storm cleared. We really can’t rule it out.”
Rarity chewed on her cheek. “So that leaves us with only one surefire option then, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. We have to go find those figurines and get them to the shrine. Maybe that’ll do… something. I’d take anything, really. It’d be better than just sitting here and doing nothing for the rest of my life.”
Sighing, Rarity glanced at the palm trees around them. “I guess that means we need to build a raft like they did and hopefully not get killed by minotaurs as we try to cross.”
“And then we gotta steer clear of them when we’re on their islands, too.”
Rarity flopped back down into the sand and groaned. “I hate big adventures. Why couldn’t I have washed up at a luxury resort instead of the middle of nowhere?”
Rainbow spent the rest of the day poring through the journal with Rarity at her side. They didn’t unearth anything new or vital, only a mundane record of a pony stranded on an island with no way out. Each day’s log grew shorter and shorter as the author found less and less to write about. One entry late in December simply read: Ate a coconut.
Still, it was nice to have something to do. Once the necessities of ensuring their survival were done for the day, everything else was boring. Rainbow knew that they’d have to start working on their raft at some point, or wait the next few weeks for her wing to heal, and then to rehab it. A gnawing fear preyed at her worries that her wing wouldn’t heal properly without proper medical care. She’d done all she could for it, had followed her survival training to the letter, but it was still a broken wing. If it set even the slightest bit wrong, it could affect her speed and performance. Rainbow found herself worrying that if she ever got off of the island, she wouldn’t be the fastest flier in Equestria anymore. She prayed that that bit of her didn’t die in the shipwreck like so many other ponies.
The book and Rarity’s company kept most of that fear at bay—most of it. It at least stopped her mind from wandering. Otherwise, Rainbow feared she’d end up a shivering, neurotic wreck like she’d been before the Best Young Fliers Competition. She paused her reading and stared off into the distance. How many years had it been since then? Five? It felt like a lifetime ago.
Rarity prodded Rainbow’s shoulder. “Are you okay, darling?”
Rainbow blinked. “Eh?”
“You spaced out there for a minute.” Rarity shifted in the sand, scattering grains of sediment from her coat. “Were you thinking about something?”
“It’s nothing,” Rainbow said, lowering her eyes back to the book. She knew Rarity could sense the lie, so she put another idea forward. “Just… look at the dates in the book, Rares. This guy was stuck on the island for more than two months and he never saw anything. No airships, no nothing, and it was just himself for most of it. How did he do it?”
“If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say through stubbornness and sheer determination.” Chuckling, she winked at Rainbow. “I’d say that’s something the two of us possess plenty of.”
“Heh. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Rarity’s eyes fell on Chirp, who was napping in a tree across the clearing from them. “Who’s to say he was totally alone, though? Doesn’t he mention the macaws in that diary of his?”
Rainbow idly flipped back a few pages. “Yeah, a couple of times. He had one that he liked to feed, and it followed him around.” She likewise glanced at Chirp and smiled. “This book’s twenty-six years old, if the dates in it are anything to go by. Macaws can live until they’re like, eighty or something.”
“It would certainly explain our little featherhead’s friendly behavior,” Rarity said. “We weren’t the first ponies he’s known.”
“Hard to imagine that Chirp’s older than both of us.”
“I suppose you’re right. It is an odd, little quirk to imagine that such a harmless and friendly bird is several years older than you and I.” She shook her head. “Birds don’t visibly age all that much once they reach maturity. Chirp could be thirty, or he could be seventy and we wouldn’t know.”
Rainbow narrowed her eyes and angled her head at Chirp, as if by doing that she’d have a better shot at guessing the bird’s age. “That something you learned from Fluttershy?”
“You’d be surprised what you can learn from the dear when you get her to talk, darling.”
“Oh, I know. Fluttershy was basically my first friend, remember? I’ve known her longer than anypony save her family, really.” Her eyes fell and she shook her head. “I kinda miss that quiet girl right now.”
“As much as I’m sure she misses you,” Rarity assured her. “We’ll see her soon. Her and her little… hell bunny.”
Rainbow snickered. “There’s only one thing that really scares me, and that’s that fluffy white thing that follows Flutters around everywhere. I don’t know where she found it or why she puts up with him, but I would’ve turned him into rabbit stew a long time ago.”
“She claims that he’s sweet underneath it all, but I don’t believe it.” Sighing, she added, “Then again, Opalescence can be ornery and aloof from time to time, but I haven’t kicked her out of the house yet.”
“Tank doesn’t do much of anything, really,” Rainbow said. “I hardly have to do anything except remember to feed him and stuff and he’s not destroying stuff around my place. And I can take him flying with me! That’s the definition of awesome!” Her smile faded and she crossed her hooves. “I hope my parents or Scootaloo are taking care of him for me. I don’t know how long it’s gonna be until I get back to see him again…”
“I… hadn’t even thought of that,” Rarity said. “Heavens, I’ve been so concerned about my own well-being that I’ve hardly given second thought to Opal. I’ve shown Sweetie what she needs to do to take care of her, at least. Hopefully she’s in good hooves until we return.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Rainbow massaged Rarity’s back with her wing. “If nothing else, Fluttershy will take care of them. You can at least count on her for that.”
“True enough.” Rarity sighed and lowered her head. “Assuming we even make it out of here in one piece, we’re going to have quite the story to tell our friends when we get back.”
“Among other things…” Rainbow purred, playfully nibbling on Rarity’s ear. The unicorn giggled and gently pushed Rainbow away. “What are they gonna think of that?”
Rarity shrugged. “Perhaps a mixture of surprise and understanding. The two of us trapped together for who knows how long? Why, it was bound to happen.”
“I suppose, when you put it like that.” Rainbow stood up and arched her back. “Before the days blur together even more, I came up with an idea from reading that journal.”
Rarity’s ears perked with interest. “Oh?”
Rainbow trotted over to their salvage pile and pulled out a plank. Carrying it back to Rarity, she jammed it into the sand near their shelter. Then she went inside and pulled out the knife, their only quality cutting tool, and wedged the point into the top of the board. “How many days have we been here?”
“Just barely over a week… eight, I think?” She narrowed her eyes as Rainbow carefully manipulated the knife with her mouth, scratching lines into the plank. As soon as Rainbow crossed off four of the marks, her eyes widened in understanding. “A calendar? You think we’ll be here that long?”
“I really hope not,” Rainbow said when she finished carving eight tallies into the plank. “But maybe it’ll help us keep track of things later if we are.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Rarity stood up and made her way over to the calendar plank as well. They had about three feet of plank to work with, and then there were other sides. Rainbow had only used up an inch at the top, her eight marks nearly stretching from one side to the other. “We can fit nearly a year’s worth of notches on the front,” Rarity said. “How much do you think we’ll fill it by the time we’re rescued, darling?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Well, there’s a ton of crap we have to do first. I’m gonna be optimistic and say that we can get out of here in a month unless somepony finds us first.”
“A month it is, then,” Rarity said. “Forty notches until freedom! It doesn’t sound all that bad when you put it that way, doesn’t it?”
“I’m sure it’ll sound worse when it turns into fifty,” Rainbow muttered.
“Don’t be so cynical, darling. Optimism is the only way that we’ll survive!”
Night fell, and both Rarity and Rainbow lingered by the east shore much later than they usually did in the hopes of hearing the sirens again. But the seas were quiet and calm that night, and the only thing they heard was the crashing of waves and a stiff breeze blowing through the trees. Not wanting to spend another night sleeping on the sand by the shore, Rarity eventually decided to pack it in, and she and Rainbow retreated to their browning shelter for the night. Rarity knew that they’d have to start replacing it soon; the water and sun were deteriorating the palm fronds that made up the majority of it surprisingly quickly.
She and Rainbow laid together that night, the space between their two beds gone as they’d combined them into one. For some reason, sleeping wasn’t as much of an uncomfortable and itchy experience for Rarity when she had Rainbow to hold onto. And judging by how quickly Rainbow Dash fell asleep in her embrace, it wasn’t just her imagining that. Perhaps with some minor horror, Rarity realized that her standards for refreshing rest had fallen from a comfy and cushy four-poster bed to clean moss and somepony to hold onto.
She wondered if Rainbow would still help her fill her bed whenever they both came home. Would they still have this when they got off the island? Rainbow’s hair tickled her nose as she breathed in her scent. Was this an actual attraction between them, or a desperation for companionship on an island with danger, death, and loneliness all around them?
Rainbow snorted in her sleep and curled closer to Rarity. At least she didn’t have any quandaries to debate in her rest. Rarity realized that once again, her habit of worrying over the little details was keeping her awake at night. She just needed to let go and worry about those things later. Right now, the most important thing was staying alive and keeping her sanity intact. Worrying about the future of her budding relationship with Rainbow certainly wasn’t helping her achieve that last part.
Laying her head back down on the ground, Rarity tried to adjust her bedding into something more comfortable for the growing crick in her neck and exhaled. Then it was just a matter of slowly counting her breaths until she fell asleep.
It felt like the blink of an eye, but soon Rarity found herself yawning as the morning sun peered through the spaces in their shelter. She realized how tired they must’ve been when she saw that neither her nor Rainbow had moved at all during the night; she still held onto Rainbow, and Rainbow still had her forelegs wrapped around Rarity’s back. And now as a result, Rarity’s neck was stiff and even moving it was a pain.
Grunting, she gently rolled Rainbow back so she could stand up and get out. The pegasus snorted and shifted, but she went back to snoring after a few seconds, leaving Rarity to shake her head and step out the door. It was a good thing Rainbow slept so hard; Rarity was certain she could bury Rainbow in the sand while she was asleep and her friend wouldn’t notice.
She chuckled to herself; maybe she’d try it the next time she caught Rainbow napping on the beach.
After taking care of her morning business and getting a drink from the bucket, Rarity plucked one of their last sugar apples from the basket and started picking it apart. Her eyes wandered to the pile of scrap wood they’d salvaged, and the nearby pile of unsuitable wood they’d pooled to create their signal fire. How much wood could they salvage from those piles to build a raft? It was all they really had to work with, unfortunately. They didn’t have any tools for cutting down trees and using them to make a raft. The only sharp metal tools they had were the cleaver, the shovel, and the knife, and none would be very good at cutting down a tree. Besides, her and Rainbow simply couldn’t afford to break those tools in the attempt. They were too valuable to waste in that manner.
Maybe her and Rainbow could make some stone tools? There was certainly a lot of rock to comb through on the south hill and the two ridges framing the lagoon. With a little bit of looking, perhaps they’d find some rocks that would be suitable for turning into an axe head. They could probably be tied to sticks using some coconut fibers spun into thread. At least that was one thing Rarity knew how to do, though working on it without a spinning wheel or other such modern tools would be difficult. But she was confident she could do it with enough time and effort. And really, her and Rainbow had all the time in the world.
She heard the palms shift behind her, and she waved to Rainbow as she groggily staggered out of the shelter. “Good morning, darling! How did you sleep?”
“Like a rock,” Rainbow muttered, rubbing her eyes with her wingtip. “I had this dream that—your magic is back?!”
“I wish it wasn’t a dream,” Rarity said, taking another bite of her breakfast. “It’d certainly be useful.”
“No, like, actually, your magic is back!”
Rarity blinked, then stared at the piece of fruit hovering in front of her mouth, surrounded in a blue field. She dropped the clove in surprise, and she felt around the end of her horn. Sure enough, the crack was mostly healed, leaving nothing more than a chip in the end.
“I didn’t even notice!” Rarity exclaimed, jumping to her hooves. Sure enough, she could pick up the piece of fruit with a thought. Spinning it in the air, she chucked it across the clearing. It landed in the sand ten or fifteen yards away, catching Chirp’s attention, who swooped down from his perch to pick up the half-eaten clove. “Oh, Celestia, my magic is back! This is wonderful! I must’ve been too groggy to notice it earlier, but now I’m ecstatic!”
“You and me both,” Rainbow said. “Having your magic back is gonna be super awesome for us. Now we’ll have reach and a bunch of other stuff that we could really use.”
Rarity picked up a streak of sand and began shuttling it along in patterns and waves in mid-air. “I’m mostly excited to have my telekinesis back. Now I won’t have to pick everything up in my mouth. And my fine manipulation is still as sharp as ever!” She giggled and pranced about in the sand. “I feel like a foal on Hearth’s Warming! This is the best present I could’ve asked for!”
Rainbow smiled, sharing in Rarity’s joy. “The ponies want to know, Miss Rarity,” she said, doing her best imitation of a reporter’s voice, “what will you do now?”
Rarity’s eyes turned skyward, and she spotted out the nearest fruiting palm tree. Several ripe coconuts hung from its trunk, and she licked her lips in anticipation. “I think I’m going to eat something different today,” she said, her blue magic already wrapping around one of the coconuts. With a forceful tug, she pulled it off of the tree and floated it down to her and Rainbow. “It’s time for some delicious coconut!”
Rainbow Dash dropped the coconut in frustration, its hide covered in cuts and scrapes that left fraying fibers spilling out at random. Getting the coconut off of the tree had been easy. Opening it, on the other hoof, had been incredibly difficult. No amount of beating or banging the fruit against rocks or the corner of their shelter had gotten her anywhere close to sampling the fruit inside.
Rarity’s freshly returned magic plucked the coconut off of the sand and brushed off some of the sediment. “You’re not going to achieve anything through brute force like that,” she scolded. “We’re not savages, darling. Though we may be stranded, we have tools.”
The cleaver drifted over from where Rainbow had wedged it into the calendar plank. Placing the coconut on the ground, Rarity twirled the cleaver and swung it down on the fruit with all the force her magic could provide. The blade slashed through the rind easily, and after wiggling the cleaver back and forth to loosen it, she set it aside and began peeling apart the coconut’s hide.
Rainbow watched with anticipation, her stomach growling. Bit by bit, Rarity unwrapped the hide, trying to keep it all in one piece. When that was done, she floated it over to Rainbow. “Don’t lose this,” she said to her. “I can probably take it apart and make some thread from it later.”
“Sure,” Rainbow said, tossing the hide into their shelter. At least it wouldn’t be lost there. Licking her lips, she shuffled closer to Rarity, only to see that they’d shed the first layer for a second, harder shell. She groaned and flopped into the sand, her hooves placed to her forehead. “Why is it so difficult just to open a stupid coconut?!”
“They’re not difficult, they just require patience, Rainbow. Which, I would assume, is why you think they’re such a struggle.” She set the cleaver aside and picked up the rock Rainbow had been using to try and get through the husk. “Lacking any more suitable tools, now comes the time for a precise application of force.”
Rarity aligned the rock with the side of the coconut and smashed it downwards, caving in a chunk of the shell. She plucked a broken piece out and admired the juicy white flesh clinging to the brown exterior, then set it in a basket. “We’ll have to cut the flesh off of the shell before we eat it,” she said. Picking up the coconut, she peered inside and smiled. “And this one still has plenty of water in it! The oils in coconut water are great for your skin and coat!” She lifted the gash in the coconut to her lips and took a drink, practically shivering in delight. “And it tastes heavenly!”
“Don’t hog it all to yourself!” Rainbow protested, snatching the coconut away. “You’re not the only one who’s hungry!”
Rarity frowned, indignant that Rainbow had stolen the coconut away, but she wordlessly waited while Rainbow took a drink. Rainbow looked inside the fruit and saw the water sloshing around, maybe enough for one or two mouthfuls. Holding the nut to her lips, she let the water dribble into her mouth. She didn’t really know what to think at first; it was a mixture of sweet and bitter, and the fluid was a lot thinner than she expected. It certainly wasn’t rich and heavy with flavor like apple juice or apple cider, but it was at least a new taste she hadn’t experienced since coming to the island.
The coconut returned to Rarity at the whim of her horn, and she drained the last few drops of water from the shell. “Now to get the rest of the flesh, she said, carefully chipping away at the hole she’d created in the shell. Bit by bit, the coconut broke apart with a little more effort, and soon Rarity had disassembled the fruit into several pieces. “There! The challenging part is finished,” she said, smiling. A knife floated over to her, one of the few they’d managed to recover from the wreck. “Now to just strip the flesh from the shell. Care to help?”
“If it means I can eat faster, then totally,” Rainbow said, fetching another knife and sitting across from Rarity with the basket between them. She picked up a large chunk of the shell and held it in place with her wing while she went to work on it with her knife. One piece at a time, the two mares sorted the flesh from the pieces of the shell, setting the edible part into another basket and leaving the shell pieces in the sand for now. Perhaps they’d find a use for them later, or more realistically, Rarity would find a use for them. The unicorn was much better at improvising and repurposing junk into something useful than Rainbow was.
By the time they finished peeling off all the flesh, Rainbow couldn’t contain herself anymore. She immediately scooped up a hoofful of the white meat and popped it into her mouth. It was still juicy and a slight bit oily, coming fresh from the fruit, but it offered an amazing contrast to the sweetness of the other fruit they’d been eating for the past few days. Rainbow’s wingtips trembled as she swallowed the bite and immediately reached for another. “This stuff’s awesome! I’ll have to get these more often when we get home!”
“We’ll see how we feel about it by the time we finally do get home,” Rarity said. “I imagine I’ll never be able to eat star and sugar apples after this ordeal. Coconuts may very well follow that.”
Rarity took a taste and hummed in delight. “Yes, it’s certainly a welcome change of pace,” she said. “We’ll have to see about drying the flesh from other coconuts, or pressing the milk out. I’ll also try experimenting with the husk and see if I can make some thread from it. Perhaps I can use it to stitch makeshift dresses!”
Rainbow shrunk back a bit in evident worry. “The day that you start trying to have me model dresses made from leaves and coconuts is the day that I’m just gonna try flying back to Equestria. You can figure out your own way off the island.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Are you saying you have something better to do with your time?”
“Yeah, like collecting more coconuts and making sure that we have what we need to survive.”
“Yes, but between all that!” Rarity protested. “Coconuts in particular can be very useful for more than just food. Imagine all the things I can make from their husks and shells!”
“I’d rather coco-not,” Rainbow said, snickering.
Rarity blinked. “Did you really?”
“Maybe…”
Sighing, Rarity pulled another four coconuts off of a tree and sat them in front of Rainbow. “Here you go,” she said, standing up and walking away. “I don’t think I can bear to look at you any longer.”
“Come on! It was a good one!” Rainbow yelled back as Rarity walked away. “You have to admit that! We’re from Equestria, literally everything is a pun of some kind!”
“Leaving, darling!” And she disappeared between the trees.
Rainbow sighed and frowned. Picking up the cleaver, she set it to work on one of the coconuts. “Why do I always end up doing all the work?” she grumbled.
Rarity wandered between the trees at the interior of the island, gravitating toward the south. Hopefully the coconuts she’d left Rainbow would keep her occupied for the next while. Maybe they’d get her to think about the crime she’d committed. Rarity still couldn’t believe that Rainbow had actually said that.
Chirp landed on her back and tugged at her sandy mane. Rolling her eyes, Rarity pulled her mane away from the bird. “I am not overreacting, Chirp. Celestia, I’m sure puns that awful are a war crime.”
The macaw squawked and flew back up to a tree. Rarity stopped and watched him climb around the fronds until he found a solid perch to sit on, and then he stared back at her. Apart from a few squawks and the constant tilting and moving of his head, Chirp remained impassive as Rarity sat down a short distance away.
Her white hooves pushed through the sand, causing it to stick to her coat. She didn’t even care anymore. Out here, she could either get used to the sand or die, and so far she was still living. It hardly bothered her anymore, and that revelation disturbed her in some way. How quickly her standards of hygiene had fallen away when there wasn’t anything to hold them to.
She tried to imagine the ponies that supposedly had once lived here. How many of them were there? How did they live on such a tiny island? Maybe they didn’t, not really, and the other islands were bigger or something. How did they end up on a bunch of islands in the middle of nowhere? Were they castaways like her and Rainbow, or did they discover them some time long before recorded history?
And what about the minotaurs? Where did they come from? Come to think about it, where were they in the first place? Rarity knew she hadn’t hallucinated those hoofprints or the pegasus wing bones. Those were real. But where were the minotaurs, then? If she knew what they were doing, Rarity knew that they wouldn’t be as much as a frightening mystery to her and Rainbow. Even if they regularly came to their island to eat and dance in the night, Rarity would feel better because she’d know what to expect of them. But not knowing anything about their behavior or patterns left her feeling like they could attack her at any moment, and she felt continuously on edge. It also left her worrying about what she and Rainbow could expect when they visited the other islands.
Unfortunately (or perhaps not), they were in no position to cross the ocean and see what the minotaurs had in store for them. Not yet, at least. They had to somehow build a raft, and to do that they’d need tools. That led Rarity to a different train of thought. If these islands were once inhabited by ponies, then they had to have had a way to make the tools they needed to craft their boats and build up the necessary trappings of civilization they needed to survive. And if primitives could build tools, then what was taking her and Rainbow so long? Rarity considered herself intelligent and educated; if she couldn’t figure out how to make simple tools like the ponies of Ponynesia could, then did she really deserve to get off this island?
“Stone tools,” she muttered to herself, standing up. “Let’s see. It can’t be that difficult, can it? All we’d need are some rocks, some sticks, and some vine to tie them together. That or coconut husk rope, but I’ll need to work on that first.” Her gaze drifted to the rising ground to the south. “There’s likely many suitable rocks to the south, especially around the ridges. It’ll be a good place to start searching.”
She made her way to the south, leaving Chirp behind; it seemed like the bird had lost his interest in her and was probably going back to their shelter to see if Rainbow had anything for him to eat. Rarity kicked herself too as she climbed the hill; she should’ve remembered to bring the baskets with her so she could stock up on fruit at the hill. Now that she had her magic back, harvesting fruit would be easier than ever. She could clear an entire plant in seconds with her magic. Still, she knew that she shouldn’t push her magic now that it was back; the healing along her horn was fragile, and if she pushed herself too much, she could end up cracking it again. That was the last thing that she and Rainbow needed right now.
Time hardly seemed to pass as she hiked up the south hill; she’d done it so many times now that it was almost effortless to her. But once she was at the top, she turned her attention from fruit to rocks. The fruit was always there, and her and Rainbow knew where it was, but the rocks were a different matter. They’d never seen the value in looking for them until now, but now they needed them if they were going to survive. Thankfully, Rarity knew far more about rocks than she cared to admit. She figured she knew almost as much as Maud Pie, minus the dedicated classes and rigorous studies on geology. One doesn’t find gems without first knowing the compositions of rocks and the environs in which they can be found, after all.
Rarity soon started a growing pile of rocks that she set aside for possible use in tools. Straight rocks, curved rocks, flat ones. A few smaller rocks she carefully selected for use in chipping—they could sharpen the others. The longer she worked, the less she paid attention to the world around her. And it wasn’t until several birds let out a series of warning chirps that Rarity finally looked up again.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she immediately pressed herself low into the grass. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear…
A canoe floated in the shallow waters of the lagoon. Rarity saw that first. It must’ve been fifteen feet long, and an outrigger to its starboard served to stabilize it in the choppy ocean waters. On either side, two minotaurs grabbed onto the wooden hull and helped push the boat toward the shore, their large, muscular bodies making it seem trivial. Each minotaur’s torso was covered in paint, and their bulging muscles led Rarity to believe that they could easily break her neck with a twitch of their fingers.
Her mouth ran dry. Here they were. After all this time, here they were.
She dropped her rocks and ran. Rainbow needed to know. Celestia, they needed to hide now, or this would be their last day on the island—and the last day of their lives.
Rainbow Dash sucked down the last of the coconut water from the drupe in her hooves. She sighed and licked her lips; it certainly beat plain old water in terms of the nutrition department, and the fact that she had to work so hard to get it just made it all the sweeter. Plus, since Rarity had disappeared into the island, she’d had all the water from the coconuts to herself. She certainly didn’t have any way of setting it aside for the time being, not if Rarity expected her to get all the meat out of the fruits as well. And why waste that sweet nectar hidden away inside shells she worked so hard to open?
The meat of the coconuts she’d already harvested had dried out surprisingly quickly in the sweltering sun. They made a perfect snack to munch on while she worked, a subtle sweet and cool flavor to contrast with the much more aggressively sugary tastes of the other fruits they’d had to eat so far. When Rainbow glanced at the basket next to her, her brow slid down her face and she set the coconut aside. She could’ve sworn that she’d collected at least twice the amount of coconut meat in the basket.
Her eyes drifted to Chirp, who watched her from a tree. “Quit stealing so much of it, you birdbrain,” she scolded him, idly stuffing a few more chunks into her muzzle. “This stuff is valuable.”
The leaves of some ferns and shrubbery rustled and shifted as Rarity suddenly burst through them, her coat covered in glistening sweat. Rainbow had been about to make a joke until she saw the way Rarity panted and the concerned look on her face. Abandoning the coconut, she scrambled to her hooves and found herself at Rarity’s side in no time at all. “Rarity!” she exclaimed, helping the exhausted mare stand. “What happened? What did you see?”
Rarity tried to speak, but she had to swallow hard and suck down a few more breaths first. “Min… Minotaurs,” she finally managed. “They’re here.”
Rainbow’s ears shot up and she looked back in the direction Rarity had come from, half expecting to see a pack of minotaurs come running out of the woods after her. When they didn’t though, she helped Rarity sit down and started to question her. “Where? How many? Did they see you?”
“The lagoon,” Rarity said. “A single canoe. Four of them. And no, I don’t think so.”
“Great,” Rainbow said. She paced in the sand, her wingtips fidgeting at her sides. “We need to go back there and keep an eye on them. We can’t let them find out we’re here.”
Rarity swallowed hard. “Yes, you’re right. Just let me… let me catch my breath for a moment.”
Rainbow patted Rarity’s shoulder and nuzzled her cheek. “You did awesome,” she said. “I’ll go take a look for now. Catch up when you’re able.”
The unicorn nodded, and that was all the confirmation Rainbow needed. She was off in a flash, the branches and leaves of the native plant life whipping and scratching at her coat the entire time. The birds sung around her, oblivious to the peril the two ponies living there were in, and they made it difficult for Rainbow to concentrate on what was ahead of her. At least until, abruptly, they stopped.
It took Rainbow’s brain a few seconds to process it, but when she did, she slid to a stop and scooted over to some bushes. It wasn’t a moment too soon; within a few more agonizing seconds, she heard several gruff voices making their way toward her. She couldn’t understand anything being said, but when she saw hooves stomp across the ground toward her, she hid her breath and curled up as tightly as she could in the bush. If they saw her, if they found out she was there, Rainbow knew they’d kill her. There wouldn’t be any way to escape.
The hooves marched closer. Through a gap in the leaves, Rainbow got her first look at the minotaurs. They were as big as that one minotaur that’d come to Ponyville a long time ago, maybe even bigger. Bulging and powerful muscles slid beneath stone-gray coats, and their coats were covered in all sorts of tribal patterning and war paint. Each minotaur carried a net across their shoulder and a long spear in one hand. Rainbow didn’t have to imagine too hard what would happen to her if she got caught. They’d get the net over her, and then they’d stick her with a spear. And Rarity wouldn’t even know.
Rarity… her heart jumped into her throat as she realized that the pair of minotaurs were walking back in the direction she’d come from—the direction of their camp. If they found it, they’d find Rarity. Even if Rarity managed to hear them coming and hid, the presence of a fresh camp on the island would let them know that they were still hiding around. Rainbow felt like her and Rarity were being pressed into a corner, and the way out was getting smaller and smaller by the second.
She had to do something. If she just hid in that bush, it was only a matter of time before the minotaurs got one or both of them. They hadn’t made it for this long only for a couple of minotaurs to end it all. But right now, Rainbow still had the drop on them. There had to be something she could do.
She found a possibility in a large rock lying in the sand by her hooves. With no better ideas, she picked up the rock and heaved it as hard as she could off to the side. The rock hit a tree trunk, producing a solid crack before it fell into the sand with a muted thump. And, to Rainbow’s relief, both minotaurs heard it. They stopped what they were doing and turned to the left, walking over to investigate the source of the noise.
Rainbow wasted no time. As soon as they were out of sight, she carefully slipped out of her cover and galloped as quietly as she could through the sand. Thankfully it muffled her hooves a bit, but she knew that only a casual glance would let the minotaurs pick her out from the foliage. Celestia damn it, why did she have to be so colorful?
The minotaurs didn’t seem to notice her running away, or at least, she didn’t think that they did. There certainly weren’t any shouts or cries of alarm. But she was an athlete, unlike Rarity, and so when she returned to camp, she wasn’t quite as out of breath as Rarity had been. Rarity stood up in surprise and trotted over to Rainbow. “You’re back? Are they—?”
Rainbow nodded. “Two of them. Coming this way. Quick, we gotta tear this stuff down!”
“Tear it down?” Rarity asked. “But it’s our shelter! We worked so hard on it—!”
“And it’s gonna be the death of us if it doesn’t look like it’s been abandoned!” Rainbow hissed. She pushed past Rarity and started tearing at the palm fronds making up the walls. “Use your magic and start ripping it apart, then throw sand on it! We’ll only have like two minutes, so we gotta go!”
Rarity swallowed hard and did as she was told. Rainbow watched as her friends’ magic started tearing and pulling on their shelter. In mere moments, they’d undone all the hard effort that’d gone into making their shelter, leaving only a leaning frame standing, with dried and browning palm fronds hanging off of it. Then her magic kicked up a wave of sand, blanketing everything in a thin layer.
Rainbow grabbed the basket of emergency provisions they’d set aside. “Grab those coconuts,” Rainbow said as she ran past. “We can’t leave them sitting here, they’re too fresh.”
The coconuts levitated in a blue field as Rarity followed Rainbow to the edge of the trees. “I can’t believe this is happening,” Rarity worriedly muttered. “Oh, Celestia, keep us safe!”
“Celestia can’t help us here, Rares,” Rainbow said, swallowing hard. “We’ve only got ourselves.”
Rainbow Dash kept her ears pointed to the south. She could hear the hooting and hollering of the minotaurs somewhere through the trees; she just prayed that it wouldn’t get any closer. But the trees diffused the sound and caused it to echo from strange angles, so Rainbow couldn’t pin down where exactly the minotaurs were. All she knew was that they weren’t near her and Rarity.
The two of them had found shelter near a cluster of palm trees. The sand fell away into a shallow divot here, and bushes grew low around the rim of the hollow. It would keep them safe at a distance, but the leaves weren’t high enough nor the foliage thick enough to stop a minotaur from catching a glimpse at them if he got close enough. They just had to hope that it wouldn’t happen.
Rarity shivered and pressed herself closer to Rainbow, and Rainbow’s wing and hooves wrapped tightly around her in response. Neither said a word, afraid that even the slightest sound would draw the minotaurs’ attention no matter how far away they were. All they could do was hold each other close for comfort and wait out the storm.
Purple hair tickled Rainbow’s nose as she nuzzled Rarity’s mane. She thought it funny how she held onto Rarity like she was going to protect her, when in reality if they had to fight, Rainbow would have to count on Rarity’s magic to do most of the fighting for them. She simply wasn’t agile enough with a broken wing to skirmish with the minotaurs and keep them away; she’d get caught in a flash by their nets or skewered on a spear. Rarity’s magic and intangible touch would level the playing field, but Rainbow would be nearly helpless if she couldn’t move and fly.
Chirp landed in front of them and huddled up next to Rarity, pressing his head against her foreleg. It was like the bird himself knew that they were in a dangerous situation and was trying to help. He did make Rainbow and Rarity smile, and Rarity scratched the bird’s head with her hoof while he trilled softly.
The skies turned amber as the sun fell. Neither pony had heard the minotaurs for at least an hour. Rainbow assumed that they’d gone back to their canoe and shoved off, but she didn’t want to risk wandering around the island until enough time had passed for her to know for sure. So they stayed put, numbly eating from their basket of fruit. The star apples went quickly; without any fresh water nearby, the juices inside them had to serve as a stand-in. The sugar apples they ate sparingly, as the almost creamy nature of the fruit made them thirsty for something to wash the pulp down with. Instead, they amused themselves by letting Chirp work on a few of the cloves and stroking his feathers while he ate.
Nighttime came, and the island grew quiet. Every strange noise they imagined as a minotaur hollering or shouting somewhere in the dark forest of the island. Rainbow briefly risked standing up and walking around a bit to stretch out her sore legs, but she never strayed too far and returned to their foxhole after a minute or so. At the very least, thick clouds rolling in meant that there wasn’t much moonlight to see by. It would help hide Rainbow and Rarity in case they needed it.
Rainbow didn’t remember falling asleep, but she woke with a jolt in the dim hours of the morning just before dawn. Momentarily disoriented, the events of the previous day came back to her, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Rarity soundly sleeping by her side. They were both alive, and that was all that mattered.
Her tongue felt rubbery and sticky, and Rainbow found herself craving water more than anything else. After taking care of her morning business, she gently shook Rarity awake. The unicorn jumped in alarm, but when she saw the gentle smile on Rainbow’s muzzle, she calmed down. “Is… is everything alright?” she murmured, rubbing at her eyes.
“As far as I can tell,” Rainbow said. “I haven’t heard anything, and I’m thirsty. Let’s go get a drink and check out the damage, okay?”
Rarity nodded and moved to her hooves with Rainbow’s help. Together, the two ponies carefully padded through the sand, still cautious about making too much noise. They made slow progress, stopping every so often to listen to the sounds around them, but they heard nothing other than the birds and the bugs of morning. It was almost too much for them by the time they made it to the pond, and Rainbow dunked her muzzle in the lukewarm water without a second thought. Sure, it probably wasn’t the healthiest, by she needed water now, and she wasn’t going to wait until they could boil more again.
When they’d both had their fill of water, they glided across the sand to the east, to their old shelter. It was much as they’d left it, in a state of disrepair, but they could tell that it’d been the right choice. Several large hoofprints covered the sand, especially between their shelter and their pile of salvage, which had been reduced from a pile to a disorganized spread of wood and other bits they’d pulled from the Concordia’s wreckage. The vines they’d used to hold the frame of their shelter together had been split, and several of the beams were splintering. There wasn’t much they could really salvage from it except for some of the wood.
Rarity fell to her haunches upon seeing the destruction around them. “We’re back to square one,” she murmured, her ears pointing downwards. “We have no shelter anymore, and it looks like it’s going to rain soon. All of our hard work…”
Rainbow tried to comfort her with a hug. “We’ll rebuild it, Rares,” Rainbow said. “We still have wood and we have a lot more salvage than we did the first time. We’ll put it back together. This isn’t going to stop us.”
“But what’s the point?” Rarity protested. “What’s the point of making a hut if the minotaurs could come back at any moment and we have to tear the whole thing down again? We’ll run out of usable wood for making shelter at this rate, and we need all we can get for our raft!”
“We’ll survive,” Rainbow insisted. “Some stupid minotaurs aren’t gonna get me to give up. Even if I have to sleep in the open, I’m not giving up on getting home. We’ll make it, Rares. I know we will.”
Rarity chewed on her lip. “And what happens if the worst comes to pass? What happens if we don’t?”
Rainbow shook her head. “I’m not even gonna consider that possibility.” She put both her hooves on Rarity’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “We’re not done yet, okay? We’ll survive. This sandy island isn’t gonna be the end of us, got it?”
With a breathless nod, Rarity swallowed hard and steeled her resolve. “Got it,” she said. “We’ll survive. I… I believe in us.”
“Good.” She looked over her shoulder at the mess behind her. “Because we have a lot of work to do before it starts raining again.”
Though the minotaurs had left them the cleaver and knives, there was simply too much to be done in a couple of hours to beat the storm. Before they had finished repairing their shelter, the rain began to pound them hard, like the sky itself was trying to push them into the sand. Rarity had hardly any time to realize that it had started raining before she was soaked to the bone. And unlike last time when she had welcomed the rain to clean her coat, this time she simply wanted it to go away. At least then she’d had someplace dry to hide in after she’d bathed in the storm. Now, there wasn’t anything.
She wasn’t the only one upset with the turn of events. Rainbow stubbornly pressed on, trying to repair the damage the minotaurs had done to the supports even as the rain kept running off of her head and into her eyes. Her good wing acted like a makeshift umbrella to try to keep the worst out of her face, but every time she looked up she immediately lowered her head and wiped at her eyes. Her vibrant mane had been reduced to a tattered cord of damp, muted colors clinging to her neck and cheeks
Rarity hung around the edge of their shelter, trying to lend a hoof or spell when Rainbow asked for it, but she’d largely resigned herself to the rain by this point. At least it was still tropical, so the water wasn’t cold, but the steady breeze blowing in off the ocean bit at her skin with frigid fangs. What was worse was that she could feel her nose running, and feathery tickles at the back of her throat warned her that she was catching a cold.
Exasperated, Rainbow threw down the board she was working with, letting the corner of their shelter sag and list forward. Her hooves stomped at the soaked sand as she turned her furious glare skyward. “Why can’t you stupid clouds just fuck off?!” she cursed, as if by some miracle her ire would chase away the storm. When they insisted on hanging around, however, Rainbow grumbled and stormed off to the shelter of the trees.
Rarity followed her, and together they found a bit of damp ground under a cluster of palms. It certainly wasn’t dry by any stretch of the imagination, but it at least sheltered them from the worst of the elements. Here, it was only rainy instead of drowning.
Rainbow spread her wing for Rarity, and the two huddled together as they waited out the worst of the storm. Rarity heard Rainbow sniffle, and even at that moment, she felt herself having to sneeze as well. When she did, she wiped her nose and groaned, laying her head flat on the sand. “This cursed storm is going to be the death of us,” she muttered. “The last thing we need now is to get sick.”
“Wouldn’t that just suck,” Rainbow said. Sighing, she laid her chin down next to Rarity’s, and both ponies simply stared at the wreckage of their shelter as it got pummeled by rain. “I think I’m becoming water-phobic.”
“I know what you mean,” Rarity remarked with a bitter chuckle. “I’ve had about enough water for my lifetime, I think. First the ocean, then the cave, and now this storm and all the other times we’ve been soaked from rain in between—I don’t think I’d ever be able to bring myself outside in a storm if I can help it.”
“Maybe I can clear the rain schedule over your boutique when we get back,” Rainbow joked. “Just leave it as the one spot of sunshine in the middle of our scheduled storms.”
“Wouldn’t that be amazing…”
They sat in silence and waited. It seemed like every so often, the storm would lessen, only to redouble its fury and send more whipping winds across the island. Rarity noticed Rainbow raise her head and start sniffing while opening and closing her mouth. “Rainbow?”
“Getting a feel for the weather,” Rainbow told her. “I’m not really accurate at sea level, but I can still feel the pressure changes in the air.”
“And?”
“The storm should die out in a few hours,” Rainbow said. “I think there’s a depression somewhere a bit to the east of us. It’s not close enough to really mess with us, but I doubt it’s going to be the last big storm that hits us. It is hurricane season, after all.”
Pieces finally fell into place that Rarity had forgotten about for so long. “Hurricane season? Why, I don’t know how search and rescue would find us now. They’d be running from the storms all the time, and airships aren’t all that fast.”
Rainbow nodded. “They’d have to launch as soon as a storm passes and hope that there isn’t another one right on its hooves. Still, it’s not a good idea to be trying to explore uncharted territory in the middle of hurricane season.”
“Guess we really do have to find our own way out of here, don’t we?” Rarity asked.
“Either that or wait long enough for the season to pass.”
Rarity’s eyes narrowed on their shelter. “I don’t know how long we can afford to wait, Rainbow,” she muttered. “The longer we’re here, the more likely it is that one day those minotaurs will catch us. And I don’t think we’ll last all that long once we catch their attention.”
“Well, we’ll just have to hurry along with the raft, then,” Rainbow said. Shaking her head, she added, “We just keep getting set back. Celestia, I wanted to start working on this thing yesterday, but then the minotaurs showed up, and now we have to rebuild our shelter. We’ll have to be quick about it as soon as we get our shelter set back up.”
“I agree,” Rarity said. “And even then, who knows what we’ll find on these other islands?”
“Minotaurs, probably.”
“Well, yes, but besides them.” Rarity frowned at the pile of scrap they’d collected in the clearing, now wet and soggy under the rain. “There could be anything on those islands. And we’re supposed to find three more tiny figurines? If the islands are bigger than this one, we’ll be searching for forever!”
“Beats sitting around and waiting in my opinion,” Rainbow said with a shrug. “I’d rather be adventuring than hiding.”
Days passed with uncertainty hovering around them. Rainbow and Rarity simply tried to focus on rebuilding their shelter and setting aside what they could for the raft. The rains came and went, leaving them soaked for hours at a time. It wasn’t much of a surprise to either pony when Rarity came down with a cold on the second day.
Still, the best thing for her was warmth and rest, but they wouldn’t have that until they finished their shelter. That left Rarity with little choice but to help Rainbow put everything back together in the rain, sniffling and sneezing as she did so. She just hoped that it wouldn’t turn into something worse, like pneumonia.
By the third day, they’d finally managed to rebuild their shelter, and the rains had finally passed by, giving them sunlight for the first time in what felt like forever. Unfortunately, Rarity found herself hardly able to enjoy it. Rainbow had made her a makeshift blanket out of what cloth they had to spare, and Rarity simply sat in the doorway of their shelter, trying to get what sun she could without exposing herself too much to the elements.
Rarity wanted to help Rainbow build the raft, but Rainbow wouldn’t hear any of it. She insisted that Rarity stay put and focus on getting better, and she started coercing the unicorn with little kisses and nuzzles to buy her cooperation. As much as Rarity enjoyed those, she hated leaving Rainbow to do the hard work of building tools and getting everything ready to build the raft that would take them right into the belly of the beast. It was some weird paradox of her nature. On the one hoof, helping Rainbow would be generous and selfless; on the other, it was mostly born out of a selfish desire to do anything to cure her boredom while she tried to recover from her cold.
Even if Rainbow spent much of the day gone scouring the island for materials, Rarity at least had one companion in Chirp. The macaw hung around their rebuilt shelter for much of the day, letting Rarity pet him and feed him bits of coconut, and would occasionally take naps while snuggled against her side. Even though she terribly missed Opal, the friendly and sociable Chirp was a welcome stand-in for her usually aloof and irritable cat.
And of course, all the time she spent around the macaw led to her trying to teach it to speak. Chirp didn’t seem all that interested in Rarity’s lessons, but she could usually buy his attention for a few minutes with a shred of coconut or a star apple. Slowly but surely, she started teaching Chirp to make noises for treats, and soon the bird started really listening to what she was trying to teach it. Still, even though Rarity could hear the bird talking to himself on occasion and trying to emulate what Rarity said, she figured it’d be a while before Chirp could actually start forming words.
On the fourth day, Rainbow returned from the south hill just before sundown and scratched a line in their calendar plank. “Check it out, Rares!” Rainbow said, dropping her tool in the sand. “Isn’t it awesome?”
Rarity frowned at the calendar. Fifteen lines scratched into the wood marked the passage of time. She couldn’t believe that they’d been here for half a month already. “I’m not sure I’d call over two weeks of being stranded here ‘awesome’, Rainbow.”
“Huh?” Rainbow looked at the calendar plank. “Oh, not that. But yeah, that sucks.” Her hoof moved through the sand, flipping a crude knife toward Rarity. “Take a look at this thing I made!”
The tool floated into the air at the behest of Rarity’s horn. It was incredibly simple, with a chipped rock jammed into a split piece of wood and tied in place with shreds of a vine. It would work in a pinch, but would likely fall apart after that. “It’s a start,” Rarity said, spinning it around to get a better look at it from all angles. “I wouldn’t trust it to save my life, though.”
“Hey! I worked hard on that!” Rainbow said. “Do you know how long I spent bashing rocks together to make the blade?”
“A while, I’m sure,” Rarity said. “But it could benefit from a more delicate touch. This knife will break if you try to use it with too much force.”
Rainbow sat down across from her. “So how would you do it?” she asked, crossing her forelegs.
“For starters, I’d shape the blade better so I have something to anchor it to the hilt with,” Rarity said. “Maybe a notch about here, at the base.”
“Have you ever tried to make one of these things with your hooves?” Rainbow asked. “It’s really friggin’ hard!”
“And I’m not faulting you for that, darling,” Rarity assured her. “Just saying that if we want to have the best quality tools, perhaps my assistance would be useful.”
“If you say so,” Rainbow grumbled. Then her gaze softened. “How are you feeling? You sound better.”
“I feel better.” Rarity said. “Thank you for your concern. I finally feel like I’m getting over it.”
“That’s good.” Rainbow pressed right up to Rarity and nuzzled her behind her ear. “I don’t have to worry about getting sick then if I kiss you.”
Rarity feigned offense. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t kiss me because of a little sniffle!”
“It was more than a sniffle. There was a cough, too.”
“Which was dainty and ladylike, I assure you.” She harrumphed and looked away. “I don’t know how you’ll ever repay me for this slight.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and tickled Rarity’s cheek with her wingtip. When Rarity turned to look at her, she grabbed Rarity’s muzzle and pressed hers against it. Rarity’s eyes fluttered shut and she pressed back, moaning slightly as she savored the kiss.
When they separated, Rarity caught her breath and flashed Rainbow a smile. “I’ll consider that a down payment.”
“Celestia, you’re so greedy,” Rainbow teased, giving her another kiss. “What’s the interest rate on this?”
“Three.”
“Three? What, percent?”
“No, kisses,” Rarity said. “Three per day, or you’ll be paying that debt off for the rest of your life.”
“Three’s not so bad,” Rainbow said, kissing Rarity once more. Then she smirked. “That’s my daily interest paid off for today, then. Too bad I’ll have to do it all over again tomorrow.”
“Yes, too bad indeed,” Rarity hummed. She sneezed once and offered a smile when Rainbow gave her a concerned look. “I might not be entirely over my cold…”
Rainbow sighed and hung her head. “I swear, Rares, if you get me sick, I’m gonna be really upset with you.”
“Hold on, darling, I need to make sure everything’s tight.”
Rainbow watched as Rarity strung a length of braided brown cord around the end of a stick. The seamstress used her magic with incredible precision, delicately knotting and looping the cord around the stone wedge protruding from the end of the wooden shaft. When she was finally finished, she cut off the excess cord with a sharpened seashell and floated the makeshift axe over to Rainbow. “There! That should suit our purposes.”
“Awesome!” Rainbow cradled the tool in her hooves. With Rarity’s help, she finally had what she needed to really begin construction of the raft. Now that she could fell trees and shape the wood, she figured she could get the raft finished in a few days. “I can’t wait to test this thing out!”
“If you want my advice, I’d suggest doing it where we’re going to actually build this raft,” Rarity said. “I am not going to help you drag trees from one side of the island to the other.”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you.” Rainbow stood up and practiced swinging the axe. “Good weight to it, too!” she said when she put it down. “I just hope the head stays on.”
Rarity shrugged. “I did the best with what I could,” she said, glancing at the remains of a discarded coconut husk. “Stripping the fibers and knotting them together by horn will only get us so far. If I had the proper machinery, then I could have made something stronger, but we shall simply have to make use with what we have.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine, Rares,” Rainbow said. Then, hefting the axe, she eyed the western edge of the island. “I’m gonna see how this thing handles, maybe drop a few trees. You wanna come with?”
“After spending the past several hours doing nothing but fashioning makeshift rope from coconut husks, I suppose a change of pace is welcome.” She stood up and shook the sand off of her coat. “Do lead the way, Rainbow.”
Rainbow snatched the axe in her mouth and trekked into the heart of the island, Rarity only a couple steps behind her. They passed by the lake along the way, where they found Chirp drinking from the water. The colorful macaw fluttered over to them and perched himself on Rainbow’s hindquarters, eying the axe she held in her mouth with apparent distrust.
Rarity giggled. “I don’t think he likes the axe.”
Rainbow grunted, unable to say much with the axe handle in her mouth. She moved the axe head a little closer to Chirp as she looked over her shoulder, and the macaw hissed at it and backed away. Chuckling, Rainbow rolled her eyes and pulled the axe away, letting Chirp settle back down, even if the bird kept one eye trained on the menacing new tool at all times.
They stopped at a copse of trees just inside of the western tree line. Swinging the axe, Rainbow buried the head in the bark of one of the trees and let go. The tool hung from the wood, its head resting in the gouge it bit into the tree. Rainbow stepped back with a satisfied hum and tested the end of the axe with her hoof. “Nice and sturdy! Great work!”
“I certainly put my best into everything I do… even if it is fashioning a crude tool from sticks, stones, and coconuts.” Rarity walked a bit closer to the tree line and peered out over the water. “I don’t see any of those dreadful minotaurs. If you wish to start felling trees, now is probably a good time to start.”
“Sounds good. Let me know if you see anything,” Rainbow said. “The last thing we need is those minotaurs seeing us chop a tree down.”
She bit down on the axe handle and wedged the tool out of the tree. After checking her surroundings for a good angle to drop the tree, she adjusted her attack accordingly and started chopping a triangular wedge out of one side of the tree. Even though she feared on every swing that she’d end up breaking the axe, the tool stayed securely together. Once again, Rarity’s expert crafstmareship left little to no room for disappointment.
It certainly took a beating, though; the coconut timber was surprisingly difficult to cut through, with the outer bark very resistant to Rainbow’s efforts to chop through it. Half the time, she felt like she was trying to cut down a pillar of stone, but she made steady, if slow progress. By the time she was halfway through the trunk, at least twenty minutes had passed, with little breaks in between to rest and relax her jaw.
Rarity sat down at Rainbow’s side during one of these breaks and eyed the notch in the tree. “My, those must be some tough trees,” she observed. “I didn’t think coconut trees were that sturdy.”
“Me neither,” Rainbow grunted. “At least the axe is holding up, though I think I’ll have to sharpen the blade after cutting down just one of these trees. And then we have to cut the tops off, too!” She sighed and leaned back, staring up at the canopy above them. “I wish we had a friggin’ chainsaw. We could just slice through these things in no time at all!”
“We’ll have to make do with what we have,” Rarity said. “At this rate, how long do you think it will take us to make a raft?”
Rainbow sized up the tree trunks. “I don’t know, I’d want to cut down at least ten of these things and string their trunks together. That’ll give us enough for a solid raft. The hard part’s gonna be to tie them all together and get them into the water.” She turned to Rarity. “How much can you lift with your magic?”
“Well… erm, I was able to lift a boulder much bigger than us during Discord’s return without too much trouble.” She rubbed her foreleg. “So… at least a ton, I’d say.”
Rainbow blinked. “Okay, uh, wow. I didn’t think you had that in you. That’s really gonna be helpful.”
“Lifting things with telekinesis is largely straightforward, Rainbow,” Rarity said. “It’s simply a matter of horn efficiency and concentration. I shudder to imagine how much Twilight or Starlight would be able to lift, given their proficiency with magic.”
“Right.” Rainbow stood up again and started walking back toward the tree. “Think you can catch this thing when it falls, then?”
“Why ever would I have to do that?”
“I dunno. Just curious. It’d be pretty impressive if you could.”
Rainbow bit down on the axe handle and swung at the opposite end of the tree from the wedge. Blow by blow, she cut a line through the trunk toward the bit she’d taken out earlier, stopping when she was nearly all the way through. Dropping the axe, she put her hooves on the trunk of the tree and heaved. There was a cracking of wood and rustling of palm leaves, and slowly, the tree began to topple.
A blue aura surrounded it at the last second, preventing it from slamming into the ground. Rainbow’s ears perked, and she looked off to the side to see Rarity frowning in concentration, sweat trickling down her horn. After a few seconds, she grunted and dropped the tree into the sand. “Was that sufficient enough?” she asked Rainbow, panting lightly.
Rainbow grinned and galloped over to hug Rarity. “It was awesome!” she said. “Way to go!”
Rarity smiled faintly and sat down. “Phew!” She wiped her brow between pants. “I already feel exhausted from that. And you want me to be able to move ten of those?”
“It’ll feel like five, honestly, once I cut the tops off,” Rainbow said. “But I know you can do it! You just gotta practice!”
“Practice.” Rarity eyed the trunk lying in the sand. “If you say so. I just don’t want to split my horn again. We won’t make much headway without my magic.”
“Just take it easy,” Rainbow said. “We’ve got one tree down, now only nine to go.” Her wing drooped. “And then I need to shape them all… ugh, this is gonna take forever.”
“We could go back to the vain hope of survival finding us on its own,” Rarity suggested.
“Good point.” Hefting the axe again, Rainbow eyed another tree. If it was going to take forever, might as well get started now.
The last tree fell with a crash and a thud, the tremors shaking a few leaves off a dried-up bush nearby. A ripened coconut even dropped from a nearby palm, briefly rolling across the sand before it came to a stop. The birds in the surrounding trees stopped their calls at the sudden loud noise, if only for a few seconds.
Rainbow dropped her axe to the ground, letting it hit the sand a moment before her shoulder followed it. Panting, she laid still on her side in the sand, her coat dripping with sweat. But she’d done it, or at least, half of the work. She’d felled ten trees; now all that remained was to cut up the timber and shape it into a raft.
Something that could wait until tomorrow, she supposed.
“Are you alright, Rainbow?” Rarity asked, a few notes of concern in her voice. She crossed the gap between them and poked Rainbow’s belly. “Catching your breath?”
“You try cutting down ten of these stupid trees and see how spent you are afterwards,” Rainbow grumbled.
“You try lifting up a tree that weighs several hundred pounds with your mind and see how you feel afterwards,” Rarity shot back.
“Meh. The brain’s not a muscle.” Her hooves twitched in the sand. “Speaking of which, I can hardly move, and I’m starving. A little help would be awesome.”
Rarity’s horn lit up and her magic hoisted Rainbow to her hooves. The pegasus shook some of the sand off of her coat and stretched each one of her legs in turn. Picking up the axe, Rarity brushed against Rainbow’s side. “Let’s go get something to eat, then. It’s getting quite late.”
“I like this idea,” Rainbow said. “That’s a good idea.”
The two of them walked back to their shelter, leaving the fallen trees behind. Rainbow knew it was a risk to just leave them there in case the minotaurs came back, but her and Rarity were well beyond the point of trying to survive risk-free. They couldn’t afford to wait around and minimize their presence, because sooner or later they were going to get caught. It was up to them to find a way back home, and to do that, they’d have to risk everything.
But when they didn’t have to think about fashioning a plan to get themselves home safe, the islands were still peaceful. Step into the sandy hollow where they built their shelter and it was like all the worries of the world disappeared, if only for a moment. Once inside, it was only them, Chirp, and the trees, accompanied by the constant crashing of the surf.
It certainly made for a nice and relaxing dinner. By now, Rainbow had gotten used to the limited selection of food they had to eat, but she made up for it by mixing their four staples together. At least with all the fruit they’d been eating, scurvy was going to be the least of their worries, and the grass was a decent base for their nutritional needs. The coconuts just mixed things up a little, especially once the flesh dried in the sun. Plus, there were always sand crabs, too, though Rainbow knew Rarity wanted nothing more to do with them. More for her, then. She just hoped that she wouldn’t end up depopulating the island by the time she left it.
When dinner was finished, the two ponies went to their usual spot on the east beach and watched as the sky grew darker and darker. Rainbow wondered if they would hear sirens again that night; apart from the one night, they hadn’t heard anything since, and even Rainbow found herself longing for their beautiful music.
The darkness soon overtook the island, but between the occasional puffy clouds, they could see the stars above them in all of their glory. They were almost as crisp and clear as Rainbow was used to, but Rarity seemed much more impressed. “The stars are so pretty tonight,” the seamstress said. “It’s difficult to get nice views like this from Manehattan or Fillydelphia. Celestia, even Ponyville is starting to get too well-lit to see them clearly at night.”
Rainbow nodded; as a central rail hub between all the different corners of Equestria, it had really been just a matter of time before industrialization started to creep into the small town. “They’re pretty good here,” she said. “Not as good as in Cloudsdale, though.”
“Really?” Rarity asked. “I imagined Cloudsdale would be just as bad. It’s a big city, too, and big cities are always illuminated.”
“Yeah, but up there, you can just take a cloud and fly another half-mile straight up.” Happy memories of her and Fluttershy stargazing in their youth trickled back to her. “There’s nothing that high up, and the air’s a bit thinner too. You can really see the twinkle and shine of the stars without all that water vapor in the way.”
Rarity craned her neck back and focused on the brightly shimmering stars above them. “Celestia, I can hardly imagine what that must be like. If they look this pretty from down here, they must be twice as impressive that far up.”
Smiling, Rainbow rolled onto her back so she wouldn’t have to keep stressing her neck. “I’d take you up and show you, but, well, you know.” She shrugged, once more triggering a dull ache that she’d grown used to over the days they’d been on the island. Her wing felt a little bit more solid, but she knew the bones weren’t anywhere close to being healed yet. Though she diligently kept up with changing her sling and trying to keep everything set properly, she kept wondering if just maybe she’d done something wrong. Perhaps even more so than never making her way back home, never flying right again frightened her.
Rarity laid down next to Rainbow, and their tails brushed together in the sand. The unicorn watched the stars with a thoughtful sigh, but she seemed restless. Rainbow realized after a bit that her attention wasn’t on the tiny motes of fire glued to the black sheet of night, but rather somewhere else. “What is it, Rares?”
“What do you miss the most, Rainbow?” Rarity asked. “We’ve been here for so long. What would you want to have or do more than anything else in the world at this very moment?”
It wasn’t a hard question for Rainbow to answer. “I want to fly,” she said. “I’d think that would be obvious.”
A faint chuckle. “Yes, I suppose it should have been. But apart from that? Is it the Wonderbolts? The fame and fortune?” Blue eyes shifted, dimly reflecting the light of the night. “What is it?”
It was a much harder question than Rainbow had anticipated. What did she want? That one wasn’t so hard; there were lots of things she wanted. But what did she want the most? What kept her awake at night because she was afraid she’d never have it again?
“I want everypony to know that I’m okay,” she said after a while. “All our friends, the Wonderbolts, everypony in Ponyville… I want them to know that I’m alive.” She swallowed and picked out a few familiar constellations, shapes and arrangements she’d learned from her father long ago. “I want Mom and Dad to know that their little filly isn’t crab food at the bottom of an ocean. I want to fly home and give them a big hug and let them cook me my favorite meal. I don’t want them to keep worrying and wondering if their only child is dead.”
Rarity’s hoof touched Rainbow’s. “I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “My family is probably pulling out their manes to find out what happened to me. Celestia, my parents are likely investing their retirement savings trying to charter a ship or hire or crew or something to find out what happened. I can’t stand the thought that my disappearance is causing those I know and love so much misery and misfortune.”
She sighed and looked off to the side, away from the lonely hope of the tiny stars. “There are so many things that I miss out here. Nice dresses, social galas, the gossip and intrigue of the upper echelons of society, even the hard work and sleepless nights of running my fashion empire. But what I miss the most is that warm feeling I get from helping others. From making others happy. Spreading joy and relief through a simple, generous gesture. But out here?” She shook her head. “My absence is bringing sadness and worry to other ponies. I say that not through my ego, but out of selflessness. I can’t help ponies and brighten somepony’s day from out here on this island. There are things I could be doing to help that I can’t because I’m out here. That’s what tears me apart the most.”
“Maybe you can go on a big apology tour after we get back,” Rainbow quipped, trying to lighten the mood a little. “Instead of confetti, you rain designer dresses down on everypony. That’ll make up for it, right?”
“Right, right. Along with free tailoring and a fifty percent discount on all purchases for a month.” Rarity smiled. “I don’t think I’d have much of a business left after that. Generosity does have a fiscal limit beyond which point I’d have to declare bankruptcy, you know.”
Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t have to deal with any bookkeeping. The Wonderbolts are owned by the crown, so the government pays us. Worrying about my pay isn’t something that I have to do.”
“Lucky you,” Rarity teased. “As a former bearer of an Element of Harmony, maybe I should see if Twilight can give my business competitive government subsidies to expand and swallow up more of the market.”
“That doesn’t really sound all that generous, Rares. Gotta leave some room for competitors.”
“I’ll make sure they’re very well taken care of once I buy up their companies and reemploy them in my own branches.” Rarity rubbed her hooves together. “Then my fashion empire will truly be an empire with no equals.”
“You sound like a crazy mare trying to take over the world.”
“Not the world, darling. Only fashion.”
“If that means I have to wear dresses all the time, I think I want nothing to do with it.”
“Pish posh. Don’t be so stubborn about it. You look wonderful in anything I put you in.”
The only thing harder than felling trees, Rainbow realized, was cutting them up without a saw.
She hadn’t expected it to take this long to shape the trunks into usable timber for a raft. Coconut wood was harder than she thought it’d be at first, true, but it wasn’t so much the wood itself that was slowing her down, but the simple mechanics of the whole thing. All she had was her axe, and to cut the tops off the trees, she had to swing it into the wood against the grain over and over again. It was like splitting firewood the completely wrong way: it simply didn’t work.
“I wish we had a saw,” Rainbow grumbled to Rarity between cleaving treetops off. “My neck is gonna be stiff as a board by the end of the day.”
“I’ll probably have migraines for the next day or two,” Rarity said. Her magic fizzled around one of the trunks as she laid it down on a set of vines. “Heavy lifting is not my forte. My horn is much more attuned to precision work, not brute force.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “I can already feel somepony poking the front of my brain with a hot iron.”
Rainbow looked over their work so far. She’d managed to split the ends of five of the trees, and Rarity had moved those tops off to the side and laid the trunks next to each other. It certainly wasn’t the most perfect raft, since the palm trees were all slightly curved one way or another, but the logs were large enough and stable enough to float. At least, so Rainbow hoped. They really wouldn’t know for sure until they tried to take it into the water.
She tasted copper on her lips, and when she ran a sandy hoof against them, it came back streaked with red. Rarity saw it too, and her hoof drifted to Rainbow’s shoulder. “Perhaps that’s enough for today,” she said. “You’re splitting your lips open, swinging that axe around like a madmare. I shudder to think of what it’s doing to your teeth.”
“I’m fine,” Rainbow protested, but she still tongued around the bars of her mouth regardless. The teeth on each side of the bars were sore, and when she pushed against them, she felt them wiggle a tiny bit. Or maybe that’s just what she thought. It might have been her imagination making her worry too much.
Rarity leaned up against her, and Rainbow used her good wing to hold her close. “It might not be thread, but it looks nice,” Rainbow said, pointing to Rarity’s handiwork around the logs. “Maybe you should make rafts for a living.”
“Oh please. This is hardly the elegance I want to spend the rest of my life fashioning.” Her blue eyes danced over the rough knots she’d made out of the stiff vine to hold the logs in place, but even in their irregularities there was a sort of precision and attention to detail. Even Rainbow thought it impressive.
“You sure there isn’t a market for vine-rope dresses?” she asked. “I mean, fillies make prom dresses out of colored duct tape these days. Surely there’s gotta be a market for that somewhere.”
“How would you of all ponies know what fillies are wearing these days?” Rarity asked, mildly surprised.
“Scootaloo,” Rainbow said. “She told me about when her and the CMC tried making those for fun some time back. You remember that?”
Thoughts of that nightmare came flying back to Rarity’s mind. “Oh, yes, that adventure,” she said. “Sweetie didn’t understand that you’re not supposed to just tape it to your coat. Thankfully I was able to save both it and her dignity by forcing her to sit in soapy water for most of the day and let the adhesive dissolve.”
Rainbow snickered. “Scootaloo learned the hard way.”
“So that’s why she shaved her coat down incredibly short…”
The couple sighed and thought back to all those good days. “Wonder what they’re up to now,” Rainbow said.
“Likely what they’ve always been up to,” Rarity said. “Anything cutie mark related.”
“It’s better than trying to help with ocean exploration or search and rescue,” Rainbow said, shaking her head. “I think the last thing we need is them coming out here looking for us.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to them,” Rarity agreed.
Rainbow shook her head. “No, not that. We really don’t need them getting stranded with us. I don’t think I’d survive being stuck here with those three.”
Rarity giggled. “Yes, well there is that too, I suppose,” she said. “It would also be awkward having to explain how their big sisters are… well, together, would be the word.”
“It might raise a few eyebrows at first, yeah,” Rainbow said. She pressed herself closer to Rarity and all but stuck her muzzle in her ear. “But it gets so lonely on this island…”
Tittering, Rarity gently pushed Rainbow back some. “We only do what we must for our sanity and wellbeing, right?” she teased. Her nose rubbed against Rainbow’s cheek. “Is that what we’ll tell our friends when we return home?”
“Psshh. I was just gonna tell them that you’re a friggin’ sexy pony and I couldn’t help myself,” Rainbow said with an idiotic grin. Her blue hoof ran over the curves of Rarity’s flank. “Really, what else am I supposed to do?”
Rarity’s tail gently flicked Rainbow’s hoof. “Watch where you place that, darling,” she said, smirking. “You’re liable to lose it.”
Rainbow teasingly pulled her hoof back after pressing it against the diamonds on Rarity’s flank. “I guess I should be more careful then.”
“You’re like a stallion,” Rarity said, gently bopping Rainbow’s nose. “So forward and direct.”
“I have an aggressive case of tomcolt-itis,” Rainbow said. “Couldn’t you tell?”
“Mmm. I pray it’s not infectious. I much like my feminine charm and ladylike elegance. I wouldn’t be the same without it.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Rainbow agreed. “But remember that one time where you lost like all your mane and you pulled off that punk look?”
Rarity fluffed her stiff but long and full mane. “I will admit, it was rather impressive.”
Rainbow fidgeted slightly. “I almost asked you out right then and there,” she said, blushing. “You were so hot like that.”
The seamstress blushed as well. “I was mostly uncomfortable being out of my element. It reminded me of my teenage years too much.” Then she smiled lightly. “At least you got to enjoy it for a month or two before my mane finally grew back enough to properly curl again.”
“I didn’t want to fly past the boutique during that month because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to fly properly if I saw you,” Rainbow admitted. “That look was deadly.”
“I will admit it was an… interesting change of pace,” Rarity said. “But not something I’d like to go back to.”
Rainbow seemed to deflate a bit. “Aww…”
“And no, I am not cutting my mane short while I’m here.” She touched the sandy thing hanging off her scalp and grimaced at the salty knots and tangles in it. “Well… maybe not that short.”
“Something, something, short manes are in season?”
“You wish,” Rarity said. But, sighing, she added, “Though perhaps I need to make it so. My mane has never—well, almost never—been in such poor condition.” She bunched it up with her magic to about shoulder height. “Do you think this looks suitable? Should I cut it to my shoulders? Be honest now?”
Rainbow blinked a few times and swallowed hard. “It’s phenomenal,” she said. “You should do it.”
Rarity fluffed her mane a bit, frowned, sighed, and finally straightened her posture. “Give me the knife,” she said, gesturing to the tool at Rainbow’s hooves that she’d used for cutting vines earlier that day. “It’s certainly not a divinely sharp pair of scissors, but it’s at least sharp enough to not split the ends too badly.”
Rainbow swiped the tool and held it out to Rarity. “My pleasure!”
Rarity looked at her reflection in a cracked makeup mirror. While she would’ve appreciated a full-length mirror to assess her haircut with, none had been kind enough to wash up on the island. At least they even had this tiny mirror in the suitcase they’d found.
Sand-streaked purple locks ended just below Rarity’s shoulders. They were ragged and dirty, caked with salt and sand, but at least the ends had split neatly with a little hacking and hewing. But now Rarity’s head felt a little lighter. She must’ve sliced off a couple of pounds of hair and salt. The trimmings were lying in a basket at her hooves, ready for whatever Rarity would do with them next. She didn’t know exactly what that would be, but on an island without much in the way of thread, she wasn’t going to waste what she could get.
Again, doubt flickered across her face as she flounced the ends of her mane. Maybe she should’ve cut them a little shorter simply so she had longer trimmings to work with. It was too late now, though, and besides, Rarity wanted to preserve at least a little bit of her mane. Maybe she could compensate for it by cutting her tail down shorter.
“Too short?” she asked over her shoulder. “Well, I suppose I can’t do much about that one now. Too long, perhaps? What do you think, Rainbow?”
Rainbow Dash, who’d been hovering at the edges of Rarity’s vision while she worked, cleared her throat and stepped a little bit closer to get a better look at her new mane. “Uh… I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not really a mane stylist, Rares. I just know that it looks better without all the tangles and half the salt in it.”
“Some help you are,” Rarity grumbled. She carefully balanced the mirror on their calendar plank, noting the seventeen notches in it. “Perhaps I can style this in some way. It won’t be perfect, but it’s better than it all hanging loose.”
She took a few lengths of hair from the basket and wove them together into a cord. Then, bunching her hair up, she tied it back in a loose ponytail of limp curls, separating the bundle into different lengths to fall down from behind her ears at different intervals. After tossing her head around a few times to make sure it all stayed in place, she once more glanced at her mirror and smiled.
“There!” she exclaimed, making a few last adjustments with her magic. “It’s rough and messy, but I think it at least imparts some semblance of style and care to it. Wouldn’t you say so, Rainbow?”
Rainbow’s eyes traveled over Rarity’s mane. “I think it looks pretty awesome,” she said. Her tongue darted over her lips and she smiled. “Add a little bit of that beach sweat in there and I think you’ll look pretty hot.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Not beautiful? Pretty? Fashionable?”
“Uh… sure. Those too.”
She touched her mane a few more times and stood up. “I suppose if I’m dating a mare who’s favorite adjective in her limited thesaurus is ‘awesome’, then I suppose ‘hot’ will do,” she teased. She hesitated, seeing the look on Rainbow’s face, and stepped a little closer. “I… suppose we should clarify that bit there, shouldn’t we?”
Rainbow blinked. “Uh… what bit, exactly?”
“Are we dating?” Rarity asked her. “Or is this just fun to pass the time?” She swallowed hard when she saw Rainbow fidgeting. “Please don’t get me wrong, Rainbow. You’re attractive and a pleasure to be around, and your mere presence has saved my sanity just as much as it’s saved my life. I just… well, I’m not sure if you wanted to continue this when we get off of the island. Because there will come that day, sooner or later, and it won’t be just us two anymore.”
The pegasus across from her searched the sand for answers. “I… I like you, Rares,” she admitted. She shrugged her wing and started drawing circles in the sand with her hoof. “I always thought you were pretty and attractive, but we were never really the closest, right?”
Rarity hesitantly nodded. “Your love of sports and all things Wonderbolts never really meshed with my love of fashion and high society when we were younger.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair,” Rainbow agreed. She looked up at Rarity and shrugged. “Just… listen.”
Rarity’s eyebrow rose. “Yes, darling?” she asked.
Rainbow’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Just because it’s only the two of us doesn’t mean it’s all made-up,” she said. “I feel like… well, I don’t really know what I feel like, because I’m not good at that crap. But I can just feel it, you know?” Feathers fidgeted at her sides. “What I do know is that I think you’re… pretty, and you’re nice, and you’re smart and resourceful and generous in ways I wish I could be. And I like that.” She swallowed again. “And… and I like you.”
Rarity felt her breath catching in her throat. Rainbow seemed so small and vulnerable in that moment. Perhaps in a way, she was.
A blue wingtip danced over a blue muzzle as Rainbow idly scratched her nose. “And… I’d like to think that even if we get off this island… even if we go back to our lives… I can still have you. At least for a little while. Because I want to see if this grows into something more, just as much as you do.”
She took a deep breath and held her eyes steady to match Rarity’s. “You saved my life from the urchins like, ten days ago or something. You kissed me ten days ago. And I know I like to do everything fast and you probably don’t think I have patience for anything, but I’m willing to figure this whole thing out if you are.” A few seconds passed, and she grimaced and looked away. “Damn it, Rarity, I hate it when I talk about my feelings. Why’d you do that?”
Rarity smiled and nuzzled Rainbow’s cheek. “I’m sorry, Rainbow,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting it honestly. But…” she hesitated, and when she saw Rainbow’s wary eyes turn towards her, she stroked the mare’s cheek. “I don’t think I could’ve said it better. And I think you’re right. We should take it one step at a time, but for now, I have no problems with calling you my marefriend.”
She planted a light kiss on Rainbow’s muzzle and wrapped her forelegs around her shoulders. “If at any time you’ve decided you’ve had enough or you simply don’t want to do it anymore, just tell me. I’ll understand. But if you want to keep going…” Salty white lips curved upwards in a particularly impish smile. “You’ll find no complaints from me.”
Rainbow seemed to smile easier. She drew Rarity closer into the hug and kissed her forehead. “Then I don’t think I’ll have problems calling you my marefriend either,” she said.
“Good.” She tilted her head back and planted another kiss on Rainbow’s muzzle. “Because that’s exactly how I want it to be.”
Rarity’s horn gently buzzed as she worked her magic. In front of her, two thick, stiff vines twirled around a pair of logs like snakes. The knife twirled in her magical grip, and with expert precision, she started slicing away at some of the bark and vegetative material to bend them like she wanted. When that was finished, she knotted off the ends, chopped them off with a cleaver, and tossed the scraps aside for use later. If nothing else, they’d make decent kindling when they dried out.
A few errant wood chips came flying in her direction, lightly pelting off of her sandy coat. To her left, Rainbow straddled the last tree, stone axe viciously biting into the hard wood. She stopped every so often to roll her neck and stretch her legs, but then she’d be right back at it. The poor mare had been at it since sun-up, but Rarity knew she was too stubborn to give up even now that it was well into the afternoon. Especially not when she only had one tree left to cut through.
At the edge of the little clearing where they were building their raft, the treetops lay stacked in a neat pile at the behest of Rarity’s magic. They were still several feet in length each, and their ends were covered with drying palm fronds. Maybe later when they had the time and energy, her and Rainbow could carry them back to their shelter. If nothing else, they were good sources of wood to be cut up as needed. With a little more effort and use of the axe, they could make some simple furniture from the ends. Having a log to sit on would certainly beat the sand.
Celestia, Rarity shuddered at the thought. Furniture would be a godsend. The sand got everywhere, and she truly meant everywhere. The uncomfortable feeling between her legs was really starting to make her irritable. At this rate, she might end up killing something. Hopefully it wouldn’t be Chirp or Rainbow.
Her horn flared once more, and she felt the weight of the next log over pushing her down into the sand. She placed a few vines under it, wrapped them around the log twice, and then dropped it back down into the sand. With that done, she started tying the log to the body of the raft, extending the platform they had to stand on once they managed to push off to sea. She had a feeling that every inch would count by the time they were done, and not just because of her and Rainbow’s shoddy construction skills.
Rainbow triumphantly threw down the axe and started prancing in place. “There! Last one done! Hah!” she exclaimed, fluttering her good wing. “Take that, you stupid trees! You ain’t got nothin’ on me!”
“Finished?” Rarity asked, eyeing the last treetop resting in the sand. “I wouldn’t know what all the fuss was about otherwise, I suppose.”
“I just showed those trees who’s boss!” Rainbow said, hopping onto the raft. “Cut them up like… like… uh, something that gets cut up that isn’t trees!”
“Well, I’m very proud of you, darling,” Rarity said. Then she tossed a loop of vine over Rainbow’s back and smiled. “Now, please get off the raft before I accidentally tie you to it. Though I suppose that might solve a few problems…”
Blue hooves hit the sand as Rainbow jumped off the logs. “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she said. She caught Rarity by surprise when she planted a kiss on the nape of her neck and tickled her side with a feather. “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?” she whispered in a fuzzy white ear.
“Mmmm… I can certainly think of a few good uses for these vines when we’re done here,” she said, shooting back a sweetly innocent smile.
Rainbow blinked and stepped back. “I… didn’t know you were into that, Rarity.”
Rarity tilted her head to the side and kept the same smile. “Into what, darling?”
Even Chirp raised his head and stared at the two from the other side of the clearing while Rainbow fumbled for words. Eventually, the pegasus gave up and shook her head. “Riiiiiiiiiight. Okay. I’m just gonna… gonna forget about that for a bit.” Nervously laughing, she trotted off to the side and put her hooves on the treetop she’d just severed. “How about I move this thing to the pile for you, Rares? You’ve done enough heavy lifting today. I don’t want to feel like I’m not contributing.”
“No, you just don’t want to be shown up by a mare who makes a living sewing gemstones onto dresses,” Rarity teased. “I assure you, if you need any help, it’s no problem at all, Rainbow.”
“I’ll be fine,” Rainbow insisted. Her cheeks puffed out as she heaved against the log, managing to get it to roll just the tiniest bit as her hooves fought for purchase in the sand. “I’ve moved heavier stuff than this in my sleep!”
Rarity shook her head and let Rainbow do her thing. At least it’d keep the stunt flier occupied for the next short while. So long as she didn’t give herself a hernia, there wasn’t much harm that could come from it, right?
At the very least, she was glad that she didn’t have to move that last treetop over to the pile. She was getting enough of a workout just trying to tie the raft together with vines. Every time she needed to loop around a log, she had to lift it out of the sand, arrange the vine with her magic, and then drop it again. And the longer the raft got, the heavier the whole thing became. As she got to work on the eighth log in the line, it took nearly all of her energy just to lift it a few inches off of the ground. Though her stamina had lasted longer than she thought it would, Rarity found herself wishing for just a fraction of Twilight’s or Starlight’s strength. The relatively shallow angling of her horn coil was great for fine detail and manipulation, but it was much weaker than the more sharply-coiled horns of her friends.
Yet Rarity pursued her task with a stubborn persistence that reminded her of Rainbow or even Applejack. Even if she had to take longer and longer breaks after lifting the raft, she kept at it, tying the logs together one vine at a time. By the time she could call the raft finished, the shadows had moved quite a far bit across the ground—but it was finished nonetheless.
Rarity split the last vines with the cleaver and tossed them aside. “There!” she exclaimed, panting lightly and trying to keep the sweat out of her eyes. “It’s done!”
Rainbow’s ears perked, and she turned around. “Holy moly! Awesome, Rares!” She jumped off of the pile of treetops and gave Rarity a hug, an embrace which the seamstress exhaustedly returned. “That’s what I’m talking about! Great job!”
The raft was hardly impressive: ten logs tied together with three rows of vines, one each in the middle and at both ends. It measured about ten feet long and nearly as wide, and there were gaps in the floor where the curves of the tree trunks didn’t match up. But together, their buoyancy would make up for that, Rarity supposed. They’d find out sooner or later.
Still, it was work she could be proud of. “If the primitives could do it, I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to as well,” she said. “And now here we are.”
“All that’s left is to see if she’s seaworthy,” Rainbow said. She started eyeing the ocean with anticipation. “There’s still daylight out if you want…”
“I’m going to put my hoof down on that one and say no,” Rarity said. “It can wait until tomorrow. My horn is burnt out and I’m likely to collapse from exhaustion at any given moment. And if I dragged the raft into the water, I’d have to drag it back out when we’re done.” She groaned and rubbed her forehead. “It can wait until tomorrow.”
Rainbow seemed a little disappointed, but she smiled and nodded anyway. “Alright. Sounds good, Rares.” She started shepherding her marefriend back toward their shelter. “Let’s get something to eat and worry about it later. It’ll be here in the morning.”
“Celestia, I hope so,” Rarity said. “I didn’t lift all those tree trunks for nothing!”
Rainbow was already wide awake before the sun even rose the next morning. Today was the day that could very much determine her fate. One way or another, everything would change in a few hours. She just hoped it would be for the better.
Not even the birds were stirring when she sat down on the eastern shore. A few bugs buzzed and hummed in the pre-dawn glow, but the only constant noise she had for her companion was the rushing of the seas. That was fine. She didn’t want to admit it, especially not to Rarity, but the peaceful lull of the ocean helped her to meditate and clear her head. The mere thought of it sounded sentimental to her, and Rainbow Dash was never sentimental. Life was too short for sentimentalities.
Or so she told herself, at least.
Not even the few crabs scuttling in the sand caught her interest. It would’ve been so easy to go prowling up and down the shore, picking up a few tasty snacks here and there, but Rainbow found herself unmoved by their presence. Her mind was already preoccupied with other questions that would certainly become a matter of life and death in a few hours. How would they guide the raft? How would they deal with any minotaurs they’d come across? Rarity had already fashioned two makeshift oars to help propel them across the water, but the ocean currents would be a challenge in their own right. And if the minotaurs lived on those islands to the west, then her and Rarity might end up having to defend themselves if they got caught. The whole plan was fraught with danger every step of the way, and, Rainbow admitted, quite stupid.
But so was hiding on their island, waiting to be found. The way Rainbow saw it, it’d be better to go sail to their doom than wait for another few months in a vain hope for rescue and then die anyway. Rainbow knew she was going to go down kicking and screaming, one last, valiant defiance before the afterlife claimed her soul.
Or everything could go better than expected and they’d be off the island before they knew it. Sometimes it didn’t hurt to think optimistically.
Rainbow almost didn’t hear Rarity’s hoofsteps in the sand over the sound of the waves—almost. She turned her ear back towards the shore as Rarity approached and sat down beside her. The unicorn stifled a yawn and rubbed at her eyes. “Mmrff… how I miss my beauty sleep,” she grumbled. “Sand just doesn’t cut it.”
“I think it’s great,” Rainbow said, not so much because she actually thought it was good, but because she knew it’d bug Rarity. “It’s not as good as a cloud, but it’s form-fitting if you push it down enough. Isn’t that what all the super expensive mattresses are about these days?”
Rarity scowled. “Sand hardly has the same lovely properties that make such mattresses highly desirable by the wealthy.”
“Mind translating that into not-snooty speak?”
“A thousand-bit mattress and sand are not the same thing.” Rarity glowered at Rainbow. “You can be insufferable at times.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Just trying to get your brain working the only way I know how.”
“A ‘good morning’ kiss would’ve been preferable,” Rarity grumbled.
“Oh? Who’s being forward now?”
Rarity stood up and whipped Rainbow’s cheek with her tail. “I’m going to fetch breakfast,” she declared. “We have a long day ahead of us.”
She started to walk away, but Rainbow reached out and snatched the end of her tail at the last second. With a quick tug that had Rarity gasping in surprise, she brought the seamstress tumbling back to her. Before Rarity could hit the sand, Rainbow caught her in outstretched hooves and planted a big kiss on the end of her muzzle.
Rarity’s indignation melted away after a second, and she moaned softly as she embraced the kiss. They broke it after a few seconds, and she managed a sly smile. “That is much better,” she purred, slipping out of Rainbow’s forelegs and patting her on the head. “Keep that in mind, next time.”
Then she turned away and trotted back toward their shelter, her shortened tail swaying back and forth as her hips moved in exaggerated movements. Rainbow looked away, knowing that Rarity was trying to tease her as vengeance. Unfortunately for her, it was working.
Rarity returned a few minutes later with a couple fruits and a bird following her. She passed Rainbow some of the tasty fruit and set a star apple in the sand for Chirp to work on, who happily swooped down and started tearing it open with his beak. As they ate, they watched the sun rise higher and higher in the east, spreading yellow light across the sparkling waters.
“We leave today?” Rarity asked.
“Supposing the stupid thing floats and we can get it out into the water,” Rainbow said. “Are the supplies ready?”
“Our largest basket is stocked with fruit and coconut meat, and the lid is still on the pot of water we boiled last night. We just need to put together the tools and we should be good.”
Rainbow still found it hard to believe that they were this close to setting sail. “I’ll take care of the tools. We’ll probably just need the knife and the axe. I don’t want to take the cleaver in case the worst happens and we lose a bunch of stuff in the water.”
“Good idea,” Rarity said. “We do want to preserve some of our steel just in case.”
“Exactly what I was thinking. We can take the spears, too.”
Rarity hummed her agreement through a mouthful of sugar apple. “Hopefully we won’t have to use them.”
“I hope so, too.” Finishing off the last of her breakfast, Rainbow tossed the rinds of the star apples into the water and stood up. “Gonna scout the west quickly before we set off. See you at the raft?”
“That sounds good to me,” Rarity said, taking her time with her breakfast. “Bring the tools and the fruit basket. I can carry everything else with my magic.”
“Sure.”
When she made it back to camp, Rainbow felt a sense of melancholy as she looked on their shelter. They’d just rebuilt it a few days ago, and now they were abandoning it for Celestia only knew how long. She didn’t know if she’d see it again. Hopefully she would. The only reason she could think of why she couldn’t was that she was dead.
The calendar plank caught her eye as she gathered her things and prepared to set off. Without even thinking, she took the cleaver and carved in the nineteenth mark in its surface. Assuming all went well, her and Rarity wouldn’t even be on their island for the twentieth day anniversary. Rainbow marveled that it took them nineteen days to put together a raft and try to make progress somewhere. Perhaps most of all, she marveled that it’d only been nineteen days. It felt like she’d already been trapped on that island for a lifetime.
The island began to come to life as Rainbow wandered to the western shore. The birds started singing, and she saw colorful, feathery shapes darting between the trees. Occasionally she’d spot another macaw among the palms, but by now she could recognize Chirp’s unique feathering pattern, so it only took a glance to tell that they weren’t him. Still, they watched her with curious eyes as she stepped out onto the sandy west.
The beach was empty and flat. Whatever hoofprints her and Rarity had first found all those days ago had been smoothed down by the rains and the tides. Somewhere under the sand, pegasus wing bones were buried. Perhaps there were more bones that she didn’t know about. Hopefully she wasn’t about to join them. But for now, the oceans were empty and the tide was low, so it was the perfect time to launch. They just had to go through the hard part first.
Leaving the supplies on the beach, she trotted back into the jungle. It didn’t take more than a minute before she found their raft, exactly where they left it. A minute later, Rarity emerged from the trees, holding the pot full of potable water in her magic. She dropped the oars from where she’d tied them against her flanks and buried the spear hafts in the ground. With little more than a smile and a nuzzle, she turned from Rainbow to the raft. “Shall we?”
“Now or never,” Rainbow said, fetching the oars and spears and making room for Rarity to work. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Rarity nodded and spread her stance. Lowering her horn, she slowly let the magic build before she allowed it to manifest on the raft. Her shoulders rose and fell as she sucked in deep breaths of air, and then with a decidedly unladylike grunt, she bared her teeth and heaved. The logs of the raft groaned and creaked as she lifted it into the air, but after a few seconds, there was little doubt left that it was in the air. Sweat started to trickle down Rarity’s brow, and she turned a pained eye to Rainbow. “Help me through the trees?”
Rainbow nodded and immediately took a forward position off to the side of the raft, somewhere where Rarity could see her and she could guide it to the water. With her help, Rarity carefully maneuvered the raft through a gap in the trees, and as soon as water touched her white fetlocks, she dropped the raft into the surf. Water splashed around the logs, darting through the gaps, and for a moment, Rainbow worried that the coconut wood was too heavy. But then the swash tried to steal it, and Rarity had to cling onto a corner with her magic to prevent it from washing out to sea.
“Hah!” Rainbow exclaimed, jumping up and down in the sand. “It floats! It actually floats!”
Rarity managed a weary smile through her panting. “That it does… we should get it loaded up before the ocean claims it.”
Rainbow nodded and quickly started loading up their supplies while Rarity held the raft in place. Once everything was aboard, she tried to secure them with a loop of vine through the middle that Rarity had worked into the design the previous day. It wasn’t perfect, but it would at least stop things from rolling or sliding off of the raft if they hit a stretch of choppy water. Once everything was in place, she crawled on top of it and waved to Rarity. “Alright! Hop on, Rares, we’ve got places to be!”
Splashing out into the water, Rarity made it to the base of the raft, where Rainbow helped her on board with a hoof. They each took an oar and positioned themselves at opposite ends of the raft, and as soon as the next wave broke over the front, Rarity released her hold on the raft. Frantically paddling with the receding water, they managed to force themselves through the next line of breaking waves, drenching themselves in a salty spray as they did so. But even though the saltwater stung Rainbow’s eyes and nearly blinded her, she simply kept paddling and paddling. They couldn’t afford to wash back up on the shore now.
Minutes later, the seas finally calmed down and, nearly out of breath, Rainbow looked over her shoulder.
The island grew smaller behind her by the second.
“We did it!” Rarity cheered, magically lifting her oar into the air. “We’re on the open sea! We’re on the sea and we’re not sinking!”
Rainbow chuckled and shook her head. “Please don’t jinx it, Rares.”
“Good point,” Rarity responded. “Still, we’ve made it this far, yes?”
“And we’ve still got a long ways to go,” Rainbow said, eyeing the green tops of the islands to the west. “We aren’t gonna get there if we don’t start paddling.”
“Then I suppose we should start,” Rarity said. Her oar dipped back into the water and she grinned. “Nothing can stop us now!”
Rarity felt like the foal all parents dreaded on long train or carriage rides. Her and Rainbow had been paddling their makeshift raft for what felt like hours, but it hardly seemed like they made any progress. Somewhere in the middle of the two islands, the currents seemed to clash, adamantly trying to stay their raft in the wide blue. Two more hours of steady paddling had brought them closer to their destination, but they still had a lot of water to cover.
Rainbow Dash nearly collapsed, barely managing to save her oar and toss it into the middle of the raft before she teetered over. “Fuck,” she swore, cheek resting against the wood. “I’m so tired. How do the minotaurs do it?”
“Better crafted canoes and teams of four,” Rarity said. “And I assume they’re simply stronger than us, too.”
“If only we had another two ponies,” Rainbow said. She tried stretching her legs out; it took a few seconds before her joints fully straightened. “When we make landfall—if we make landfall—I don’t think I’ll be able to move for a week.”
Rarity set her oar aside for a bit and crossed the wobbling raft to go stroke Rainbow’s mane. “I don’t think we’ll have that luxury, darling. I’d be surprised if we weren’t running for our lives from the moment we reach the shore.”
“I knew I should’ve waited for my wing to heal first,” Rainbow glowered. “I could fly circles around those minotaurs if I had to.”
“If we’d waited for that, we’d be waiting another three weeks,” Rarity said. “How is it, by the way?”
Rainbow glanced at her bound wing and shrugged. “Doesn’t really hurt anymore. I think my bones started fusing back together, but I’m not going to put any weight on it and find out. I can move my wingtip again, though.” Blue feathers twitched and briefly fanned out as she said that before returning to their coiled positions.
“It’s progress,” Rarity said. “Just give it time to heal.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Rares,” Rainbow said. “My wings are my life, and I’m not going to mess them up if I can help it. The last thing I need is for it to set or heal wrong. It could be the difference between being the best Wonderbolt and a nopony.”
“You’ll never be a nopony,” Rarity assured her. “I bet you could fly just as well as the rest of the Wonderbolts with a lame wing. Besides, it’ll heal stronger, right?”
Rainbow shrugged. “I’m not a doctor. Twilight would know. All I know is that I’m glad it wasn’t a muscle tear. Those never heal as strong as they once were, and they’re likely to tear again later.”
“That’s at least something we can count our blessings for, then.”
“Yeah.” Rainbow forced herself to sit up and stretch her spine before setting the head of her oar back in the water. “We should keep paddling. That current’s gonna undo everything if we sit here any longer.”
Rarity nodded, and after kissing Rainbow on the cheek, she shuffled back to her side of the raft and dipped her paddle beneath the waves. “How much longer do you think it’ll take us?” she asked.
Rainbow squinted through the thin haze sitting on top of the ocean. “Hopefully no more than another hour or two. We’re getting closer.”
“I certainly hope so.” With a simple thought, Rarity set her paddle in regular rhythmic motions, keeping time with Rainbow’s own strokes. At least she’d only suffer from a migraine when all was said and done, not cramps and muscle soreness like Rainbow would. In that way, she felt sorry for her friend. But she’d also lifted the whole thing and moved it into the water by herself, so some petty part of her didn’t care.
She peered through the haze of the hot day to the island in front of her and Rainbow. Now that they’d gotten closer, she could start to make out the shape of it. It was definitely much larger than the one they’d called home for the past three weeks; it was longer and higher, with a flat-topped mountain in the center. The whole thing was covered in dense, lush greenery, giving it a much fuller look than the small pile of sand and stone that they’d just come from. Looking back over her shoulder, their sandy island seemed so small and tiny by comparison. Given that there was barely enough space and resources for just her and Rainbow, Rarity started to understand why the minotaurs hadn’t colonized it. It simply wasn’t worth the effort.
But the island up ahead could hold hundreds of minotaurs, Rarity figured. She didn’t know how far back it went, but what she could see from out here on the sea was already more than enough to impress her. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too hard for her and Rainbow to hide on an island that big. Then they just had to find out where the little pony idol was supposedly being kept. She just hoped that her and Rainbow and that explorer were right. If they couldn’t find the figurine, what would they do then?
“See any canoes?” Rainbow asked, her eyes scanning the horizon. “We’re starting to get close, and we’re really exposed out here. Anypony could see us from that island.”
Rarity looked around but didn’t see anything wooden or guided by minotaurs. “Everything looks clear to me,” she said. “Just us and the sea.”
That didn’t seem to please Rainbow as much as Rarity thought it would. “Where are they?” she asked herself, ruby eyes darting between waves like she expected a canoe full of minotaurs to breach the waves at any second. “We’re getting close to their home turf and there’s nothing. I don’t like this at all.”
“Let’s not disparage our blessing so quickly,” Rarity cautioned her. “This is good for us. Let’s not wonder why.”
“I suppose…”
Soon, the couple could make out short, sandy beaches in front of them. There was barely five or six feet of sand before the trees began to rise. They crowded out much of the beach, and Rarity could tell just from their swiftly ascending canopies that the ground rose steeply just beyond. Perhaps that would explain why they hadn’t seen anything yet. Maybe the minotaurs kept their canoes and their civilization on the other side of the island where the beaches were larger and shallower.
The waves began to swell beneath them, and Rainbow smiled and paddled with renewed vigor. “We have the surf behind us, now,” she said. “We just gotta ride one of these in and we’re set!”
Rarity hunched over and focused on paddling harder. “Together!” she shouted, matching Rainbow stroke for stroke. And indeed, together, they carried the raft in on the tide. A sudden surge of a breaking wave behind them nearly knocked Rarity out of the raft, but soon she found herself tucking her oar in next to her as it slid across the shallows of the swash.
“Out!” Rainbow yelled, hopping off of the raft and into the water. The swash rose just above her knees, and she bit onto one of the vines holding the planks together to try and steady it. Rarity followed suit, and with her blanket of magic, she heaved the raft out of the water and onto the sand. Then she collapsed.
Rainbow trotted over to Rarity and knelt down beside her. “You alright, Rares?”
“Simply peachy,” she said, panting lightly. But she could feel the sand under her body, and even the waves sounded different with a different shoreline to echo off of. She forced herself to sit up and look around at the new landscape, the first one she’d seen in weeks. “We made it!” she exclaimed, weakly grinning. “We did it!”
“Yeah, we did,” Rainbow said, matching her grin. Then she turned her gaze up the hill. “Now we’ve just gotta not die while we’re here.”
Rainbow’s eyes flicked back and forth. Every shadow was a minotaur hiding in the bushes, every noise a tribal warrior ready to throw a net on her and Rarity. Her paranoia kept her on edge and had started to fray her nerves.
Her and Rarity had left their raft behind them, as safely hidden away as Rarity could move it without splitting her horn open again. They’d left half of it sticking out on the sand, but hopefully it wouldn’t be too noticeable from the sea. Rainbow doubted that anyone would find it coming from the island; so far, her and Rarity had found nothing to commend the east side of this new island except slippery slopes covered with sand and stone. The only trees that grew here were great trees that could wedge deep roots into the cracks between rocks. The palm trees with their shallower roots were either clustered closer to the shore or further up on flatter plateaus where sediment could accumulate.
But other than the noise of the birds, the island was eerily quiet. Rainbow didn’t know what she’d been expecting. An entire village full of minotaurs just past the trees, perhaps? Wherever they were, they certainly weren’t near the east. The harsh topography probably excluded that area from settlement anyway.
“We need to find a vantage point,” she said when they paused at a tree to catch their breath. “I want to see what we’re dealing with.”
Rarity turned her gaze further up the hill. “I don’t think we’ll have any problem with that when we finally crest this slope,” she panted. “We’re not climbing the mountain, are we?”
Rainbow turned to her left. Through the branches and fronds, she could see a large monolith of stone and trees rising above them. “No, but it certainly feels like it,” she said. “We landed on the spine of the island. I bet the rest of this place is flat and a lot less steep than here.”
“A good thing for us, I suppose,” Rarity said. “There haven’t been any minotaurs to spot us yet.”
“Yet,” Rainbow reiterated. “We just gotta keep our eyes peeled for anything. The last thing we need to do is run into one.”
“And what happens if we do?”
Rainbow fidgeted with the spear tucked under her wing. “We’ll… figure something out,” she said. Hopefully it wouldn’t have to come to that, but if it did…
Well, it was either them or the minotaurs. Rainbow wasn’t going to settle for the latter.
Rarity must have had similar thoughts, but after a few moments she simply nodded. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll just try to be quiet and invisible, then.”
“That’ll certainly be the easiest way to go about this,” Rainbow said. She licked her lips; she was already starting to get thirsty, but with Rarity’s horn on the verge of burnout, they didn’t have any way to transport their water, and they’d left the pot down at the raft with some of their other supplies. Hopefully they’d find a safe watering hole soon. “C’mon, let’s keep moving before the sun and the heat fry us anymore.”
Rarity nodded, pausing only briefly enough to wipe the sweat off of her face. “Yes, that sounds like a lovely idea.”
They forced their way onwards. After a few minutes, Rainbow could tell that they were starting to get near the top of the ridge as the ground began to flatten, bit by bit. With perhaps another ten minutes of climbing, the two exhausted ponies finally found themselves on a flat stretch of rock overlooking the rest of the island. Or, at least as much as they could see through the trees.
The island was shaped roughly like a crescent, and the two ponies were perched right at the midsection. Both prongs reached out toward the west, with one dominated by the tall mountain to their south and the other thinning out into a sandy spike jutting into the ocean. The whole thing was big enough to fit roughly four of their island inside with a little room to spare; one at each prong and two side-by-side in the center. The interior of the crescent was greener, lusher, and much more vibrant and alive than the scraggly eastern side that Rainbow and Rarity had just ascended. Even through the trees and undergrowth, Rainbow thought she spied a lake a little further down from the ridge.
“Look,” Rarity said, pointing toward the northwest. “Smoke.”
Rainbow shifted slightly so she could get a better vantage through the trees. Sure enough, a few clouds of smoke rose from beneath the jungle. Peering even harder through the vegetation, Rainbow thought she could make out the shadowy shapes of sheltered huts and dark figures moving to and fro. A row of outrigger canoes rested on the beach just outside, tied up and kept out of reach of the hungry tides. Rainbow counted ten of them sitting in the sand, but she had no idea how many more the minotaurs had, and how many were currently out at sea. She thought she could make out a few canoes grouped together in the sea just beyond the crescent, likely searching for fish.
“Well,” she said, frowning at the sight, “we found them.”
“Now we should take care that they don’t find us,” Rarity said. Her sapphiric eyes scanned the terrain around them. “Now, if I was a forgotten pony civilization, where would I hide my sacred temples and figurines?”
“I think that’s pretty obvious, Rares,” Rainbow said. Her gaze wandered up the mountain to the south. “Where else would you put it other than the highest point of the island?”
Rarity nodded. “I suppose that would make sense.”
“Good, because I was just pulling that out of my ass.” Rainbow pulled a few fruits out of her pack and offered some to Rarity. “Let’s eat up and get a drink by the lake down there, and then we can take a look. Maybe we’ll find something.”
Rarity hummed her agreement and floated a few star apples out of Rainbow’s hoof. “I think that sounds like a good idea. I just pray that we don’t get caught.”
“We’ll just have to be careful. Same and simple,” Rainbow said. “After all, I doubt that every minotaur is just sitting in their huts with their thumbs up their butts…”
Rainbow Dash nearly couldn’t resist throwing herself into the water when they finally reached the lake. It was clear and clean, with hardly any plants sticking out of the surface or detritus floating across the top. She couldn’t tell how stagnant the water was since she couldn’t see a source, but something was causing it to bubble and ripple occasionally. Perhaps there was a spring or something that provided the water.
In any case, Rainbow wasn’t going to waste any time thinking about it. She fell to her knees right at the water’s edge and thrusted her muzzle beneath the surface. It was warm, but after hiking up the backbone of the island, Rainbow didn’t care. All she needed was several large gulps of water to quench her thirst, and then she finally slowed down to breathe.
Rarity fell to the ground beside her and mimicked her desperate thirst. The seamstress’ eyes fluttered close as she plunged her muzzle into the water almost up to her face and took several drinks, her body slowly settling into a more comfortable position while she drank. Eventually, she pulled her muzzle out of the water, and droplets cascaded over her white hair and plunged into the lake below.
“Don’t drink too much,” Rainbow warned her. “You’ll get cramps on a stomach full of water.”
“I think I’d almost prefer that over the agony shooting through my legs,” Rarity said, gingerly stretching them out. “I was practically shriveling up in this heat during this climb. My muscles were so dehydrated that I could hardly move them.”
“Nah, you’re just not used to that much exercise,” Rainbow teased her. “You’re gonna be stronger than AJ by the time we get back.”
“That I very much doubt,” Rarity said. “I’d also prefer to not have bulging muscles ruining my smooth contours and fine figure. If I can escape this cursed stretch of sea with my beauty intact, I will consider that a victory.”
“I think I’ll just settle for alive.” Rainbow took a few more sips and held her good wing out to the side, letting heat pour off it like a feathery radiator. “We’re certainly not doing ourselves any favors in that regard.”
“I believe the turn of phrase you’re looking for is ‘no risk, no reward’, darling.”
“I guess. We just gotta do what we gotta do.”
When both ponies had their fill of water, Rainbow stood up and adjusted the spears and bags on her person. “We should keep going,” she said, eyeing the mountain in front of them. “We’re not gonna make it to the top just by standing here, and I don’t want to wait around and see if this is the only watering hole on the island that the minotaurs use.”
Rarity groaned and collected her things as well. “I suppose,” she mumbled, forcing herself back onto tired and shaky legs. “I’m not sure I’ll even make it to sundown,” she said as she stifled a yawn. “Today has been exhausting!”
Rainbow looked out over the island to the west, where the sun was slowly inching its way down toward the horizon. “It’ll probably be dark by the time we make it to the mountaintop,” she said. “Let’s just push as far as we can while there’s still light and then we’ll find someplace to make camp for the night. The further we get from the minotaur village down there, the better.”
She started off through the woods again, Rarity following slightly behind. It was all uphill from there, unfortunately quite literally. Her legs screamed in protest after another half hour of climbing up slopes and navigating the angled terrain. Without any water to take with them, Rainbow was already starting to feel dehydrated again, though certainly nowhere near as bad as she had had it before making it to the spring. She sucked on a couple of star apples for the juice to try and keep her strength up as they pushed onwards.
Eventually, her hooves found purchase on a flat stretch of land where the trees started to thin out. Blinking several times, it took Rainbow a few seconds to recognize what she was seeing. Instead of huge tree trunks, she saw moss-covered stones and bricks stacked high. Many were scattered about or simply laid where they’d fallen, but enough still stood to get an idea of what they once formed. The sight left her with stone hooves and a slackened jaw.
Rarity ascended moments later, daintily panting and huffing. She hardly made it to the top before she flopped onto her side, trying to catch her breath. When she saw Rainbow’s face, she tried to lift her head but simply ended up wheezing. “What… is it… Rainbow?”
Rainbow finally closed her jaw and pointed. “It’s… a city,” she said, her eyes wandering over old stones. “Ruins of a city.”
Grunting, Rarity managed to sit up and look out in front of them. “Oh… my…” she managed, losing her words in her astonishment. “This is amazing!”
Amazing was certainly one way Rainbow would describe it. The crumbling ruins of an old gate stood before them, made of mossy stones that once supported an archway leading deeper into the city. They could see the remains of buildings all made from stone falling apart where they stood without anypony to maintain them. There were clear streets, but nature had reclaimed them, hiding the dirt roads beneath ferns and grasses. The whole thing had an eerie feel to it, like they were looking upon a graveyard.
“It’s a whole city,” Rainbow breathed. “This must’ve been one of the Ponynesian settlements that Uncharted Lands was talking about. And it’s been abandoned for ages.”
“It’s massive,” Rarity said. “Thousands of ponies must have lived here. Who knows how many more lived on the rest of the island?”
“No idea,” Rainbow said, stepping forward. She passed through the arch with only a moment’s hesitation, and then she found herself inside the city itself. A stiff wind blew through empty windows and doorways, and plants swayed from their perches atop crumbling stone. Several families of bright and colorful birds flitted here and there, returning to their nests with the dying of the day. As night loomed over the mountain, the quiet ruins started to fall deathly silent. It was an effect that was as haunting as it was peaceful.
Rarity shivered; whether it was from the atmosphere or the falling temperature, Rainbow couldn’t tell. “We should find somewhere to stay for the night,” she said. “We’re not going to be able to navigate the city much longer.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed. She peered up the main road, scrutinizing the buildings that stood on either side. Then her eyes traveled further down, where the road turned into a grand staircase. The stone steps, covered with slippery moss, ascended for almost a hundred feet before they flattened out on some unseen plateau below the mountain’s peak right above it. “I have a feeling where our temple is, though.”
Rarity’s shoulders sagged as she looked upon the staircase with unrepressed horror. “I simply cannot climb another inch today,” she growled. “Leave that for the morning. I don’t want to climb up all those stairs only to find out there’s nowhere decent to camp for the night, and then slip and break my neck trying to go back down in the darkness.” After a moment to survey her surroundings, she pointed to a single-story stone house that didn’t look too weathered. “This one should suffice. It looks sturdy enough and it should be out of the way in case we have any unwanted visitors late at night.”
“I guess,” Rainbow said, following Rarity over to the building. She cast her eyes up the stairs as she did so, though. Truth be told, she’d wanted to simply scout out the temple and maybe see if there was a way in, but trying to pressure Rarity to do that right now was a guaranteed way to a headache. Better just to let it lie and go look in the morning. As much as it pained her to admit it, it was the smarter thing to do anyway.
The inside of the building was cluttered with plants, dirt, and rubble; one of the southern walls had collapsed, creating an opening several ponies wide that let in the elements. But thankfully Rainbow couldn’t sense any rain in the air, so it would hopefully be fine. And the ferns would make decent bedding to rest on. At least it was better than lying on the hard dirt.
Both ponies shed their gear in a corner and started pulling up ferns and grass to make a sleeping mat. They had a few bites to eat while they worked, favoring the juicy star apples over the custardy sugar apples. Rainbow snooped around a bit for something to hold water in, both for while they were on this island and after they returned to their home base. She already wasn’t looking forward to wandering back down the mountain to the spring in the morning. In the end, she found a clay jug that didn’t look badly damaged. If she wrapped a rope around one of the handles, she could easily carry it around even when it was filled with water.
Rarity wasted no time flopping down on the bedding once it was complete. “Celestia, I feel like I can sleep forever,” she murmured, curling up and nuzzling the ferns. “Today has been so exhausting.”
“I know how you feel, Rares,” Rainbow said, smirking at her. Twilight had fallen outside, and the first of the stars began to appear in the sky, casting tiny little lights down on the earth below. “We’ll just rest up and get ready to do some more exploring tomorrow. How’s that sound?”
Silence.
“…Rares?” Rainbow looked over her shoulder when Rarity didn’t answer. Moments later, she smiled softly. Rarity’s breathing had already slowed, and the sleeping mare nuzzled a pillow of moss. She’d occasionally squeak or mutter something, and her hooves twitched ever so slightly.
Shaking her head, Rainbow walked over to Rarity and planted a gentle kiss on her cheek. “Sleep well, Rares,” she whispered, backing away. Once more she found herself looking through the cracks in the stone to the stairs in the north. “I’m not tired yet.”
Climbing the stairs felt like a much better idea before Rainbow started.
She’d barely made it halfway up and her legs were already screaming in protest. Even though she had more endurance than Rarity, it seemed that she’d found her limit. Still, she’d gotten this far; what was a little more?
The last few steps were a nightmare, but she soldiered through them. Finally, after so much effort that she could hardly feel her legs, Rainbow hauled herself to the top. She immediately collapsed on the landing, leaving her lower half draped across a few stairs while she collected her breath. But at the very least, it offered her a good position to survey what was in front of her.
The dim glow of twilight exaggerated the shadows of the stones around her, but a little light from the moon helped to outline what she was looking at. The stairs ended at a flat terrace that reached to the north and south edges of the mountain, where they abruptly fell away into nearly nothing. The western end rose almost perpendicularly to the terrace, and Rainbow could make out some columns and crumbling statues of faceless ponies carved from the rock. An impressive stone arch had also been carved into the center of the far wall, framing a set of large doors carved and decorated countless ages ago. The doors were closed, but Rainbow could tell just from looking at the structure that they were merely the entrance to an ancient temple. A temple that her and Rarity happened to be looking for.
The sight was enough to get a little pep back into her legs, so she forced herself to stand and move closer. There was just enough light to make out the scratch marks on exposed bits of stone that cropped up here and there, evidence of the rock being worked with tools. Once more Rainbow found herself looking across the terrace, and then up to the top of the temple where the mountain abruptly started sloping again. Did these ponies level off half of a mountaintop to build their temple? She couldn’t imagine the time and effort it took to do that. It must’ve taken generations of constant work to quarry the stone and build such a grand temple. But to what end?
She supposed it didn’t really matter now, though. They were all gone, and now the island belonged to the minotaurs.
Raised mounds of stone jutted out from the terrace here and there, and only upon closer inspection did Rainbow recognize them as the shattered remains of equine statues. Much like the statues carved in the far wall, these seemed to have been shaped from the very stone that once made up half of the mountain peak. The craftsmareship and skill it must’ve taken to carve them in one whole piece must’ve been astounding. One little mistake and the whole thing was ruined. Sure, it could’ve been replaced later, but it wouldn’t be perfect if it wasn’t chiseled from the same stone of the rest of the mountain, and Rainbow knew that once upon a time, all of those statues were perfect. But a combination of simple time and perhaps the tools of minotaurs had broken them down into unrecognizable mounds of rock.
Then she found herself in front of the temple doors. They were at least fifteen feet tall, maybe more. They towered over Rainbow like imposing guardians of the secrets that laid within the mountain itself. All sorts of ancient symbols and runes had been carved across their faces, worn down through the passage of time but still legible enough to be read—presumably. They certainly weren’t in any language that Rainbow knew or recognized, but they were distinct enough for her to easily trace their shapes with her eyes. They were also massive; she saw two of them that looked like a sun and a horseshoe right next to each other, and she instinctively placed her hoof over the shoe.
The doors remained impassive.
Frowning, Rainbow took her hoof away after a few seconds. “Feh,” she grumbled to herself. “Thought that would do something for some reason.”
She took a thoughtful step back and surveyed the situation. As far as she could tell, there wasn’t another way in, or at least not one she could reach from the ground. Maybe if she could fly she could’ve done a little more scouting around, but as it was, she was grounded and in no position to start climbing around the peak. The front doors were all she had to work with right now.
Blue hoof tapped a blue chin. Well, how hard would it be to get them open?
Five minutes of heaving and shoving later, Rainbow fell to the ground, panting and sweating. She couldn’t tell if the doors were just too heavy for her to move or if they were locked. All she knew for certain was that she wasn’t opening them herself, especially not as tired as she was. She’d need Rarity’s help; maybe her magic could find a way in.
That was when her ears twitched at a murmuring noise behind her. Spinning in place, Rainbow saw the glow of torchlight starting to illuminate the stone around her. The murmuring—no, chanting—of many voices grew louder by the second, accompanied by the clopping of hooves on stone. There wasn’t much doubt about what that meant.
Rainbow swore as she looked around the terrace. There wasn’t anywhere good to hide. What were the minotaurs doing here, anyway?!
In desperation, she turned to the face of the temple and scrambled behind one of the statues carved from the wall. There was a little alcove around it just barely large enough for her to squeeze into and hide behind the statue’s pedestal. Thankfully she was as sma—compact as she was, otherwise it wouldn’t have concealed her that well. As it was, she struggled to keep her colorful mane and tail hidden behind the stone.
Moments later, a hulking figure crested the steps, a torch held in one hand and a vicious-looking bone spear in the other. His chest was covered in tattoos and scars, and he wore a large skull of some kind on top of his head. Rainbow just hoped that it wasn’t a pony skull, though she had a feeling it probably was.
Behind the minotaur followed a procession of others carrying torches and wood. Rainbow watched in horror as first ten, then twenty, then fifty minotaurs crested the stairs, with more coming by the second. It seemed like the entire population of the village below was climbing the stairs up to the terrace. She had a feeling that she was probably right.
The minotaurs arrayed themselves in the half-circle in front of the doors, while who Rainbow assumed was their leader strode up to the doors and turned to face them. The chanting stopped, and after a few seconds, the minotaur began to speak. His voice rumbled like a rockslide, and every time he moved his arms, Rainbow could imagine them bending steel like it was rubber. She hunkered down further behind her statue, praying that no minotaurs would look in her direction and catch a glimpse of her huddling right in front of them.
As their leader spoke with passionate fury, whipping the crowd up into a frenzy, another terrifying realization dawned on Rainbow. Rarity was still down there in the ruins of the city, sleeping in a building just off of the main road. What if some of the minotaurs found her? Rainbow suddenly felt guilty for not being there to protect Rarity, and she silently cursed at herself. She should’ve just waited until daytime to explore. Now they were split up, and a horde of angry minotaurs stood between them.
Their leader shouted some more, and then he grabbed his necklace and held it aloft for the crowd to see. They all bowed their heads, and then their leader turned around and reached for the door. Rainbow couldn’t see what happened next, hidden as she was, but she heard something shift inside of the stone. The mountaintop rumbled, and heavy stones slid against each other. With one final cheer, the crowd stood up and began to crowd around the door. Then Rainbow noticed it thinning as, to her surprise, they vanished inside the temple through the now open doors. They left behind a pile of wood and several baskets of fruit and jugs of drink, and apart from the noise echoing off stone walls inside the temple, the terrace once more grew quiet.
As soon as she was sure they weren’t about to come back, Rainbow darted out of her hiding space and galloped across the terrace. She stopped only long enough to nick a basket of some kind of bready material and a jug of what she hoped was water. Then, glancing over her shoulder to make sure nobody was following her, she scrambled back down the stairs.
Rarity tried to slow her beating heart. She’d wedged herself into a shadowy corner and wrapped her tail around her to keep it out of sight. The minotaur procession right outside had woken her from her sleep, and she’d immediately scurried away to someplace safe and hidden before they could find her. For once, she thanked Celestia that she usually slept light; if she’d been a heavy sleeper like Rainbow, she wouldn’t have heard the minotaurs in time to escape.
And now she could hear them shouting and chanting from somewhere further up the mountain and she had no idea where Rainbow was. Knowing her, Rainbow probably went off to investigate what was beyond the stairs after she’d fallen asleep. Rarity didn’t know how long ago Rainbow left, but it couldn’t have been that long. Hopefully the pegasus had either slipped away before the minotaurs arrived or was hiding somewhere safe. Rarity didn’t know what she’d do if Rainbow was caught, but at least she hadn’t heard any shouting or struggling. Her marefriend’s cracking voice was nowhere to be heard.
But what were the minotaurs doing up there? Rarity needed to find out. There had to be a reason so many of them had made the hike up to the top of the mountain from their village down by the shore. It must’ve been some kind of festival or ritual or something. After checking that the streets were empty of any stragglers, Rarity slipped out of her hiding place and approached the stairs, sticking to the shadows.
She immediately had second thoughts when she stepped out into the direct moonlight. Her pearly coat practically glowed like a second moon, and she realized that her shorter mane and tail exposed more of her body than she was used to. Any minotaur who happened to glance in her direction would see her. Sure, she’d look something like a ghost in the night, but she’d still look like a pony ghost. One hoof resting on the bottom stair, Rarity looked up the steps and swallowed hard. Did she turn back now? What would Rainbow do?
That was a pretty straightforward answer. Rainbow would’ve brazenly risked life and limb to push onwards. Rarity felt encouraged to do the same, especially when she considered that Rainbow could still be trapped up there. If there was anything she could do to help her friend avoid the minotaurs, then she needed to do it. After all, she had her magic, and telekinesis was a very flexible cantrip.
Her legs cried out in protest as she climbed the stairs, and her adrenaline started to wear off little by little. A wave of tiredness struck her, and she had to pause to stifle a yawn. She didn’t think she’d slept for even an hour before the minotaurs woke her. At this point, she felt like she was running on fumes. It certainly took extra effort to stay focused on the task at hoof.
When she reached the top of the stairs, she hesitated and peered over the edge. A huge mass of minotaurs crowded around a large stone arch, waving their arms and cheering. She couldn’t see what they were focused on, but she could hear a loud, angry voice speaking in a language she didn’t understand coming from the center of their circle. Was that their leader? She needed a better vantage point.
After a few deep breaths to calm herself, Rarity darted across the terrace to a crumbling statue when the minotaurs began to cheer. Hopefully their noise would hide the sounds of her shoes on the stone. If only her hooves weren’t shod like Rainbow’s; the pegasus didn’t have to worry about sand and moisture getting trapped underneath steel shoes or making a ton of noise every time she crossed a hard surface. But no minotaurs turned their heads around when she moved. And as soon as she reached her cover, Rarity huddled down behind it and peered through a gap in the rocks.
She saw musclebound gray arms rise into the air at that moment, holding aloft a metal star about two hooves wide. The crowd cheered at that moment, and then the star disappeared again. Moments later, the mountain shook as enormous stones slid and unlocked, and soon Rarity saw a pair of massive stone doors begin to open inwards. A torch was passed to the front, and after a minotaur placed it in a bowl just inside the door, sconces lined along a lengthy hallway flickered to life. From the angle she was at, Rarity couldn’t see all the way down the hall, but she knew that it went onwards for some time.
As one, the minotaurs began to funnel through the open doors, and Rarity started to back away from her hiding spot. Their noise would mask her hoofsteps, and she figured this would be the best time to leave. She hadn’t seen Rainbow up on the terrace; perhaps she’d managed to slip away. If that was the case, then Rainbow might be looking for her. The last thing she needed was Rainbow freaking out and wondering what happened to her when she didn’t find Rarity inside the building.
Leaving the terrace behind, Rarity galloped down the stairs as quickly as she could without falling on her face. She yawned again; she really needed to sleep, but now wasn’t the time. She did nearly topple over when she hit the bottom of the stairs and forgot that she didn’t have to descend anymore, but she righted herself and darted back to the building they’d taken shelter in. Once inside, she started putting their supplies back together and tearing apart the bedding. Just like with their shelter back home, the minotaurs mustn’t see any evidence that they’d been nearby recently. Their very lives depended on it.
A pebble clattered across the stones outside. Rarity froze, ears pointed in that direction, head cocked to try and pick up any more noise. When nothing more happened, she swallowed hard and plucked one of the spears from the corner with her magic. Keeping it pointed at the door, she cleared her throat. “…Rainbow?” she whispered.
She heard an audible sigh of relief from around the corner, and soon Rainbow trotted through the doorway. The pegasus jumped in surprise when the point of the spear Rarity held towards the door poked her chest, and Rarity quickly through it back in the pile. “Sorry, Rainbow,” Rarity apologized. “I just didn’t know if it was you or those minotaurs!” Her eyes drifted to the jug and basket Rainbow dropped on the ground. “What are those?”
“Food and water I stole from the minotaurs,” Rainbow said. “They nearly got me up there! I had to hide behind a statue right next to the big doors so they wouldn’t see me.”
“That’s a relief,” Rarity said. She quickly hugged Rainbow and pressed her neck against her marefriend’s. “I was worried when I heard the minotaurs and you weren’t here. I thought they might have caught you out exploring.”
“I was afraid that they’d find you while I wasn’t here.” Her shoulders sagged in relief. “I guess we’re more capable than we think.”
“Or lucky,” Rarity suggested. Her magic popped the cork off of the jug and she pressed it to her lips. Sure enough, sweet refreshing water washed over her tongue, and she greedily took several gulps before passing it off to Rainbow. “It’s water,” she confirmed. “Thank Celestia. I don’t know if I would’ve survived having to walk all the way down to that spring every day for a drink.”
Rainbow took the jug and quickly quenched her thirst. “We need to move deeper into the city,” she said once she corked the jug again. “At least for now. We’ll need to get into that temple later, hopefully when it’s not full of minotaurs. We just need to figure out how.”
Rarity nodded. “One of them had a big star. I think that opens the door. I saw it right before the doors started to open.”
“Yeah, their leader has it.” Rainbow picked up her share of the supplies. “We’ll have to get it off of him somehow. Not looking forward to that.”
“Me neither.” Rarity gathered the rest in her magic and peered out the front door. The streets of the ruined town were still, quiet, dead. “They’re still in the temple. Let’s move now before they find us.”
Rainbow nodded and followed Rarity out of the door and deeper into the city ruins. “Like the most dangerous game of hide and seek, I swear…”
Whatever festival or ritual the minotaurs were celebrating, they kept at it for some time. After Rainbow and Rarity found a new building further from the road to hide in, they huddled together in a dark corner and simply waited. While Rarity drifted off to sleep almost immediately, Rainbow forced herself to stay awake and keep watch. It wouldn’t do for both of them to be caught sleeping if a minotaur happened to wander their way.
For better or for worse, the minotaurs returned from whatever they’d been doing inside the temple after about an hour. Soon, their raucous cheering and laughter filled the night, and the noise gave Rainbow something to focus on to keep her bleary eyes open. It went on for hours, but little by little, it died down until she couldn’t hear the music anymore.
She awoke with a jolt the next day, her fight-or-flight reflexes immediately kicking in as she struggled to remember where she was. Within a few seconds, however, the events of the night prior came back to her, up to the point where she simply passed out from sheer exhaustion while trying to keep watch. Thankfully, no minotaurs had found them while they were both asleep. Otherwise, Rainbow knew she’d be staring down the lengths of a couple spears right now.
Yawning, she shifted slightly, stopping when she felt a weight on her side. Rarity was still curled up against her and breathing softly, resting and recovering after an exhausting day. Rainbow stroked the mare’s shortened mane with a hoof, gently separating the salty strands and tucking them back behind a white ear. That royal purple mane was simply magical; no matter what you did with it, it always looked good on Rarity. Even roughly chopped up and caked with white streaks of salt and sand, it was still perfect.
Rainbow smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and decided she needed a drink. Unfortunately, the jug she’d stolen last night was just out of reach. Frowning, Rainbow tried to shimmy a few inches over and buy herself some room to stretch with, but her hoof came up just short. She could poke the handle a few times, but trying to pluck it back with a blunt instrument like her hoof didn’t quite work. And of course, Rarity was lying on her good wing and she couldn’t use her other wing, anyways.
All that effort only served to wake Rarity from her sleep. Rainbow froze when she felt the mare shift against her side, and then she heard a dainty yawn. She looked back over her shoulder to see Rarity sitting upright and rubbing at her eyes. After a moment to get adjusted to her surroundings, Rarity looked at Rainbow. “Mmmrff… good morning, darling,” she mumbled, slouching back against Rainbow’s side.
“Morning, Rares,” Rainbow said, nuzzling around Rarity’s horn. “Sleep well?”
“As well as I could.” Another yawn. “Not as much as I should’ve.”
“Blame the minotaurs for that.” Rainbow cast another forlorn look at the jug. “Can you bring the water over here super quick? Please?”
“I hate focusing as soon as I wake up,” Rarity grumbled. She furrowed her brow and a shaking hand of telekinesis appeared around the handle of the jug. Rarity simply dragged it across the earth until it was within Rainbow’s reach, not sparing the thought or effort it would take to pick it up completely. Yawning a third time, Rarity pressed her cheek into Rainbow’s chest. “This is nice,” she purred. “You make a good bed.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and brought the jug up to her lips. That was probably the best thing about the minotaurs showing up last night. Now they had something to hold and transport water with. It’d be very useful even after they left the island. Hopefully the minotaurs wouldn’t miss it too much.
After five minutes of laying there, cuddling with Rarity, Rainbow gently nudged her marefriend’s head off her chest. “Come on, Rares,” she said when the unicorn started mewling in protest. “We’ve gotta get up. We’ve only got so much daylight to work with.”
She eventually got Rarity to sit up and stop using her as a pillow. Passing her the water jug, Rainbow stood up and stretched her muscles. Her legs and back were all sore from sitting in one position for so long and sleeping on dirt and rocks, but she’d live. Another drink and a bite to eat and she’d feel good as new again.
Speaking of which, she curiously examined the basket of bread she’d stolen the night before. There were four whole loaves of bread inside, made with some kind of dark grain that Rainbow couldn’t place. The loaves were certainly a lot harder and coarser than what she was used to getting from a baker or the supermarket, but she confirmed it was still bread after taking a little bite. The taste of something familiar that wasn’t grass, fruit, or coconut seemed to awaken a dormant hunger in her gut, and she ravenously started chomping off huge bites of the loaf and swallowing them almost without taking any time to chew. Sure it wasn’t the tastiest bread she’d ever had, but it was amazing nonetheless.
The noises she must’ve made drew Rarity’s attention. “What is that?” she asked, setting the jug aside and forcing herself to stand. She winced a few times as her joints snapped and popped. Making her way to Rainbow’s side, she put her head on the smaller mare’s shoulder and spied the basket. “Bread? You stole that from the minotaurs?”
“They weren’t watching it,” Rainbow said, shrugging. “It’s not super fancy bread or anything, and it’s a little rough, but it’s awesome.”
A loaf floated out of the basket in a blue field of magic. Rarity took a cautious bite at first, but it was only a few seconds before she started eating it with as much of a frenzy as Rainbow. Rainbow watched the whole thing disappear in a minute before smirking. “So much for manners, right?”
“Shut up,” Rarity told her, grabbing a second loaf. She held it up to her mouth, thought better of it, and then put it back in the basket. “We should save those last two,” she said. “Who knows how long we’ll have to stretch our food supplies.”
“We’ve got a basket of fruit at least,” Rainbow said. “I figure we can live off of the fruit and the bread for another couple of days if we’re careful.”
“And the water, too,” Rarity said, shaking the jug. A disappointed frown appeared on her muzzle. “We’ve already drank half of it.”
“We were thirsty?” Rainbow suggested. Rarity’s magic put it on the ground with the bread, protected from the sun and the outside world by the shade. “We can always get more, at least. It’s not too much of a walk.”
“It’s still enough of a walk to be dangerous,” Rarity warned. “If the minotaurs are willing to come this far up the island, then they could be anywhere at anytime.”
“I doubt they’ll be hanging around up here all that much,” Rainbow said. “There’s nothing up here except rocks and more rocks.”
“And a temple…” Rarity looked over her shoulder even though she couldn’t see the peak through the stone wall. “We need to go take a closer look at it.”
Rainbow nodded. “I got a decent look at it last night, but it was dark and then the minotaurs showed up. Maybe we’ll find something more useful now that the sun’s out.”
“I certainly hope so,” Rarity said, standing up and moving to the doorway. “Otherwise I don’t know what we’ll do.”
Without having to worry about angry minotaurs finding and catching her, Rarity could actually take the time to admire the architecture of the temple as her and Rainbow crossed the terrace. Judging by the way the columns were placed and the distances between the statues, Rarity figured that the terrace could’ve once held ten thousand ponies without much trouble. Given the size of the island and the scarcity of other ruins and markers of ancient civilization that she and Rainbow had come across in their limited time there, that had to amount to the entire population of the island in its prime. It was both a mystery and a tragedy how an island of ten thousand ponies could seemingly vanish to be replaced by a tribe of violent minotaurs.
“Did they level off half of the mountaintop to make this?” Rarity asked. Her hooves crushed springs of scraggly grass growing out of cracks in the smooth block of stone, fighting for space to survive on bare rock. “I can’t possibly imagine how much effort that would’ve taken!”
“They probably worked on it for years,” Rainbow said. She walked over to one statue that was mostly intact and pointed to its base. “They carved these out of the mountain stone, too. They didn’t quarry the stone and erect the statues later; they just carved it from the meat of the mountain as they were clearing out this terrace place.”
Rarity ran her critical eye over the statue. It was pony shaped, yes, if a bit lacking in detail and proportion. But she couldn’t find a single seam in the stone, from the statue’s horn all the way down to where the square base met the stone below. The mineral grain moved along the statue in one smooth direction, with nothing to indicate that separate stones had been shaped and rearranged later with impossibly tight measurements.
“This level of craftsmareship would certainly rival some of the classical masters,” Rarity mused. Her eyes wandered over the graveyard of other smashed and toppled statues, and a sad sigh escaped her lips. “A shame that such beauty had to be destroyed. Can’t even savages appreciate true art and beauty?”
“They don’t seem like the artsy fartsy type, Rares,” Rainbow said. “They only really seem interested in being angry and covering themselves in tattoos and eating ponies from what I could tell.”
“And I trust we won’t have to interact with them.” Rarity swished her tail and approached the large doors set into the stone wall of the mountain. A pale blue glow manifested over them for a moment, and Rarity widened her stance as she grunted in frustration. After a few seconds, her field disappeared. “It would have been so thoughtful of them if they could have just left the doors unlocked for us!”
Rainbow shook her head and trotted up next to Rarity. “Yeah, I tried to push them open, too, but they didn’t budge. They’re locked up good.”
“Which is why we’ll need that medallion the one minotaur had.” Once more, Rarity’s horn flickered, and the crack between the doors glowed blue as she searched it. Her pink tongue darted out one side of her mouth and her brow furrowed further and further. Eventually, with sweat beginning to bead on her forehead, Rarity let the spell fizzle from her horn. “The latch inside is too complicated for me to turn with my magic. Too many moving parts.” She regarded the door with a new sense of appreciation. “A lot of skill went into designing the lock on this door. This place must’ve been very sacred to them if they kept it this secure.”
“Then we’re on the right track.” Rainbow stepped back so she could eye the symbols covering the door more clearly. “I tried to make sense of all these runes and stuff last night in the dark, but that didn’t happen. Got any ideas?”
Rarity shifted her gaze from the star-shaped mark in the door to the decorations around it. There were all sorts of little squiggly lines trimming the edges of the doors; runes, most likely. She immediately gave up on trying to make sense of those and instead shifted her focus towards the larger pictures carved into the stone. At least there were things here she recognized: a sun, an island, a group of ponies kneeling before a pegasus decorated in tattoos. Scattered around the pegasus were baskets of food and jugs filled with some kind of liquid—offerings, perhaps? Given that this was a place of worship, she tried to put the pieces together in the most logical combination.
“I think it’s dedicated to a sun deity of some sort,” Rarity said. “A pegasus covered in tattoos.”
“They forgot Celestia’s horn,” Rainbow quipped. “And gave her a dick.”
“Rainbow!”
“Hey, if blaspheming our royal sun goddess sends her attention this way, then I’ll happily burn a few effigies of her.” The pegasus snickered and added, “At least somepony would know where we were.”
“We’ll at least try it before performing blood magic and dark rituals,” Rarity said. “It can’t hurt.”
Rainbow shook her head. “Right. But if there’s a pegasus on this door, then how much you want to bet that there’s a little pegasus statue sitting right inside?”
Rarity tapped a hoof to her chin. “I suppose that’s the best guess we have to go on,” she said. “If that’s the case, then we need to snatch it and bring it back to our island.”
“Well we’re not gonna do that until we get this door open.” Rainbow kicked the door in frustration, wincing slightly when she realized she’d just kicked a big stone monolith. Rarity could tell she was trying to hide the pain, so she didn’t bring it up. After sucking down a deep breath, Rainbow pointedly turned away from the door and looked back out over the terrace. “All those minotaurs that were here last night just walked on in like it was nopony’s business. You think they’ll be back tonight?”
“No, that would just be absurd.” Rarity shook her head. “I couldn’t imagine making this hike from the shoreline every night. It must’ve been a special occasion; that would explain all the fanfare and goods they brought up here to feast on last night.”
“Then I guess we should be safe to set up camp here,” Rainbow said. “So long as we’re somewhere in the middle of the ruins away from the road, I don’t think any minotaurs will bother us. We’ll just have to make sure that we’re back here before sundown every night so we don’t run into them if they’re on the prowl when we can’t see.”
“Agreed.” Casting one last look at the door, Rarity started for the stairs. “Let’s get our supplies moved someplace more tenable for the time being. After that, I think it’s time we got a look at this village. What do you think?”
Rainbow smiled and bobbed her head. “Couldn’t agree more, Rares.”
As much as both ponies wanted to investigate the town and get off the island as soon as possible, they both realized that they couldn’t risk approaching the minotaur settlement until night had fallen. They’d be too easy to spot in the sunlight, as colorful as they were. Rarity’s beautiful white coat and deep purple hair had nowhere to blend in with the island’s foliage, and the less said about Rainbow’s bright colors, the better. The dim light of the night would be the only way they could approach the village without being spotted.
In the meanwhile, they had no shortage of tasks to complete. First among those was securing their means of survival; that meant refilling the jug of water, gathering more food, and making sure the raft was secure. That last bit fell to Rarity and her magic, and as much as she didn’t want to trek all the way back down the mountain to check on the raft, she knew she had to. Though Rainbow volunteered to help, Rarity knew that the pegasus wouldn’t be able to provide that much assistance. The raft was simply too heavy and too cumbersome for Rainbow to help move with her mouth and hooves.
That left Rainbow behind to deal with the food and water while Rarity started on the hike to the shoreline. She stayed along the eastern slope of the island’s backbone as much as she could, giving herself shelter from the interior of the island and the minotaur village. If her and Rainbow were discovered, it would only be a matter of time until they ran out of places to hide; therefore, she tried to limit her exposure as much as possible.
After what felt like an eternity of walking, Rarity finally made it down to the shoreline. She sighed with relief when she saw that their raft was still on the beach, untouched and in one piece, exactly how they’d left it the day before. But it was still exposed to the east, and if any of the minotaurs happened to come sailing by in their canoes at that moment, they’d see the raft for sure. Rarity had to get it inside the safety and shelter of the trees as soon as possible rather than risk it being seen.
“Alright, horn, let’s do this,” Rarity muttered to herself. She widened her stance and lowered her head, aiming her horn right at the raft. Little by little, she worked on developing her field until she had a tangible and strong hold on each individual trunk. Then, linking them together, she swung her head back like she was cracking a whip and grunted as she exuded her will over the shoddy piece of construction in front of her.
It shifted in the sand, shedding sediment on the beach. Inch by inch, Rarity hoisted the whole thing skyward until she had about a foot of clearance to work with. She took a moment to catch her breath and proudly regard the feat of magic in front of her. If she kept this up, maybe she could strengthen her magic, much like exercise or weightlifting.
Spying an open patch big enough to lie the raft down flat on, Rarity dropped it beneath the trees before her horn gave out on her. At least here it was mostly hidden from the beach—certainly it was impossible to spy from the water. The only way the minotaurs would find it was if they actually stumbled across it while roaming the island. But really, Rarity and Rainbow couldn’t do much more than pray that that didn’t happen.
With the raft safely concealed, Rarity once more started the daunting ascent to the top of the mountain. She didn’t know how many times she’d have to climb it during her stay on this island; hopefully not too many more. “And certainly not because I’m pony stew,” she muttered to herself, tail flicking at a few flies attacking her sweaty flanks. Really, she was already getting eaten enough without the minotaurs trying to join in.
It took her nearly an hour to return to the ruins of the city at the top of the mountain. She stopped by the spring along the way for a drink of water, but Rainbow wasn’t there; she probably took care of her business there while Rarity was still hiking down to the beach. At the very least, the water was cool and refreshing, and it’s not like that would’ve changed with company to talk and socialize with.
The taste of the water, that is. Everything could be improved by ponies to exchange gossip with.
Once she’d quenched her thirst, Rarity finished off the hike to the ruins. They seemed less eerie during the day and were now simply quiet. Now that everything was sharply outlined with the sun and the temperature was rapidly climbing, there wasn’t much that could send chills down her spine. At the very least, the lack of distinct noises was disconcerting in its own way. Further down the mountain, Rarity could hear all sorts of birds singing and calling to each other through the dense foliage. Up here, there was nothing but their echoes and the occasionally ruffling of feathers as some large bird of prey took off from the rocks to scout out a meal.
At least they weren’t golden eagles. Rarity had learned perhaps more than she’d wished to about them from Fluttershy. That they preyed on goats by flinging them off of mountains with their powerful wings and talons meant that ponies likely wouldn’t be off the menu either. And Rarity certainly didn’t want to consider the idea of falling to her death from hundreds of feet high.
It actually took her some time to remember where they had set up shelter. Between all the ruined and crumbling buildings, Rarity didn’t have much in terms of landmarks to work with. That, and she simply hadn’t been around their makeshift campsite that long to know where it was. As such, it took her longer than it should have to make it back to camp and find Rainbow again.
“The raft’s safe,” she said when she spotted the blue pegasus through an empty archway. “I moved it further up the beach and put it in the shade of some trees. It should be completely invisible from the water.”
“Awesome,” Rainbow said. The mare was busy organizing her spoils in the form of all kinds of berries and roots. She’d also set aside a big bundle of grass she must’ve trimmed with her knife. “I got a bunch of stuff. I’m excited about the berries.”
“Let’s hope they’re not poisonous,” Rarity said.
“They’re not,” Rainbow said. “As far as I can tell. I’m not dead yet.”
Rarity blinked. “Did you eat them before figuring out if they were poisonous or not?”
“They weren’t bitter!” Rainbow protested. “They were sweet and I couldn’t help myself and I may have already eaten two dozen when I was collecting them. But I’m not dead, so that’s good, right?”
“Sweet Celestia, Rainbow.” Rarity’s head fell into her hooves. “I thought you were the one with survival training.”
“Survival training that got us these awesome berries!” Rainbow shook the bundle of cloth she’d collected them in. “Here! Try some!”
Rarity unfolded the cloth bundle and pulled out a few of the berries. They were dark blue instead of a warning color like bright red or yellow, so that was a start. But she figured if they were poisonous, Rainbow surely would have felt it by now. With that little consolation, she popped a few of the berries in her mouth and crushed them between her teeth.
Sweet, sugary sensations assaulted her tongue. Almost as soon as she swallowed them, she found her magic reaching for more. “These are amazing!” she said before popping a few more in her mouth. “Why, we might just have to pick this island clean before we leave!”
“I’m sure the minotaurs would love that,” Rainbow said, grabbing a few as well. “Speaking of which, you haven’t seen any, right?”
Rarity shook her head. “Not a sign. They must keep to the lower end of the island whenever they aren’t doing whatever it was that brought them up here last night.”
“That’s good.” Rainbow covered the berries again before her and Rarity went through their whole stockpile in one sitting. “We’ll save the rest for later. As for now…” she turned her eyes to the sky, where the sun was just sitting overhead. “Looks like we just gotta wait until sundown.”
Rainbow stirred from her rest when a hoof poked her in the ribs. Blinking and groaning, she opened her bleary eyes one after the other. She found Rarity hovering over her, an apologetic smile that seemed to glow in the dim twilight on her face. “It’s time, Rainbow,” she said, stroking a lock of yellow hair out of Rainbow’s eyes.
Rainbow rubbed at her sleepy eyes and yawned. “So it is,” she mumbled, trying to sit up. Though she needed the nap, she’d woken up feeling just as tired if not more so than when she fell asleep. Her hooves were sluggish and her back ached from sleeping on the ground. Ferns and other plant matter could only do so much when sleeping at the top of a stony mountain, especially after how exhausting the past forty-eight hours had been.
Rarity saw Rainbow struggling to wake up, so she bent over and pressed her lips to Rainbow’s. The pegasus jolted in surprise at the kiss, but a moment later she ended up wrapping her hooves around Rarity’s waist and pulled her right against her chest. With Rarity lying on top, the two ponies locked their warm bodies together like puzzle pieces, kissing and nuzzling and sighing and humming.
They eventually paused for air with Rarity pushing herself up on her hooves. She panted lightly from the excitement and passion, and strands of her shortened shoulder-length hair hung in front of her face. Rainbow brushed a few of the sweaty purple strands aside and smiled as she gently stroked the unicorn’s cheek. “You’re so beautiful,” she said. “I just wanna hold you here forever and ever.”
“I’d love that more than anything,” Rarity said. But her shoulders sagged as she looked to the sky through the cracks in the ruins. “Unfortunately we have work to do.”
“Yeah…” Groaning, Rainbow sat up, letting Rarity roll off of her chest before she crawled to her hooves. “I guess it’s about that time, isn’t it.”
“It’s why I woke you up, darling,” Rarity said. “I figured we should try to get down the mountain while there’s still a little bit of light left. I don’t feel like taking a tumble down the stones when all is said and done.”
Rainbow stretched her legs out and stepped out of their hiding place. The air was still warm on the mountain, but Rainbow knew it wasn’t going to be long before it got chilly. Though the mountain wasn’t anywhere near the cloudline, it was still high enough that there’d be a noticeable difference in temperature by the middle of the night. Rainbow had felt it last night, and she knew it was coming again tonight.
“Should we bring anything with us?” Rarity asked. “Will we need anything?”
“We probably shouldn’t,” Rainbow said. “We’re just trying to get a good look at the village and not get seen. If we bring crap with us it’ll just make us easier to find and easier to get caught.”
Rarity nodded. “Quick and quiet is the order of the day, then.”
“Or night,” Rainbow said, glancing at the sky.
“Whatever.”
Delaying only long enough to top off on water and food, the two ponies began the hike down the mountain. Though they had a basic familiarity with the land by now, they proceeded with caution, double-checking the rocks and the shadows on the ground to keep their hoofing. They kept their ears open and eyes peeled for any signs of lingering minotaurs around the island, but they didn’t hear anything as the sun finally fell and darkness settled over the mountain.
They’d never been this low on this side of the island before. They crept up to the fringes of the tree line around the big open bay on the island’s west side, where they could survey the land from the safety of the shadows. Crouching down behind some brush, their eyes peered across the water to the lights beginning to emerge from beneath the trees.
The first thing they saw were lines of brown huts placed seemingly haphazardly. Tree trunks and woven fronds made up the bulk of the structures, tied together with vines and coconut rope. Many of the huts were built around firepits in the sand, around which several minotaurs tended growing flames. Many bulls dragged outrigger canoes further up the shore and away from the tides, while cows tended to their young and prepared meals. Despite the growing darkness of the night, it seemed like the village was still lively and active.
“That’s… a lot of them,” Rainbow said, just counting the minotaurs she could see moving around. She gave up when she got past thirty. “Like, sheesh.”
“A hornets’ nest indeed,” Rarity agreed. “And we need to go into that and get a trinket to open this temple?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Rainbow said. “We’re not in a good position to infiltrate the village tonight. Let’s just get a good look at everything.”
“But where do we start?” Rarity blinked and searched the village from afar. “There doesn’t seem to be any order to the thing.”
After a moment to think, Rainbow turned her eyes toward brush elsewhere. “We need to get a closer look,” she said. “We’re not going to figure anything out from here.”
“I agree,” Rarity said, stepping out of the brush. She stopped when Rainbow put a hoof on her shoulder and dragged her back. “What?” she asked, shooting Rainbow an accusatory glare.
“Rarity, you’re like the moon,” Rainbow said.
Rarity blinked. “Why, thank you, Rainbow, but I don’t think now’s the time for—”
“No, not like that.” Rainbow shook her head. “Your white coat reflects everything. The moonlight is just gonna glow off of it. You’ll be easy to see.”
“And you won’t be?” Rarity frowned and looked Rainbow over. “You’re incredibly colorful to say the least.”
“Yeah, but it’s night. You can’t see colors all that well in the dark.” Rainbow shook out her mane. “Face it, neither of us are really good at the sneaking around thing because we’re super colorful ponies. But if we want to get a closer look at this village, then I should be the one to do it because I’ll be harder to see at night. Unless you feel like covering yourself in dirt and crap to hide your coat.” As she said that, she started digging through the ground and smearing dirt and sand into her mane to block out some of the color.
That killed the argument, and Rainbow knew it. Rarity shuffled through a few disgusted faces before sighing. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Just… you will be careful, won’t you?”
“I’ll try to be,” Rainbow assured her. “I wouldn’t bite off anything more than I could chew.”
With that little bit of encouragement, Rainbow snuck away through the undergrowth, trying to stick to the shadows and foliage as best she could. Each bush and clutch of ferns brought her a little bit closer to the town. Within a few minutes, she’d changed angles on it, giving her a different look down into the group of huts. She saw a few more fire pits and a lot more minotaurs gathering around them, but nothing distinct from that spot. The trees growing through the middle of the village were simply too dense and erratically placed for her to get a good eye on things, and the village was a lot larger than she originally thought.
Checking her surroundings for any signs of movement or noise, Rainbow continued her reconnaissance. A small hill rose up amongst the sand and dirt a bit further to the north, so she made that her priority. It provided a vantage point over much of the village, and the top was also lined with trees and rocks to give her cover. Dense foliage covered the approach, giving Rainbow the shelter she needed to safely climb up to the top.
Once she made it, however, she could see the village arranged below her. The huts were arranged in short of a fishhook shape around a larger ridge to the west that Rainbow’s hill was merely the tail end of. She didn’t bother counting the huts below, even though there were a lot of them; she already knew there were more than a hundred at a glance. Given the distribution of the village, Rainbow assumed that much of their crops and farmland, what little they cultivated on the island, was kept to the further northwestern area of the island. That would explain why the minotaurs seemed so sparse around the eastern side, but none of that really helped Rainbow. What she needed to find was something to mark out the chief’s hut, and after a minute of searching, she finally found it.
It was distinct from the others only in that it looked like two huts mashed together. It wasn’t long and low like the communal hut or tall and closed off like what Rainbow assumed were the granaries. But it had a prominent position on a slightly raised hillock, giving it a good view of the rest of the town, situated right at the interior of the fishhook’s bend. That put its front facing towards the water and its back to the ridge rising up above it.
Rainbow started thinking up ways to approach the hut. The best way she could see to go about it was from behind, where she could drop in on the hut from the sparsely populated ridge and sneak into the hut. But even then, she didn’t know what she would find. She had a feeling that her and Rarity would have to go in blinder than they would’ve liked. There just wasn’t a good way to get more information without risking being found.
But they had a location and enough information to start thinking about a plan. Carefully keeping her body low to the ground, Rainbow backed off the hill and slipped away. Her and Rarity would need to have a talk and come up with a plan of action for getting that medallion away from the tribe’s leader. They knew what they were up against now; it was only a matter of time before they finished their stay on the island, one way or the other.
Rainbow just hoped that she wouldn’t be leading them both to their deaths.
Rarity watched the minotaur village and chewed on her hoof. So far, everything seemed normal. The minotaurs idly talked with each other and gathered around fires, likely sharing stories and boasting. At the very least, there wasn’t any surprised shouting or even cheering. If Rainbow got caught, Rarity expected to hear a lot of that.
She glanced at the moon. It’d moved further across the horizon, though by how much, Rarity couldn’t tell. Astronomy wasn’t one of her hobbies; the alignments and movements of planets and stars rarely ever mattered in designing dresses. But it’d been quite some time since Rainbow disappeared, and of course, Rarity had started worrying the very minute she slipped away into darkness. That concern had only grown in the lengthy minutes that had ticked by since.
What would she do anyway if Rainbow got caught? What could she do? Storm the town by herself and try to free her, fighting off every minotaur along the way? She wouldn’t get very far doing that. Sneak in and break Rainbow out? That assumed that they’d just lock her up somewhere and wouldn’t immediately throw her in a pot to boil. If they did put her in a pot, then that put Rarity back to plan one. Even if it killed her, it was probably better than being trapped on these islands all alone. She doubted she’d ever be able to get all the figurines by herself.
Of course, if things went wrong here, they wouldn’t even get the first one. And if they couldn’t do that, then there wasn’t much point in visiting the other islands.
The brush rustled up ahead, and Rarity drew further back into the darkness of her cover. When Rainbow Dash stuck her dirty head out of the leaves, however, Rarity relaxed and stood up. She waved to get Rainbow’s attention and then drew back into the shadows as the pegasus slinked over to her.
When they were both within the safety of the ferns, Rarity hugged Rainbow and nuzzled her cheek. “Oh, sweet Celestia, I was worried about you!” Rarity exclaimed. “I thought for sure those nasty minotaurs had found you!”
Rainbow pressed her feathers to Rarity’s lips. “Ssshhh, Rares, not so loud,” she hissed. Pulling her wing back, Rainbow started wiping some of the dirt and sand out of her coat. “And did you really doubt me? No minotaurs even came close to finding me. I was in and outta there in a flash!”
“Forgive me if I doubt your choice of words,” Rarity said. “You were gone for at least an hour!”
“Are you sure?” Rainbow asked, furrowing her brow. “It only felt like twenty minutes to me.”
“Well it may as well have been an hour, I was having a nervous breakdown!” Closing her eyes, Rarity inhaled and exhaled several times. “Alright, it’s behind us, and you’re safe. What did you learn?”
“Not here,” Rainbow said. “We should at least get some distance between us and the village. We’re pretty close.”
Rarity nodded and checked their surroundings before standing up. “Back at the mountain?”
“We don’t have to go that far,” Rainbow said. “But I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
They set off toward the island’s south end, still being careful about making too much noise or being too visible in the moonlight. Only once did Rainbow think she heard something, and when both ponies hid in the brush, they waited a few minutes until the noise of a pair of distant minotaurs passed by. Even after dark, it seemed that the minotaurs remained active through the lower portion of the island to some extent.
They didn’t encounter any more minotaurs by the time they hiked back to the spring. In that time, Rainbow had told Rarity everything she’d seen when scouting out the village. They stopped by the water to rehydrate, and while they were there, Rainbow drew out the fishhook shape of the village and marked off a few key landmarks.
“I think this one’s the chief’s hut,” she said, pointing to a big square just at the inside curve of the fishhook. “And there’s a big hill behind it. If we go down that, we’ll be right at its back door.”
“Does it even have a back door?” Rarity asked. “Did you get close enough to take a look?”
Rainbow fidgeted with the stick. “…No,” she said. “I didn’t get a good enough look at it. That would’ve meant I had to get closer into the village and I wasn’t gonna try that while they’re all outside around their fires.”
“Fair enough,” Rarity conceded. She frowned as she scrutinized the crude map some more. “Okay, so that’s the chief’s hut, and there’s a hill behind it we can use to get down. Then what?”
“Well, we break in and steal the medallion thingy!” Rainbow exclaimed. “That shouldn’t be too hard. Those huts don’t even have doors!”
“And what happens if their chief is wearing it? What happens if he finds us in his hut?”
Rainbow stopped and bowed her head slightly as she thought. “I don’t know. Maybe… maybe we cause a distraction?”
Rarity blinked. “A distraction? Like what?”
“Something to clear out the village! Something that’ll let us slip in unnoticed!”
“I’m not sure whether I should ask if you have a plan or not.”
“Don’t worry, Rares, I do.”
Rarity thought for a moment. “Perhaps what I should have asked was if it’s a good plan or not.”
“My plans are always great,” Rainbow insisted. “And we only need a few things.”
Rainbow Dash grinned, obviously proud of the idea forming in her head. Rarity wasn’t so sure. Narrowing her eyes and shooting Rainbow a skeptical look, she leaned in a bit. “Like what, darling?”
“Easy stuff,” Rainbow said. “All we need is a little bit of wood and something to light it with.”
“You want to make a fire? I’m not exactly sure how that helps us. They’ll send one, maybe two minotaurs to investigate, and that still leaves a whole town of them.”
Rainbow winked at Rarity. “The fire itself isn’t the most important part, Rares. Just trust me. We’ll gather the wood and stuff in the morning, and then let’s be ready to snatch this medallion tomorrow night and get the hay off this island.”
Rarity chewed on her lip as Rainbow stood up and started walking around the spring, back toward the mountain. “If you say so,” she muttered, following after her. “I just hope you actually have a plan that doesn’t involve just making things up on the fly.”
Rarity ran through the jungle of the island. All around her, the roars and howls of angry minotaurs echoed off of trees. Bipedal shadows darted around the edges of her vision, but whenever she looked at them, they seemed to vanish. There was only the dark jungle stretching on forever, and Rarity didn’t have the stamina to run forever.
A downed tree suddenly appeared in front of her, and she tried to jump over it. But just as she tried to launch herself off the ground, her hooves slipped through mud, robbing her of distance and height. A branch twisting off of the log caught her in the chest, and she ended up flipping over and landing in a crumpled heap on the other side.
Her heart pounded and she forced herself to sit up. She knew if she stopped here, she was dead. Her legs screamed in protest as she tried to stand, and she ultimately fell back to the ground again, completely out of breath. It felt like her whole body was shutting down from sheer exhaustion.
Dark figures began to step out of the trees, and Rarity cried out and huddled against the log. They stood tall on their two legs and held spears and nets in muscular arms that could break buildings in half. Within seconds, they formed a menacing ring around her, weapons drawn and eyes burning like fire in the darkness.
But before they could close in on her with a final primal yell, something grabbed Rarity around the waist and hauled her skyward. She screamed in fear, but when she saw the treetops blurring by beneath her, her panic died out. Looking up, she saw blue fuzz filling her vision, topped with the colors of the rainbow and carried on strong wings. “Rainbow?”
“I got you, Rares,” Rainbow said, flapping her wings harder and putting more distance between them and the minotaur hunting party. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Sighing, Rarity pressed herself close against Rainbow’s chest and closed her eyes. She felt safe in Rainbow’s embrace. So long as she was there, nothing bad would happen.
-----
Rarity woke up when the sun struck her face. Grumbling and protesting, she rolled over and tried to bury her face in her pillow, only to remember that her pillow was a bed of ferns and mosses. She raised her head and spat out some of the plant matter that’d gotten into her mouth and even sneezed once or twice for good measure. Oh, how she missed the creature comforts of civilization. Even the hardest mattress was bound to be better than piles of leaves on top of stony ground. She never thought she’d imagine thinking it, but she wished she was sleeping on the sand instead of on top of this mountain. At least the sand had a little give to it!
Unfortunately, she was awake now. There wasn’t much point in trying to go to sleep again. Rolling onto her back, she stared through the cracks and holes in the ceiling that let in the outside light. The sky was a vibrant blue and the light spots on the shadowy floor weren’t too far off from the ceiling holes, so she figured it must be getting close to noon. Might as well get ready for the rest of the day.
Rainbow Dash wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so Rarity figured she was already out and about. Standing up, she picked a few berries out of the cloth Rainbow had collected them in and floated over the jug of water. It was a meager breakfast, but her stomach had gotten used to small meals since washing up on the island. At least years of eating lean portions had prepared her well for surviving on rations out here. She didn’t know how Rainbow survived as an athlete who had to eat all the time to keep her energy up.
With the morning meal taken care of, she wandered out of the ruined building, carefully picking her way down the rubble slope outside of the wall. Her hooves clopped on the stone ground when she jumped the last bit, and arching her back, she sighed and stretched her legs. She worked her neck from side to side, too, wincing and gasping when it popped and cracked. The pleasure nearly melted her into a puddle right then and there, but she managed to stay standing upright. She figured she might have to see a chiropractor too once all this was over. Sleeping on rocks and sand was probably throwing her spine out of alignment, and it’d pair wonderfully with a massage at the spa.
A little bit of wandering finally took her to where Rainbow perched. The pegasus sat almost on the sheer edge of the mountain, wings folded against her sides and leaning back on her forehooves as she surveyed the land below her. Most of the island was visible from this angle, with the tiny dots of canoes and minotaurs wandering around the shores below. Walking up to Rainbow’s side, Rarity nosed her friend’s ear and sat down beside her.
“Hey, Rares,” Rainbow said, though her eyes remained glued to the island’s bay where the canoes paddled in and out.
“Good morning, darling,” Rarity greeted her. “It is still morning, right?”
“Yeah, late morning and stuff.” She shifted slightly and put her wing across Rarity’s shoulders, sliding her closer together. Rarity didn’t resist. “You sleep well?”
“Well enough.” Rarity felt a pleasant warmth in her chest as she added, “I had a lovely dream, too.”
“Oh? Was I in it?”
“That’s why it was lovely, darling.”
Rainbow proudly grinned and rubbed her nose against Rarity’s cheek. “Glad to know I’m always on your mind even when you’re sleeping.”
Rarity scoffed and waved her hoof. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Rainbow. You’re not always on my mind.”
“Just most of the time, then?”
“Mmmm… a fair bit.” Smiling, Rarity rested her head on Rainbow’s shoulder. “It’s quite the view from up here,” she said, looking down on the island stretched before them. “You’re not worried about the minotaurs seeing us sitting up here?”
“Pshh, no way.” Rainbow shook her head. “You see how tiny they are from all the way up here? How are they gonna notice you and me with the sky at our backs?”
“You certainly have a bit of color to you, in case you’d forgotten,” Rarity said.
“Which is pretty much unnoticeable from all the way down there. Besides, why would any minotaurs look up all this way? I think we’ll be fine.”
Rarity shrugged. “If you say so, Rainbow.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, simply admiring the view and each other’s company. Ultimately, it was Rarity who broke it again. “We’re risking everything tonight, aren’t we?” she asked.
“Pretty much,” Rainbow agreed. “Either this works or it doesn’t. One way or another, we’ll be a step closer to ending this whole stupid thing.”
“And you still haven’t told me what your plan is,” Rarity said. “I’d like to know what exactly we’re doing instead of going in blind.”
“I’ll tell you about it before we do it, I promise.”
“Now is before we do it, Rainbow.”
Rainbow smirked at Rarity’s frustration. “Later tonight.”
Groaning, Rarity put a hoof to her brow. “Are you just not telling me it because it’s a stupid plan and you don’t want to be called out on it?”
“Celestia, spare me,” Rarity muttered under her breath. “I suppose we’ll still need to get all this wood anyhow, though.”
“Yep.”
“And when are we going to do that?”
“Not for a bit yet,” Rainbow said. Smiling, she squeezed Rarity closer against her side. “I want to enjoy the moment for a bit, first.”
That was at least something Rarity could get behind. A ladylike grin wormed its way onto her lips, and she raised her head to kiss Rainbow’s cheek. “I certainly wouldn’t mind,” she said, stroking Rainbow’s chin. “If we’re going to dive head first into certain death based on your stupid plan, then we ought to enjoy ourselves while we still can.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “It’s not stupid, it’s unconventional.”
“Unconventional, my—!”
Rainbow flipped Rarity onto her back and smothered her with kisses. Giggling, Rarity tried to resist at first, but Rainbow was persistent and determined, and that more than made up for the size difference between them. No place on Rarity’s head and neck was safe from Rainbow’s lips, and she covered the whole thing in kisses, from the tip of her chipped horn to her collarbones. Their dirty tails twisted together, and Rarity’s outstretched hind legs kicked at the open air beyond either side of Rainbow’s flanks as they held her in place. Soon, Rainbow’s hooves joined in too, exploring the curves and firm spots of Rarity’s perfect body. Rarity suddenly gasped when she felt a hoof touch sensitive spots on her underside, and she shot Rainbow a sultry look.
“Did you find something, darling?” she asked, fluttering her eyes. Though the fake lashes had fallen off long ago, she knew she could still pull off the effect when necessary.
“You’ve got some hard spots down there,” Rainbow said, winking at her. “Might want to get those checked out.”
“Maybe…”
“You want me to take a look?”
Rarity’s manners as a lady finally overtook her there. “Perhaps we shouldn’t do that out in the open under the sun,” she said, blushing furiously. “It’s not exactly right and proper, now is it?” She nervously laughed.
Shrugging, Rainbow leaned back in and pressed her lips to Rarity’s. “If you say so,” she said when they broke off. “Just let me know if you change your mind.”
“I shall… and I will,” Rarity said. “Just not now. Maybe if we survive this whole ordeal. After all, what’s the point in prematurely celebrating?”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” Rainbow said. Sighing, she rolled onto her side and let Rarity hold onto her. “I love this.”
“I love this, too.”
It wasn’t exactly the words Rarity knew her heart wanted to hear, but it was a start. Those would come in time. For now, she could just enjoy the calm before the storm with Rainbow. For all she knew, peaceful, quiet moments like this might not come again.
But she had faith in Rainbow’s plan, even if she didn’t know what it was. So long as Rainbow had a plan, then they were already a step closer than they were yesterday.
Tonight, they’d finally see if it was a good one or not.
Rainbow Dash impatiently waited for night to fall. She knew what she needed to do, and she had all the confidence that her plan would work. Now all she had to do was wait for it to get dark.
Rarity seemed similarly restless. The seamstress had spent the past hour weaving blades of grass together into a mat a few inches square. Occasionally, she’d prop it up with her magic and drop little stones into the middle to see if the mat could hold them. More often than not, the grass would come apart, and she’d have to start all over again. Still, it’d only take a few minutes for her to weave another mat before ruining it again.
The sun went down and once more the island fell into darkness, but even then, Rainbow and Rarity didn’t leave the mountain. Instead, Rainbow just stared at the moon while Rarity sighed and fussed with their supplies behind them. Eventually, she stepped out of the darkness and moved closer to Rainbow’s side. “When are we going to go down?” she asked.
“Soon,” Rainbow assured her.
Rarity raised an eyebrow and glanced at all the supplies they’d gathered over the course off the day. “How soon is soon? I’m already feeling tired from simply dreading having to carry all this wood down the mountain. We should’ve left it where we found it and picked it up on the way.”
“We can’t risk the minotaurs finding any of this stuff,” Rainbow said. “It’s at least safe up here.”
“It won’t be worth it when we trip and fall while carrying all this stuff in the darkness.”
“We’ll just take our time,” Rainbow said. “We just have to wait for the right time.”
“And when is the right time?” Rarity skeptically asked.
Rainbow turned her eyes down to the village. “When they pack it in for the night. We don’t want them being awake when we pull this off.”
“And just what stunt are we pulling off?” Rarity asked. “I’m not going to go in on this thing blind.”
After a moment to think, Rainbow shrugged. “We’re gonna start a fire in their village,” she said. “That’ll get them all out and we can go raid the chief’s hut for the medallion thingy.”
Rarity blinked. “Excuse me, what?” She blinked again. “We’re going to become arsonists just to raid the village?!”
“We need to get them out of the way!” Rainbow exclaimed. “A distraction’s our best way of doing that!”
“Not by burning down the whole village!”
“It’ll only be one hut, Rarity!” Rainbow exclaimed. “They’ll all show up and put out the fire before it spreads! That’ll give us enough time to get in and out!”
“I can’t believe you’d stoop to such barbarism just to get a medallion!”
“Oh, so you’ve got a better idea?” Rainbow spat back, bristling. “Let’s hear it! I’m all ears!”
Rarity opened her mouth but nothing came out. Fuming, she crossed her forelegs. “No, but there has to be a better way.”
Rainbow rubbed a hoof against her temple. “Rarity, I’m trying to get us out of here and back home. We don’t have time to play around at this! Every day we stay here is another day we’re risking our lives! We need to get on with this and get back home, Rares. This is the best way.”
Sighing, Rarity touched her hooves together. “I… I’m just worried,” Rarity said. “Somebody could get hurt from this. I don’t want to come back to Equestria a murderer.”
“If we don’t do anything, we won’t get back to Equestria at all,” Rainbow insisted. Her wingtip traced Rarity’s jawline until she directed blue eyes toward her own. “Listen, I don’t want to hurt anypony—anyminotaur, either. But we might have to before we’re through with this, okay?” Shaking her head, she took her wing away from Rarity’s face. “If it comes down to it, I’m choosing us over them, Rares. I’m not gonna let some dumb minotaurs stand between us and getting home.”
It wasn’t really an answer Rarity was happy with; that much, Rainbow could tell. If anything, Rarity’s lowered head and furrowed brow were only signs of how torn she was. “Well… let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that, then,” she said.
“Yeah.” Rainbow glanced at the moon and grumbled. “Celestia, how much longer is this gonna take?”
“We can’t force the night to go any faster,” Rarity said. “We just have to wait.”
“I guess.”
Rarity lied down on her back to stare at the stars, and Rainbow joined her. A little cloud cover obscured their views of the heavens, but it was thin enough to let them see most of the stars. It was a beautiful sight; it reminded Rainbow of her filly days in Cloudsdale.
“So we’re going to start a fire,” Rarity thought aloud. Rainbow’s ears perked in her direction, and she glanced aside to see the unicorn deep in thought. “Any more specifics to that? Or are we just winging it?”
“I’ve got a few ideas,” Rainbow said. “I want to start the fire in a hut on the edge of the village as far away from the chief’s hut as possible. Maybe a storehouse or something for their canoes and crap, not one with minotaurs sleeping in it.”
“I’m glad to hear that, at least,” Rarity said. “And then we sneak into the chief’s hut while all the minotaurs are distracted?”
“That’s the idea,” Rainbow said. “While they’re all distracted out there, we go in and out. Easy peasy!”
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “You know that because you said that, it’s going to be much more complicated than we’re planning on.”
“It’ll be fine,” Rainbow insisted. “The beauty of the plan is its simplicity! We can adjust it on the fly if need be, but the basics get us in and out in no time at all! Ten seconds flat!”
“I doubt it’ll take ten seconds, darling, but sure.” Rarity stroked a few strands of her bangs back out of her eyes. “I’m not exactly sure about this, but it’s the best we have, I suppose.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “Don’t worry, Rares, we’ll pull through this. Just trust me.”
“I don’t know how many times you’ve said that today,” Rarity said. “I feel like you’re trying to convince yourself just as much as you are me.”
Rainbow waved her hoof. “No way, Rares. We got this. We aren’t gonna let a bunch of stupid minotaurs stop us.”
“I certainly hope so…”
“We’ll be fine. We’ll just be careful and everything will work out fine.” Sitting up, Rainbow looked at the bundles of fuel sitting in the ruined building behind them. “Speaking of which, we should probably get moving. We gotta get this stuff all the way down the mountain and into position, and that’ll probably take us an hour or two just to move it. Hopefully by then all the minotaurs are asleep.”
Rarity groaned and rolled over. “If we have to,” she said. “Hopefully you’re right. Otherwise we’ll have to sit in the brush and wait, and I’d rather not repeat last night.”
“Eh, it’s not so bad, Rares,” Rainbow said, standing up and trailing her wing along Rarity’s side. “More time for us…”
“Mmmm…” Rarity’s ears perked as she stood up after Rainbow. “That’s certainly nothing to complain about, now is it?”
The minotaur village was dark and dead by the time Rainbow and Rarity made their way to its outskirts. The fires were little more than smoldering embers casting faint orange glows on the surrounding huts, and no muscular figures moved across the sand. It was still and quiet, and for a moment, Rainbow could almost believe that the village was little more than a ghost town.
“Do you see anything?” Rarity hissed over Rainbow’s shoulder. The unicorn dropped her bundle of fuel in the ground, spitting a few times to get the taste of vines out of her mouth. Rainbow hadn’t let her use her magic to carry the fuel down, because the blue glow would’ve shone like a beacon in the night. At the very least, it had kept Rarity quiet and prevented her from complaining during the hike.
“The coast looks clear,” Rainbow said, craning her neck this way and that for a better look. “I don’t see anything. They’re all sleeping.”
“That’s good.” A white hoof pushed a bundle of sticks and dried wood across the sand to the bundle Rainbow had carried. “Then hopefully this won’t be too much of a challenge.”
“Hopefully,” Rainbow agreed. Surveying the town some more, she spotted a tall hut a little bit inside of the edge of the village. “That looks like a granary,” she said. “If we light that up then they’ll all come running.”
Rarity’s muzzle scrunched. “But won’t they starve if we burn all their food?”
“They have other granaries,” Rainbow insisted. “Plus, I bet they get most of their food from fish. This’ll just be like an inconvenience to them. And I mean, we’re in the tropics. They don’t have a winter to worry about where they can’t grow anything.”
“True enough, I suppose.”
Pointing deeper into the town, she beckoned Rarity over for a better look. “That’s the chief’s hut… I think,” she said. “It’s the only one that really makes sense. He probably keeps the medallion thingy there, so you’ll have to look for it once I start the fire.”
Rarity blinked. “Wait just a second, darling… I’ll have to look for it?”
“I need to get the fire started!” Rainbow kicked the bundles of wood. “I’ve gotta get them in position and then light them, and while I’m doing that, you need to get ready to sneak into the chief’s hut. You might not have that much time.”
“It sounds like I’m being stuck with the more dangerous task,” Rarity grumbled. “Why can’t we switch? I can place the wood easier with my horn and then light it from a distance while you go and sneak into the hut.”
“I would, but honestly, Rares, you’re better suited for it.” She held up her hoof when Rarity opened her mouth in protest. “If that minotaur stuck the medallion somewhere up high or somewhere hard to get to, then your magic will be much more useful there than me trying to bumble about and get it with my hooves. And if Celestia forbid something bad happens, you can fight your way out of it better with your magic than I can from the ground.” A wingtip snuck under one of the spears and she flipped it to Rarity, who caught it in her magical field before she remembered to extinguish her horn in the darkness of the night. “I’d do it myself if I thought that was best. I trust in you, Rares. I know you’ll pull it off.”
The unicorn chewed on her lip. “I’m not exactly a big fan of this, but we don’t really have the luxury of making a choice, now do we?”
Rainbow put her hooves on Rarity’s shoulders. “I promise I would’ve done it myself, Rarity, and if you really want to, we can switch. We just have the best chance of getting out of this in one piece if we do it this way.” She snuck a kiss in for good measure, which Rarity only weakly resisted. “As soon as you get the medallion, sneak back up over the hill and head to the east shore. We’ll meet up there and then climb the mountain, okay?”
“Okay,” Rarity said, shakily nodding her head. “I’ll try not to get caught.”
“You won’t get caught. I know it.”
It was enough to put a little smile on Rarity’s face. “If I have your vote of confidence then I’m sure I won’t get caught,” she said. Eyeing up the hill, she briefly hefted the spear with her magic and rested it against her shoulder. “I suppose it’s now or never. I’ll see you on the other side, Rainbow.”
They briefly nuzzled and kissed as Rarity passed, and then Rainbow found herself watching Rarity scurry through the darkness, spear held between her teeth. For some reason, that hurt her and frightened her more than even imagining her own demise at the hands of the minotaurs. A part of her wanted to call Rarity back, to hold her and forget the plan. She would’ve given anything to see Rarity safe back at their shelter on their home island.
But she couldn’t. If they ever wanted to get home again, if they wanted to survive, then they had to do this. All Rainbow could do was pull her part off and hope for the best.
She waited a few minutes for Rarity to get into position, and then she began to move. Like a colorful shadow, she stalked through the darkness, carrying one of the two fuel bundles in her mouth. Her heart began to beat faster and faster the closer to the village she got, until finally there weren’t any more trees or ferns to hide behind. There she was, standing naked in the sand with a bundle of wood in her mouth… and nothing attacked her. Nothing moved. Nothing tried to kill her, to throw her in a stew and crack open her bones for their marrow. Nothing changed.
It wasn’t going to remain that way for long. Ever thankful for the sand beneath her hooves, she stalked closer to the large hut at the edge of the village. As she got closer, she saw that her guess was right; just inside the open hut she could see a stockpile of bundled grains, dried berries, and coconuts stacked neatly. The whole thing must have been only a quarter full in total, and there was certainly a lot of dry material that would burn nicely.
Rainbow felt a pang of guilt stab at her as she unbundled the fuel and started stacking sticks around the coconuts. What she was doing was fundamentally wrong. Burning another person’s hard work to the ground wasn’t right. But this was the best thing she could come up with to help her and Rarity get the figurine and get home. They had to do this. There simply wasn’t another way.
With the firewood in position, Rainbow pulled out the flint and steel she’d scavenged from the caves under the island and struck it a few times. A spark finally began to grow in the fuel, and carefully blowing on it, Rainbow turned it into a small flame that greedily began to spread to the dry food and fuel around it. Once she was sure the flame wouldn’t die, Rainbow backpedaled and watched it begin to spread.
“That’s the first bit,” she said, quickly turning in place and methodically sweeping her tail across the sand as she did so to cover up her hoofprints. Her ruby eyes turned back toward the patch of darkness where a second fuel bundle waited. “And now for the second one…”
She hadn’t mentioned this part of the plan to Rarity, probably because she would’ve tried to stop her had she known. But so long as the minotaurs could still cross the sea, then they wouldn’t ever be safe. Rainbow decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Not only would they be leaving the village tonight with the figurine, but Rainbow didn’t intend on leaving them with any canoes to pursue them back to their home island.
Snatching the second bundle of wood, Rainbow once more galloped back toward the village. She didn’t have a lot of time now. Hopefully the minotaurs would be too distracted with putting out the granary fire to notice her sabotaging their canoes. Hopefully Rarity was in place and ready to go. Hopefully the chief wouldn’t have the medallion on him and Rarity could just sneak in and take it out of his hut.
Hopefully a lot of things didn’t go wrong over the next fifteen minutes. The blaze had already reached the top of the granary ceiling, and it was beginning to spread to the outside. Within minutes, the whole thing would be on fire.
Rarity breathed deeply and shut her eyes. Her nerves were starting to get the better of her at the worst possible time. The sharp needling sensation of panic had spread to her limbs and was working its way into her core. She had to flex and shake them just to stop herself from locking up.
It’d taken her some time, but she’d managed to work her way into position behind the chief’s hut. Everything was so quiet and still apart from the rolling waves that she feared even the slightest noise would wake the minotaurs below. And the closer she got to the hut, the louder and louder the snoring from within became. Rarity couldn’t imagine just how big and loud the chief had to be up close based on the snoring alone. He sounded enormous.
Then she found herself right against the back of the hut. Huddled down in the shadows, she tried to slow her breathing and not make even the slightest noise as she waited for the distraction. At least with the hut on one side and the steep slope of the hill on the other, Rarity felt fairly hidden and safe. No minotaur would have a reason to go wandering behind the hut, right? There wasn’t anything there. Now all she had to do was wait and see if Rainbow’s plan worked or not.
The minutes dragged on. Rarity had no way to tell how much time had passed. It felt like it’d been a few hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes. Her limbs ached from standing in a crouched position for so long, ready to bolt and gallop away at a moment’s notice. Even the adrenalin was beginning to wear off and her exhaustion started to push through. She nearly had to bury her muzzle in the sand to stifle a yawn for fear that it’d be her last.
She craned her head around in the direction she’d come from. Had Rainbow torched the granary yet? Rarity couldn’t see from this angle. The backs of a few close huts were too crowded together for her to really see over or past them. Did something go wrong? She was certain that if Rainbow got caught, she would’ve heard it. The pegasus would’ve been kicking and screaming to no end. But all was quiet. What was happening?
Then she saw the first flicker of flame dart up into the night. The shadows began to dance on the sand, and the tiny movement startled Rarity. More and more tongues of fire rose into the air as the fire engulfed the hut, and not long after, she heard the creaking crash and boom of timber collapsing.
That was all it took to wake the village. Within moments, Rarity heard sleepy, confused voices talking through the walls of the chief’s hut. The ground around her shook and rumbled as something heavy plodded through the sand. It hardly took a few more seconds before cries of alarm started to rise through the village.
The sandy ground vibrated as dozens of heavy hooves began running toward the fire. Minotaurs began shouting at each other, and their shadows flickered across the hill next to Rarity as the fire grew. Steeling herself, Rarity hesitated for another minute before she began to creep around the side of the hut, checking this way and that for any minotaurs that might be looking in her direction. But she didn’t see any, so she slowly rounded the side of the hut until she was nearly at the front of it and found herself a good view of what was happening to the east.
Her eyes widened as she saw a crowd of minotaurs standing in front of the ruins of the granary. The entire structure was a loss, reduced to little more than burning timber and coconut fibers. But the fire was still growing, and it threatened the other huts around it. At the very least, Rarity knew that the blaze would keep them occupied for the next short while. If the minotaurs didn’t work to contain it, there was a chance that it’d sweep across the rest of their village. While Rarity hoped that wouldn’t happen, at least the threat of it would keep them busy.
Wasting little time, Rarity quickly skirted around the front of the hut and slipped inside, immediately pressing herself against the interior wall. There weren’t any lights of course, so the whole thing was dark. But she didn’t hear anything at first, at least not over the noise of the fire, the minotaurs outside, and her own pounding heart. She was inside the chief’s hut now. If a minotaur found her here, she was dead.
After a moment to catch her breath and ready herself, Rarity let her horn glow just faintly enough to make out the details of the hut. It was simple enough and looked like two circles mashed together, one behind the other. The first circle that she was in had some bedding along the sides, but Rarity didn’t see anything there at a glance. All she could tell was that the medallion wasn’t anywhere in the first part of the hut. Hopefully it wasn’t with the chief.
She moved into the second part of the hut, past ceremonial masks hanging on the walls that seemed to follow her every step. Here in the back she saw a pedestal made out of a tree stump sitting at the far end of the room. More masks and weapons decorated the walls of the hut, and hanging above the pedestal was a large minotaur skull. Rarity didn’t know why the chief had a skull from one of his own kind in his hut, but it wasn’t something she was going to question. It already creeped her out just by being there, like it was watching her and would raise the alarm if she advanced further.
But advance farther she did. She had to rise onto her hind legs to see the top of the pedestal, but when she did, she put on a relieved smile. There was the medallion, obviously very carefully placed in the very center of the pedestal. Rarity could tell that it had some kind of religious significance for the minotaurs, otherwise they wouldn’t put this much effort into keeping it safe and nice. Maybe it’d be a good idea to leave it on the island after her and Rainbow were finished with it so they didn’t anger the minotaurs too badly. The last thing they needed was a religious vendetta against them while they were just trying to survive.
They needed it now, however, so Rarity plucked it from the pedestal and held it up to her face. It looked like a star covered in all sorts of solar inscriptions that she couldn’t make any sense of. But even if she hadn’t seen the minotaur chief use it to open the temple door the other night, it wouldn’t have been too hard to put two and two together after seeing the door itself. Knotting off the excess cord so it’d fit better, Rarity dropped it over her head and wore it like a necklace. A big, bulky, heavy necklace, but a necklace all the same.
Her ear twitched at movement behind her, and her blood turned to ice. Her body acted before her mind could decide on what to do, and she readied her spear and spun in place, preparing to fight for her life to get out of the hut. She was willing and able to do whatever it took to get out of the chief’s hut, even if that meant actually using the spear. Like Rainbow had said, it was them or the minotaurs, and Rarity was too young and beautiful to die now.
But it wasn’t a full-grown minotaur like she’d been expecting. Instead, she saw a small minotaur calf, barely taller than her, watching her warily. The tip of her spear was aligned with the calf’s face; all she would have to do was thrust and it would kill him before he could even scream.
Pony and minotaur stared each other down, both tense and afraid. If the calf screamed, Rarity knew another minotaur would hear it, and then it’d all be over. The safest thing to do would be to kill the calf and slip away unnoticed. But she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t. No matter what, Rarity had no intentions of coming back to Equestria a murderer. She’d never be able to forgive herself, and she doubted her friends would, either.
But was coming back a murderer better than not coming back at all?
The calf took a hesitant but quiet step backwards. He looked like he was about to bolt to safety at any moment. If Rarity needed to, she could catch him with her magic and drag him back before he escaped from the hut, but then she’d almost certainly have to kill him then. Practicality wanted her to use the spear. Her heart demanded otherwise.
Taking a deep breath, Rarity closed her eyes and made a choice.
There was no scream.
Moments later, she opened her eyes. She’d dropped the spear on the ground. Across from her was the calf, unmoving. But after a few seconds, the minotaur stopped trembling. He moved his fingers away from his eyes, surprised to find out that he wasn’t dead. Those same eyes turned to Rarity moments later, filled with confusion… and relief.
Rarity picked up her spear and slung it over her back. “Do not say a word to anyone, darling,” she whispered to the calf, even though she knew he couldn’t understand her. She touched a hoof to her lips and shushed for emphasis, trying to communicate with the child. When he didn’t move, she offered him a smile and walked forward, deftly skirting past him. The minotaur didn’t react as she passed, and when she made it to the entryway, she looked over her shoulder to find him still standing where she’d left him, watching her go.
Then she darted out the door and disappeared into the shadows, leaving the village behind, not daring to look back.
Rarity galloped through the undergrowth, trying to be at once both quick and quiet. The ground was firmer here so her hooves made more noise, but she didn’t want to linger around the village any longer. There were no guarantees that the minotaur calf she’d spared wouldn’t tell anyone else what he saw, and in that case, she could expect the whole village to be after her shortly. The firelight grew dimmer behind her, though whether that was from simple distance or the minotaurs finally starting to control the blaze, she didn’t know. At the very least, she had no intentions of finding out.
The medallion bounced uncomfortably against her chest with each running step. Occasionally the edges of the star would jab directly at her, making her wince a little; they were a lot sharper than she thought they would be. Plus, it was heavy. She hadn’t thought much of the weight at first with the more pressing concerns she had to deal with, but now that she was running for the hills, it was really starting to weigh on her neck. Maybe she could pass it off to Rainbow when she found her.
Skirting around some more trees, Rarity blinked and skidded to a stop when she abruptly found herself on the eastern beach. Inky black waves lapped at the sand, frothing and foaming as the moon dragged the tides in. The sand bit into her coat and skin as she ended up on her rear, staring out across the water. She hadn’t expected to hit the ocean so quickly.
But then she turned around. Where was Rainbow? Rarity would’ve started chewing on her hooves if they weren’t covered in sand. Rainbow should’ve had the shorter job; Rarity would’ve expected her to make a dash for the beach as soon as she’d torched the granary. Why wasn’t she here?
Rarity waited and waited. Seconds ticked by into minutes that lasted for hours. She started pacing even though she knew she should be hiding in cover somewhere. If Rainbow was near, she wanted to be visible.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the leaves rustled before a soot-streaked pegasus burst through them. Panting, gasping, wheezing, Rainbow hardly made it a few steps over to Rarity before she collapsed in the sand. “Rainbow!” Rarity exclaimed, her hooves kicking up sand as she galloped across the beach to Rainbow. She slid to a stop and almost ate sand when her hooves slipped out from under her. But, pressed against Rainbow’s side, she helped the pegasus sit up. “What happened?” she immediately asked, brushing some of the soot out of Rainbow’s feathers.
“Got a little bit more personal with the fires than I wanted,” Rainbow said once she’d had a moment to recover her breath. “Got stuck between the flames and the minotaurs.”
Rarity blinked. “How? Fires? Plural?” She didn’t miss the way Rainbow looked away. “What did you do, Rainbow?”
“I burnt their canoes,” Rainbow said. Adamant ruby eyes fixed shocked sapphires. “They won’t be following us back once we’re done with this place.”
“You what?” Rarity asked. “You burnt their canoes?”
Rainbow nodded.
Rarity’s eyes wandered to the seas. “But… but they need those to survive!” She looked aghast at Rainbow. “We burnt down one of their granaries… and now we burned down their means of collecting fish for the village? Rainbow, they’re going to starve!”
“They won’t die,” Rainbow insisted. “A village of that many minotaurs can rebuild a bunch of canoes in like a week! It’ll just make sure that they don’t chase us when we try to leave, and they’ll have to use those canoes they rebuild for getting food to the village instead of trying to find us.”
Rarity wanted to hit Rainbow. “You just made them much angrier, Rainbow!”
“Angrier than they’re gonna be when they find out we stole their religious medallion thingy?” At Rarity’s pale look, Rainbow forced herself to stand. “Did any of them see you?”
Rarity tapped her hooves together. “Well…”
“Rarity, if you got seen, then we’re in danger. Like, super really bad, awful danger. It won’t take much for them to put two and two together. Did you at least cover your tracks?”
“Erm… about that, darling.” It’d entirely slipped Rarity’s mind; she’d been so preoccupied with sneaking into and out of the chief’s hut without getting caught that she hadn’t remembered to get rid of her hoofprints in the sand. Not that it mattered all that much anyway. “I didn’t manage to get the medallion entirely without being seen, I suppose you can call it that.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what else I’d call it. What happened?”
“There was a minotaur calf inside the chief’s hut,” Rarity said. “I think it was his son. He saw me take the medallion.”
“And?” Rainbow craned her neck to look at Rarity’s spear. “Did you…?”
“I would never,” Rarity insisted. “I will not murder a child.”
“But you left him back there to tell all those minotaurs about what he’d seen.”
“What other choice did I have?! Take him with me?”
Rainbow opened her mouth to respond, but angry shouting breaking through the night stole her words. Both ponies worriedly turned their heads back to the west, in the direction of the minotaur village. “Crap,” Rainbow said. “They’re looking for us!”
“We need to go,” Rarity said. “We need to get to the temple before they do. If they know that I stole the medallion, then they have to know what we’re going to use it for!”
“Then we can’t waste any more time!” Rainbow insisted. She helped pull Rarity to her hooves, and then the two Equestrians began galloping to the south. “Come on, we gotta pour the lead out! We’re faster than they are, let’s go!”
Rarity followed suit, trying to glue herself to Rainbow’s tail and follow her across the beach and through the undergrowth. Torchlight began to emanate from the trees behind them, and Rarity suddenly felt like death was breathing down her neck. Her and Rainbow had chopped open the beehive to get the honey, but now the swarm was after them. If they slowed for even a moment, it would be the end of them.
Gulping hard, Rarity focused on navigating the terrain and keeping her hooves squarely under her. The last thing she needed was to trip and fall now.
It could very well be the last thing she ever did.
Rainbow Dash was decidedly out of breath by the time they made it halfway back up the mountain. The springs sat in front of them, cool water rippling and bubbling in the dim glow of the night. The whole thing was entirely at odds with the frantic scramble up the mountain Rainbow and Rarity had just performed; peaceful, relaxed, and calm.
At least until Rainbow galloped halfway through the water and immediately dunked her muzzle beneath the surface. She took several long gulps to rehydrate and almost ended up choking when her lungs couldn’t wait for their turn. Grimacing, she coughed and heaved, sputtering up water and splashing through the spring as she thrashed.
When she could finally breathe again, she found a nearby boulder to lean against and tried to recover her strength. Her limbs felt like jelly from the mad dash up the mountainside. It was a miracle she was still standing at all; at the very least, all this running around was good exercise for her legs while her wings were out of commission. Of course, it wouldn’t matter all that much if the minotaurs caught up to them.
Rarity staggered into the spring several seconds later. Rainbow immediately felt terrible; she hadn’t even realized Rarity was that far behind her. Determined to make up for it, she left the rock behind and more or less tripped her way over to Rarity. She gave the unicorn a shoulder to lean on while she drank from the spring, and draped a sweaty wing over Rarity’s sweaty back.
Water poured in streams from Rarity’s muzzle when she finally raised it to breathe. “Celestia!” was all she exclaimed, unable to find the breath for more. After a second or two, she looked over her shoulder. “Are they still following us?”
“I don’t doubt that, Rares,” Rainbow said. “We’re faster, though, so we got some distance on them. It isn’t going to last long.”
“And we’re running right into a dead end,” Rarity moaned. “Even if we do make it to the temple, how are we going to get out?”
“I’m sure there’ll be another way,” Rainbow said. “It’s a sun temple, right? Surely there’d be some way to crack open a window.”
“What windows?” Rarity asked. “We didn’t see any before!”
“Well, we only looked at one side.” Rainbow’s ears swiveled backwards, where she could hear grunts and shouts making their way up the mountain after them. She gave Rarity’s shoulder a sharp tug and started leading her back along the path to the ruined city. “Come on, we have to keep moving!”
They started off again, crossing the spring and continuing the hike on the other side. The water on Rainbow’s hooves made the going a little more treacherous than usual, and she had to stop a few times to catch herself when the dirt and gravel threatened to slide out from underneath her. Rarity stumbled a few times behind her, but she would catch herself before she could actually fall. And all the while, they could hear the noise of the minotaurs chasing them up the mountain. Rainbow couldn’t tell if they were getting closer or farther away.
The gates of the city jumped into the night sky before them like two blunt, stony trees. Rainbow almost cried with joy when she saw them. The gates were a promise of flat ground and the proximity of their goal. They didn’t have far to go now.
As soon as they hit the road, both ponies picked up speed, blurring by the houses on tired, achy limbs until they arrived at the alley that would take them to their shelter. Rarity almost ran into Rainbow when she abruptly turned down it, and even then, Rainbow bumped into the wall of a ruined building as she made the turn. But she didn’t let that slow her for very long.
“What is it?” Rarity asked between heavy breaths.
“We need to get our crap,” Rainbow said. “We probably won’t have a chance once we open that door.”
Rarity nodded, and as soon as she could see their supplies, she picked up the bulkier things in her magic. Rainbow grabbed the lighter things like the other spear and tools, and then both spun in place and darted back down the alley. Bursting onto the open street, they hooked a right and went straight for the stairs looming above them.
Rainbow chanced a look back as they climbed and almost immediately wished that she hadn’t. Torchlight illuminated several hulking, muscular bodies running through the city gate and sprinting down the main road. There were at least ten of them, maybe more; Rainbow didn’t get the chance to count all that well. But she saw them point at the stairs, and she knew that they could see them. It was a hoofrace to the door now, but thankfully one that her and Rarity had a head start on.
“Push it!” Rainbow exclaimed, forcing herself to take the stairs two, three, even four at a time. Her good wing uselessly flapped at her side, and again she wished that she could fly. Rarity struggled to stay by at her side, but she kept up. “We’re almost there!”
Then they reached the top of the stairs, and it was a straight shot to the door. Whatever reserves of energy Rainbow had left, she dumped them into crossing that brief distance. She had to slide to a stop to keep herself from running full force into the door, and then she turned to wait for Rarity to approach.
“The medallion!” Rainbow said, pointing to a star-shaped hole in the doors. “Stick it in and give it a twist!”
“Rainbow!” Rarity exclaimed, blushing in the moonlight. “Can you at least think about what you’re saying before you say it?!”
“Rarity!”
Rarity’s horn flared to life in all its brilliant blue glory. In one smooth motion, she set their supplies down and floated the medallion off of her neck. The star floated over to the door, and with a little positioning, Rarity managed to slide it tightly into its slot. Once it was mated to the door, all she had to do was twist it.
Rainbow watched with bated breath, nervously prancing from hoof to hoof. Deep inside the door, ancient stone slid as gears turned, and the two doors rocked back and forth as something moved inside them. When the medallion stopped turning, Rarity pulled it out of its slot and placed it back around her neck. “Push it open!” Rainbow exclaimed, throwing her weight against the door. “They’re coming!”
Rarity bit down on her lip until it began to bleed. Her blue magic engulfed the door, and together, the two ponies pushed it open. It was like trying to move the mountain itself, the doors were so heavy, and Rainbow doubted that the hinges had been oiled any time in the last century. But together, they were able to open a small space just large enough to slip inside with.
And not a moment too soon. Almost as soon as they managed that, the torchlight crested the top of the stairs. Rainbow looked back to see the minotaur chief at the front of the group, sweaty chest streaked black with soot and ash, bloodshot eyes wide with rage. He pointed to the two ponies and howled, and the ground began to rumble as the minotaurs charged the door.
“Inside!” Rainbow screamed, grabbing Rarity and shoving her through the gap in the doors. She slipped in immediately after despite Rarity’s indignant squeaks, and she waited just long enough for Rarity to float their supplies in after them to try to close the door. Once more, the two ponies heaved against it and managed to slam it shut before the minotaurs could reach it.
“I can lock it!” Rarity exclaimed, and Rainbow saw her blue magic dance across the mechanism the medallion had turned from the outside. Enormous stone pylons began to slide back into place even as the minotaurs began banging on the temple doors. But the stone was thick, heavy, and solid; even before the doors were fully locked, Rainbow knew that the minotaurs weren’t going to get in unless they managed to hit the door with enough force to break the stone bars. But they locked it all the way just in case.
Both ponies took a few steps back and fell to their haunches, panting and sweating. The only light they had to see by was Rarity’s horn, and it just barely illuminated a long and big stone hallway leading deeper into the heart of the mountain. A tray of oil lined the hall, connected to little fire bowls that presumably lit the whole hallway. After that, everything faded into darkness.
Standing up, Rainbow dug around for her flint and steel. “Well, we made it,” she said while she dug the fire starter out.
“For better or for worse,” Rarity said. Her eyes craned around the seemingly perfectly hewn stone hallway. “Hopefully it has what we’re looking for.”
Rainbow finally found her flint and steel. With a shower of sparks, she lit the oil, and soon fire illuminated the long hallway like the genesis of the sun. But even from here, it went on for so long she almost couldn’t make out what she saw at the other end.
“We’ll just have to find out,” she said, starting to walk down the hall. “Come on, let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
Rarity’s eyes wandered over and across the stone hall. She found herself admiring the expert precision that went into crafting the architecture. Every wall was razor straight and the corners met at perfect right angles. Modern construction found difficulty in making walls this straight or perfect. She could only look on in astonishment as she wondered how primitives with primitive tools could have accomplished the same.
Their hoofsteps echoed up and down the hallway. The torches Rainbow had lit shed flickering yellow light on the smooth walls and illuminated the far end of the hallway. From where she stood, Rarity figured that the passage went on for another hundred feet before it split to the left and the right. And watching over that intersection was a crumbling statue of a pegasus, obviously once worked with very fine craftsmareship but now in a terrible state of disrepair.
“This place is awesome,” Rainbow murmured, the walls amplifying her voice much louder than she spoke it. “Seeing stuff like this will never get old.”
“An abandoned place of worship belonging to a forgotten civilization…” Rarity ran her hoof along the smooth wall and couldn’t suppress a smile of foolish excitement. “I can see why Daring Do finds so much enjoyment in her work. Stumbling across places like this must feel amazing.”
They finally reached the end of the hallway and stopped in front of the statue. Despite its horrid state of decay, Rarity could tell that it was a pegasus stallion. His wings were outspread, somehow holding together despite the cracks running through them, and his head was angled down to stare at the mere mortals that entered his temple. Considering the statue was three or four times larger than life, Rarity had to admit that she felt humbled in its presence.
“Looks like the stallion from the door,” Rainbow said. Her eyes traveled to the wall behind it and she pointed to some of the carvings. “And there’s the sun and stuff. Makes sense.”
“I still don’t understand why this temple is built inside the mountain,” Rarity said. “This is a sun temple. Where’s the view of the sun?”
“Maybe we’ll find it if we look around some more,” Rainbow said. “If there’s open air somewhere in this temple, then that’s our way out.”
“Or those minotaurs’ way in.” Rarity shuddered. “We could end up trapped in here if we’re not careful. I don’t imagine there’s all that much room to run and hide. This temple is only so big as the mountaintop, and the Ponynesians already flattened half of it.”
“All the more reason to get a move on.” Rainbow looked left and right down the hallway, where each end abruptly ended with a stone door. “Well? Left or right?”
“Right,” Rarity said after a moment to think. “Since a lady is always right,” she added with a smirk and a teasing flick of her ear.
Rainbow shook her head and followed Rarity toward the right door. “Of course she is…”
Intricate carvings and runes covered the door, and once more Rarity wished she knew how to read them. At best, she could only follow along with the pictures—what few there were. They depicted a stallion with a sun between his wings standing over another stallion lying broken and defeated on the ground. The moon stallion was a unicorn, and his face was twisted with rage and razorlike fangs protruding from his muzzle. The picture below it showed the sun stallion standing with the sun on his left and the moon on his right, and an assortment of pony carvings bowed down before him. As an Equestrian, the story was all too familiar to Rarity.
“It’s Celestia’s banishment of Nightmare Moon,” she said, running a hoof over the ancient carvings. “Or at least, these ponies’ interpretation of it.”
“Funny how they could get most of the story right but they didn’t even know who their gods really were,” Rainbow said. “I wonder what Princess Luna would think if she saw that they took her wings and made her a stallion.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t’ think anything of it,” Rarity said. “You have to wonder just how many other cultures exist outside of Equestria that don’t know who the Sisters are. It’s probably nothing new to her.”
“I guess.” Rainbow put her hooves on the door and pushed. “This door’s giving a little. Help me open it?”
Rarity nodded and lent Rainbow her horn. Together, the two shoved the stone open, and a gust of cold air blew their sandy manes around, kicking up dirt and dust.
“What in Celestia’s name!” Rarity exclaimed, backing away from the door. The gust died out in a second or two, but the sudden presence of wind had startled her. What could have caused that?
“Hey, Rares, check this out!” Rainbow said, sliding through the open door. Rarity followed her through and stopped when she spotted stars on the other side. The side of the mountain had been hollowed out almost to the exterior, where stylized sun-shaped portholes had been cut through the stone. A persistent breeze sent cool night air through the windows, tickling Rarity’s tired and sweaty skin.
“What is this place?” Rarity asked, looking around the room. Numerous small stone pedestals stood around the edges of the room, and all the walls were carved with more pictures telling some grand story. There were no torches here unlike in the main hallway, so it was difficult to make out what they were without more light. Another door led deeper into the temple, again emblazoned with a pegasus carrying the sun between his wings. A path had been worn in the ground between the two doors, where countless generations of hooves had gradually chipped away at the stone. The room was large enough to hold several hundred ponies. It reminded Rarity of a cathedral, in aesthetic as well as likely purpose.
“I guess it’s a place of worship,” Rainbow said. She walked along the outside wall, occasionally poking her head through the sun-shaped portholes. “You can see the whole island from here. And they’re angled enough that when the sun rises it probably casts a whole bunch of little suns on the inside here.”
Rarity walked up to one and stuck her head through it as far as it could go. Though the portholes were large enough for her head and neck, they were too small for her to squeeze her shoulders through, and even then, the only thing that awaited below was a thousand foot fall onto some craggy rocks below. Carried in on the shoulders of the wind, she caught occasionally pieces of conversation and shouting from the horde of minotaurs she assumed were currently camped outside of the temple. While this wouldn’t do for an escape, it proved at the very least that Rainbow was likely right. They just needed to find a better way out of the temple.
Rainbow moved away from the window and started sniffing around some of the pedestals. She stopped in front of one and frowned at it. “There’s bread crumbs and stuff here,” she said, pushing them around with her hoof. When Rarity came over to investigate, she pointed to them. “They’re recent.”
“This must’ve been where the minotaurs went when they ventured into the temple the other night,” Rarity said. “But why?”
Shrugging, Rainbow looked around. “I doubt they wanted to just admire the art and stuff.” Her eyes turned toward the door and she nodded at it. “Maybe through there?”
“It’s worth a look.” The two ponies once more combined their efforts in opening the stony door, revealing a short hallway with numerous smaller doors in the walls on both sides. But beyond that, there was little else of note. It simply came to a dead end.
“Are these cells of some sort?” Rarity asked, focusing magic to her horn to create enough light to see by. By the shape of the mountain and the way the doors were packed close together, the rooms lying beyond couldn’t have been that big. “Prayer rooms, perhaps?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Rainbow said. “Probably private places to worship their sun god and whatever. But hey! Look at this!” She trotted up to a door and pointed to a star-shaped slot in the center of it. “Think ours will fit?”
“It’s certainly worth a try.” Once more, Rarity took the medallion off of her neck and slotted it into the door. After giving it a twist, she felt some stone mechanisms slide into place, and the door popped open slightly at its seam. Dust fell from the seam, and when Rarity pushed it open, it revealed a small, dim room with a pedestal and a bench. The blue light of her horn reflected many more decaying carvings of the sun god and his history.
“Yeah, prayer rooms,” Rainbow said, briefly sticking her nose inside. “What about the rest of them? Think we’ll find anything interesting in them?”
“I doubt it,” Rarity said. “But I suppose it’s worth a look. It’s not like we’re doing anything else at the moment.” She stifled a yawn and shook her head from side to side. “And I’m starting to grow tired. We’ve been up and running all night. I don’t know how much longer I have in me before I crash.”
Rainbow nodded along. “Hopefully the minotaurs don’t find another way in while we’re trying to catch some z’s. But we’ll worry about that later. How about we—!”
Both ponies jumped when they heard something that sounded like hooves on stone. At first, Rarity thought that the minotaurs might have found a way inside and were coming for them. But then she realized that the noise was a lot quieter, weaker, and much closer than she would’ve expected had it been minotaurs. If anything, it sounded like it was coming from behind one of the doors.
Rainbow shot Rarity a worried look. “You hear that?”
“Yes,” Rarity affirmed. Her ears pointed around the hallway until she pinpointed the source of the noise. “And it’s coming from over here…”
They carefully approached the last door in the hallway. When they held their breaths, they could definitely hear the sound of something pounding on stone from the other side. Swallowing hard, Rarity floated the medallion toward the door. “I’m going to open it on the count of three,” she said. “Get ready…”
At her side, Rainbow clutched one of the spears and leveled it at the seam of the door. “Ready.”
Rarity stuck the medallion into the door. “Okay…” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “One… two… three!”
The medallion twisted and unlocked the door. Leaving the star in the door in case she needed to quickly lock it, Rarity waited for a split second before pushing on the door. It slid open with the grating of stone on stone, and Rainbow spun in front of Rarity before it could open the whole way in case something jumped out of it at them.
But instead of a minotaur or monster, they saw something else. Four hooves, a gray coat, blue eyes. An emaciated, starving mare stared back at them, eyes wide in both surprise and fear. Her ribs poked through her coat, and when she fell back onto her flanks, it seemed like she didn’t even have the strength to stand up.
Rainbow dropped the spear in surprise, and both her and Rarity felt their jaws fall slack. “You’re… you’re a pony?” Rarity managed after a moment.
The starving mare opened her split, dry lips. “Puh… Please…” was all she could manage in a grating voice drier than a desert. Then her eyes rolled back and she slumped to the ground, breathing ever so weakly.
Rainbow and Rarity stared at each other in shock. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated.
Rarity rubbed her eyes for the millionth time and stared at the mare sleeping in the corner. There was another pony here after all this time? Who was she? Where did she come from? Why was she locked in one of the cells for so long with hardly any food or water?
After she’d collapsed, her and Rainbow had dragged her back to the more open main room for all of their sakes. The cell the mystery mare had been locked in only had a basket that once had food in it and a clay jug dry as bone. The room also had a horrid odor to it; the poor mare had been living in her own feces and filth for who knew how long. Both Rainbow and Rarity had agreed that they didn’t want to have anything more to do with that room and had tightly locked the door when they were finished.
For the moment, the mare they’d rescued was asleep in a curled-up ball of skin and bones. Her coat was dirty and matted and what muscles she still had left were like strings along her bones. When they’d tried to get her to drink, her tongue reminded Rarity of drying clay, and her lips were like tree bark. The minotaurs’ prisoner was so dehydrated that she probably would’ve died in another day.
Rainbow Dash crossed Rarity’s vision yet again as her pacing took her to the opposite side of the room. “I don’t get it,” she muttered to herself. “Why is she up here? Why did the minotaurs just lock her in that crappy little room with barely any food and water? Why didn’t they just kill her and eat her like that other pony we found?”
“Maybe it wasn’t even their fault,” Rarity said. “She could’ve snuck in here some time ago and gotten trapped inside. There’s no way to tell until she wakes up.”
Rainbow stopped and looked at the gray mare. “Do you think she’s from the Concordia?” she asked.
“I don’t know where else she could’ve come from.” Rarity sat up and peered at the emaciated mare. “I don’t imagine she’s from any earlier wrecks or anything. That would’ve been too long for her to still be alive.” After a moment’s thought, she pointed. “What’s her cutie mark? I didn’t get a good look at it earlier.”
Blue hooves shuffled over toward the sleeping mare. “It looks like a bunch of rings around a wheel. Something mechanical.”
Rarity thought for a moment, trying to picture what exactly Rainbow meant. “…A gyroscope?”
“Yeah, that’s it.” Rainbow walked back to Rarity. “So she’s like a mechanic or engineer or something. That sounds like the kind of pony that’d be on a big luxury airship like the Concordia.”
A nearly inexplicable feeling of happiness welled up inside of Rarity. Her and Rainbow weren’t the only other survivors after all. There was somepony else who could share in their suffering and help them return to Equestria. And given how empty their island felt, if two’s company, than three’s a crowd.
The mare moaned as she slept. Of course, this was assuming that she even survived the next few days… same with her and Rainbow, for that matter.
“I wonder how she did it,” Rainbow wondered aloud. “I thought those pirates had all the crew locked up in the Concordia. We were the only ones who managed to get to a lifeboat before the storm ripped the balloon off the deck.”
Rarity shrugged. “The Concordia was a big ship,” she said. “Perhaps she managed to hide and slip away when the pirates seized it. It’s possible.”
“Or maybe she took the plunge and survived because she’s a tough earth pony.” Rainbow smiled slightly. “I bet she already would’ve been dead if she was a unicorn or a pegasus. Earth ponies don’t go down so easily.”
“And who knows how long she’s been down here.” Standing up, Rarity approached the sleeping mare. “The Concordia crashed about three weeks ago. I can’t imagine she was in that little room all this time.”
“She’s definitely been starving and dehydrated for a long time, that’s for sure.”
Rarity nodded. “We should leave some of our food and water out for her if she wakes up. Celestia only knows how the poor thing needs to eat.”
“Let’s just hope she doesn’t eat all of our rations,” Rainbow said. “Who knows how long we’re gonna be stuck in this place too.”
They pulled out a square of cloth and a couple of their fruits and set those down in front of the mystery mare. Rarity also floated the jug over after her and Rainbow each took a few sips of water. Though Rarity wanted to implicitly trust the mare, she took the rest of their food and supplies and moved them back into the main hallway and out of sight once that was done.
When they were finished, they found themselves back in the worship room. Rarity turned her eyes back in the direction of the prayer cells and frowned. “We didn’t check all of them,” she said. “Do you think there’s anypony else?”
Rainbow shuddered. “I’m afraid that we’ll find nothing but corpses,” she said. “If her being locked up here is the minotaurs’ fault, then there might be bodies behind those doors.”
“We still need to be sure,” Rarity insisted. “We have to look.”
Rainbow’s wingtips drooped but she reluctantly nodded nonetheless. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll take a look, and then—” A yawn interrupted her train of thought. “—then I need to get some sleep. I’m really tired and it’s probably almost dawn.”
Rarity glanced out the open windows in the side of the mountain. Sure enough, it seemed like the sky was beginning to brighten far to the east. They probably only had an hour, maybe two before the sun started to peek above the horizon. And after being up all night, Rarity wanted nothing more than to catch at least a little sleep. The night had been way too hectic for her.
But she still wanted to check the other cells first, so that’s what she did. Returning to the short hallway, she slotted the medallion into the unopened doors, one by one. Every time a door slid open she expected it to be filled to the brim with corpses, but every time, there was nothing but cobwebs and dust. At least, until she opened the last door.
There wasn’t a body in it, but the smell reeked of waste and refuse. Rarity only stuck her head in long enough to make sure there wasn’t a pony somewhere inside like when they’d found the gray mare. As soon as she was able to, she shut the door and nearly gagged on the suffocating smell.
Rainbow held her feathers up to her muzzle and tried to breath between them. “That wasn’t the same room we found her in, right?” she asked through her wing. “We didn’t just reopen it?”
Rarity shook her head and pointed to the next door over. “That’s the one she came from,” she said. Then she put a hoof on Rainbow’s chest and started pushing her backwards toward the door out of the hallway. “I’m sure of it.”
They returned once more to the prayer room, leaving the stench behind them. Once they could finally breathe again, Rarity let her thoughts surface. “There was another pony there some time ago,” she said. “They were alive at some point recently.”
“Then what happened?” Rainbow asked. “Where did they go?”
Rarity shrugged. “I don’t know, darling,” she said. Then her eyes turned toward the sleeping mare in the corner. “But I have an idea of who might.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t dream. Both her mind and her body were simply too exhausted to put any effort into dreaming, instead collapsing into a catatonic state for the few hours of rest she could manage before the dawn light woke her up. After running up and down the mountain well after midnight, she simply had no energy left to hallucinate.
As soon as she opened her eyes again, she knew that she’d barely caught three hours of sleep. The sky outside was little more than pale blue and yellows, and the sunlight shone through the windows at an almost perfectly parallel angle to the floor. Its light was still enough to cast patches of sun-shaped light on the far wall, shaped by the cutouts in the side of the mountain that made the windows. It looked like a bunch of little stylized suns were hanging on the stony walls of the worshipping chamber, slowly descending as the sun rose higher and higher.
Then she heard a noise she didn’t recognize. It was breathing, but it wasn’t Rarity’s. As she sat up, she remembered the mare they’d rescued only a few hours ago. When she turned to the corner they’d left her in, she was surprised to see the mare sitting up, bleary eyes open, with fruit pulp staining her muzzle and the uncorked water jug at her side. Those pale blue eyes turned to Rainbow, and the mare shrank back a bit. “S-Sorry…” she managed, her voice still sounding raw and rough. “I drank most of the water… I was so thirsty…”
“Hey! You’re awake!” Rainbow crawled to her hooves and arched her back, listening to her stiff spine crack. Sleeping on stone was definitely much worse than the comfort of sand and moss she’d grown used to. She crossed the distance between her and the mystery mare, eventually sitting down in front of her. “Don’t worry about the water. As long as there’s some left, right?”
The mare shakily bobbed her head. “There’s enough left for today,” she said. “But after that…”
“It’s a good thing we don’t plan on staying here that long,” Rainbow said. A look over her shoulder told her that Rarity was still sound asleep. Since she really didn’t want to be the one to wake Rarity after so little rest, she decided to use the time to figure out who they were dealing with here. “Were you from the Concordia?”
The mare nodded. “Yeah…” she said. Her eyes shifted over to Rarity. “I saw you two once, I think. I thought you both died when the ship went down.”
Rainbow looked at Rarity as well. “We thought we were the only survivors,” she said. “We found Jetstream’s body on the beach not long after. We didn’t think anypony else was alive.” She raised an eyebrow at the mare. “How did you survive? I thought the pirates kept everypony locked up in the ship!”
“I was on the engine deck with the other engineers when they attacked,” the mare said. “A couple of us managed to hide away in some of the maintenance areas. I wedged myself between the outer and inner hulls at the keel of the ship so they wouldn’t find me. When they tried to fly the Concordia around the storm coming up from the south, me and three other engineers made a break for the lifeboats. We ended up here.”
“What happened to the rest of them?” Rainbow asked. “Were they locked up in this temple like you?”
“The minotaurs found us almost immediately,” the mare said. “Piston tried to fight them off, but they killed him. They managed to get a net on Stormy Skies before she could fly away, and they grabbed me and Steam Valve before we could run. I don’t know what they did with Stormy, but they hauled me and Steam up to this temple and locked us in those cells. They didn’t even give us anything to eat or drink for the longest time.”
Rainbow swallowed. “I… think they ate Stormy. Me and Rarity found pegasus bones on the beach of our island not too long after the ship crashed.”
The mare looked like she was going to be sick. “She was seventeen,” she said. “She dropped out of school when she was fourteen and joined CelestiAir as a simple mechanic. She was always so happy and funny, and she was really smart, too. She knew what she was doing. Nopony could make an engine hum quite like she could.” She hung her head, ratty black mane falling across her gray face. “That’s horrible…”
“What about Steam Valve?” Rainbow asked. “We didn’t see him in the other room. It looked like somepony had been there but there wasn’t a body.”
“The minotaurs came back a few nights ago,” the mare said. “They took him out of his cell. I heard him whimpering through the stone.” She shook her head from side to side. “I don’t know what they did to him. I think they killed him too.”
“That’s… awful,” Rainbow said. “I’m sorry.”
The mare bitterly smiled at Rainbow. “I’ve accepted that I’m going to die,” she said. “I’d been without food or water for almost this whole time, I think. The minotaurs left me a loaf of bread and a jug of water when they first locked me up, but that didn’t last very long. I haven’t eaten in forever, and I tried to catch rain falling into my cell through the skylight to stay hydrated. It’s hard to keep count of the days shining through the skylight in your little cell when you’re so thirsty you’re delirious. I didn’t even think you two were real when you opened my cell.”
“We weren’t expecting to find a pony inside of one of these little rooms, that’s for sure,” Rainbow said. “Me and Rarity washed up on an island to the east of here. We built a raft to go exploring these other islands. We made landfall here only a few days ago.”
“I was going to say, I didn’t know how you two survived for this long on this island with all these minotaurs.” She grunted and shifted positions, a hoof clutching at her chest as she grimaced. “I’m sorry, I just haven’t had food for so long that it hurts to eat again.”
“Just take your time,” Rainbow said. “At least you’re alive, right? Together, we’ll get off of this island.”
“How?” the mare asked. “Even if we get out of this temple, there’s minotaurs all over the place. They’ll catch us for sure!” She blinked. “And why are you even in this temple in the first place? I didn’t think anypony could get in. None of the doors open.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Rainbow said with a grin. “We stole the medallion thingy the minotaur chief uses to open all the doors. That’s how we were able to get inside and let you out of your cell. As for the why, we’re looking for something here that’ll help us get home. It’s a long story, but we think there’s a little figurine of a pegasus in this temple, and we need that if we’re ever going to make it back to Equestria.” After a second, she added, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen one here, have you?”
“No, I haven’t,” the mare said with a shake of her head. “I’ve been locked up the whole time. But how is a pegasus figurine going to help us get home?”
“Just trust me on this one, girl,” Rainbow said. “I can explain later.” She abruptly stopped like somepony had slapped her in the face, and she chuckled. “Oh, wow. I can’t believe I didn’t ask you what your name was. I didn’t think about it because obviously you knew who we were.”
“Oh, uh, yeah, I guess I forgot to say that, didn’t I?” The mare smiled and stuck a bony hoof out for Rainbow to shake. “Gyro,” she said. “My name’s Gyro.”
“Gyro,” Rainbow repeated, and then she scoffed and shook her head. “Wow, that one should’ve been easy to figure out with your cutie mark and everything.” Grinning, she shook Gyro’s hoof. “Welcome aboard the Survival Express, Gyro. We’re on a one-way ticket back to Equestria!”
Rarity’s rest was fitful. Nightmares plagued what little sleep she could get, and by the time she woke up, she felt even more tired than when she started, if that was even possible. It certainly didn’t help that she didn’t have a sleeping mask to keep out the morning light. Once more, she found herself missing the creature comforts of civilization. Why did she have to be such a light sleeper?
Her ears twitched as she picked up on unfamiliar sounds; namely, conversation between two ponies. That was so odd to her that she grunted and raised her head off of the stone floor almost immediately. Who could Rainbow even be—?
Of course, it was the other mare! Rarity shook her head from side to side. For some reason her befuddled and tired mind had thought finding the starved mare was just another dream. But no, she was real, and not only was she real, but she was sitting up and talking with Rainbow. Yawning, Rarity squeaked and stretched her legs, catching the attention of the other two mares in the room.
“Hey, Rares,” Rainbow said. “You’re finally up!”
“What I wouldn’t give to sleep for another twenty-four hours,” Rarity muttered, rubbing at her eyes. Then her smile brightened and she forced herself to move over to the group. “And our new friend is awake, too! I honestly didn’t know whether you would wake again, darling, you were so weak!”
The mare dipped her head. “You saved my life,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
“Her name’s Gyro,” Rainbow said. “She was one of the engineers on the Concordia. We weren’t the only survivors after all!”
“Really?” Rarity was astonished. To think after all this time… “Were there others?”
Gyro’s eyes fell. “Yes… but not anymore.”
“Oh.”
Rarity rubbed her hoof behind her neck. That probably wasn’t a good topic to ask about. Instead, she shifted the conversation toward simpler matters. “I hope the food we brought was good. Rainbow stole some of it from the minotaurs.”
“That makes it all the better,” Gyro said. “Thank you. I haven’t eaten in so long…”
“The minotaurs locked her up here shortly after the Concordia crashed,” Rainbow said. “They only gave her a little to eat or drink since then. I think they were keeping her here for an evil ritual or something.”
“Then it’s a good thing we found her and freed her!” Rarity exclaimed. She plucked a sugar apple out of the basket and started working on it, picking off only a few cloves to eat for now and rationing the rest. Who knew how long they’d need to stretch their food and water until they could find a way out.
Rainbow shot the food and water supplies a concerned look but didn’t take from them. “We should just find out where this little statue thing is and then start looking for a way out. I’m willing to bet those minotaurs are camped in front of the temple, waiting for us to try and leave.”
“Either that or searching for another way in,” Rarity said. “If they find a way in before we find a way out, then we’re finished.”
“We won’t go down without a fight,” Rainbow said. “That’s what the spears are for. Speaking of which…” She hooked a hoof under one and flipped it to Rarity, who caught it in her magic. “We should take these just in case.”
Rarity nodded and tucked the shaft in the crook of her leg for the time being. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to use it. Celestia, she could see that minotaur calf’s frightened face again just from thinking about it.
Rainbow turned to Gyro and patted her on the shoulder. “You just stay here and rest up, ‘kay? Focus on getting your strength back. You’ll need it whenever we decide to make a dash for our raft.”
Gyro nodded and shifted from sitting upright to lying down flat. “I’ll try,” she said. “I can keep watch on the supplies, I guess.”
“Just shout if you hear anything,” Rainbow said. “We’ll come running back.”
Rarity and Rainbow left the worship room behind, once more returning to the main entrance. The statue of the sun god continued to stare down the hallway to the left, and both ponies hesitated as they approached the corner. At the very least, it was a huge relief to Rarity when she saw that the doors were still firmly shut after what was almost assuredly an entire night of minotaurs trying to break in.
“Should we listen to see if they’re out there?” Rarity asked. She noted that the torches were all still alight from when Rainbow had lit them the night prior. Hopefully they’d find what they needed before the torches ran out of oil.
Rainbow shook her head. “I don’t see why we need to,” she said. “We know they’re out there and we know they can’t open the door without the necklace thingy. Let’s just not worry about it.”
“If you say so…”
They moved across the short hallway and stopped in front of the door on the other side. Once more, Rarity produced the necklace, and once more she used it to open the door. Both ponies jumped back when they saw a charging stone horse greet them on the other side.
“It’s just a statue,” Rarity said to herself when she got a better chance to look at it. “I feel silly now.”
To be fair, the statue looked incredibly lifelike, with flared nostrils and neatly carved teeth. Furious eyes stared straight ahead, and the pegasus’ wings looked like they blazed with the fire of the sun. The craftsmareship was astonishingly detailed, much like everything else in this temple. Rarity knew collectors in Canterlot who would pay fortunes for something like this.
Rainbow smirked and ran her hoof over the statue’s muzzle. “These ponies sure loved their sun god,” she said, tracing its features. “Look at that chiseled jaw and stone-cold stare!”
Rarity responded by lightly smacking Rainbow over the back of the head with the butt of her spear. She forged onwards without a word, letting her disappointment speak for itself.
“C’mon, Rares, that’s comedy gold,” Rainbow grumbled, falling in line behind her. “You just don’t appreciate good humor.”
“I appreciate humor as much as the next mare,” Rarity shot back. “That simply wasn’t humor.”
“Yeah, right, sure.” Rainbow shook her head. “I wish Pinkie was here.”
Another door greeted them at the end of a hallway that sharply turned right and left. This door, however, was inlaid with gold, and some of the paint the natives had once used long ago still clung to the carvings. Though tarnished by time, it still looked brilliant and impressive. Once more, sun motifs and embellishments decorated almost every available inch of stone, and again, an open slot for the medallion had been chiseled into the stone.
“Looks like there’s something important through here,” Rarity said, sliding the star into the hole. She gave it a twist, and then stepped back while the doors slowly parted and opened. She was determined to be ready in case another statue greeted her on the other side, but once again found herself surprised.
Rarity could scarecely comprehend what she was looking at. To her, it didn’t seem real. It was impossible. The mountain couldn’t have been that big… right?
The heart of the temple rose higher and higher. Rarity could count three balconies overlooking a massive central chamber, each one ringing entirely around the open center space. Every wall had been cut perfectly flat and inscribed with thousands of runes. Murals ten feet tall decorated different walls, their colors faded but still recognizable. They depicted towering gods of different races: pegasus, unicorn, earth, and crystal alike.
In the middle of the temple, a statue of the familiar sun god reared up on its hind legs, fifteen-foot wingspan fully outstretched. A golden disk Rarity supposed represented the sun was carefully balanced between his wings; it was so much larger than her and Rainbow were. Gold accents decorated the statue’s features, and they glinted and shimmered with brilliant reflected light. And then Rarity looked up.
At the very top of the temple, a round oculus let the daylight filter into the heart. The rim of the oculus had been lined with gold, tarnished and deteriorated as it was after so much time spent in the elements without care. The gold motifs continued throughout the upper levels of the structure, causing the light to bounce around and reflect across the heart of the temple in dazzling displays. To Rarity, it looked like she were standing inside the sun. She could only imagine how brilliant and fantastic the display became when the sun was directly overhead.
“So much gold,” she cooed, her eyes wandering over the architecture. “Have you ever encountered anything as splendid as this on your occasional escapades with Daring Do, Rainbow?”
Rainbow shook her head. “Nothing like this,” she said. “Daring would have a field day if she found this.”
“I wonder how long it took them to make all of this,” Rarity wondered. “This whole temple must’ve taken generations of work. And where did all the gold come from? I haven’t seen any signs of mining anywhere on this island.”
“Maybe it’s on another island,” Rainbow said. “We still have two we haven’t been to.”
“It would certainly explain it…” Rarity took a few steps deeper into the temple, the clopping of her hooves echoing across the ancient stones. She could see doors and stairways scattered around the outer ring on the ground floor; who knew just how many more rooms were connected to this one? “What do you think the ponies could’ve used all these rooms for?”
“Worship, priests’ quarters, meditation places?” Rainbow shrugged. “We saw a bit of that stuff back where Gyro is. I can’t really imagine what they could use all this extra space for.”
“I just hope that blasted statuette is here,” Rarity said. “We certainly have a lot of rooms to check.”
“That’s for sure,” Rainbow said. She stopped in front of the statue of the rearing pegasus and tried to imitate its pose. “Rrraaargh! Look at me, I’m a mighty and powerful sun god! Bring me your virgins!” Snickering, she dropped back to all fours. “I’m gonna guess that the Ponynesians weren’t too happy with their gods when they all disappeared whenever ago.”
“They obviously put a lot of faith in them,” Rarity said. “Whatever happened to them, I’m sure that they felt they’d angered the gods in some way, not the other way around.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Sucks to be them, I guess.” She turned her eyes towards the far wall, where an immaculate gold-covered door stood in the shadows of a stony overhang. “When in doubt, go for the shiny thing, right?”
Rarity’s eyes flitted around the temple. “Rainbow, everything is shiny here.”
“Yeah, but this door’s the shiniest!”
“You can’t even see the doors on the upper levels from here!”
“Damn it, Rarity, stop ruining the fun!” Rainbow skirted around the sun god’s statue and moved to the door in a huff. “You’re no fun exploring ancient temples with, I swear.”
“I’m just trying to remain the realist, darling.” With a shake of her head, Rarity followed Rainbow over to the door, stopping at her side. Unlike the other doors in the temple, this one was round, and instead of carrying sun motifs inscribed on its surface, Rarity realized it was the sun motif. She could imagine just how brilliantly it would glow if the sun shone down on it, the rays of light scattered throughout the dark, stony back of the temple. It wasn’t too hard to imagine a crowd of ponies gathered in its glow, standing where her and Rainbow stood now.
Which led her to an important question: why wasn’t the sun door positioned so the sunlight could actually hit it?
While Rainbow inspected the door, Rarity turned around and faced the interior of the temple. Sure enough, the oculus that let in the sun was hidden by the floor above them; sunlight could never touch this door.
“Hey, uh, Rares?” Rainbow asked, catching Rarity’s attention. “Am I just stupid, or is there no star thingy on this door for the medallion?”
Rarity blinked and turned around. She hadn’t even thought to look for that. But sure enough, the door was just a solid sheet of flat gold. There weren’t any markings or signs anywhere on its surface. The only way Rarity could even tell that it was a door was by the crease between the gold and the stone surrounding it. But how did they get it to open if their key wouldn’t work?
Frowning, Rarity tried the simplest solution first: brute force. Straining and heaving through her horn, she tried to force the door open but only succeeded in rattling it in place. Next, she tried to reach her field of magic through the cracks around the edges of the door and manipulate any mechanisms that might be holding it closed. Stone arms and latches stood out in her mind’s eye as her magic scanned across the backside of the door, but she couldn’t force those open, either. They remained resolutely locked in place, but not by mere force and friction. As she passed her magic back and forth over the locking mechanisms, she could feel the telltale buzz of magical feedback vibrating the tip of her chipped horn.
“There’s a spell keeping the latches in place,” she announced, letting her magic fizzle away. “I can’t move them from this side, and I’m nowhere near strong enough to break stone with telekinesis alone.”
“A spell?” Rainbow groaned. “Great! I that’s just what we needed to deal with now.” Frowning, she nevertheless shot a hopeful glance in Rarity’s direction. “But you can dispel it, right?”
“Do I look like either of the neurotic purple mares we know?” Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow.
Rainbow sighed. “We need to get you some training from Twilight when we’re off this island.”
“Unfortunately that won’t help us at the present.” Rarity sat in front of the door and studied it. “There has to be some way to trigger the spell’s effects and cause the doors to unlock. And if I had to fathom a guess, I think it’d have to do with the sun.”
She turned around and once more studied the interior of the temple. It made sense, at least; what else would cause the sun door to open but sunlight? But as she’d discovered earlier, there wasn’t any way for sunlight to reach the door given where it was positioned. So there had to be another way to get the sunlight to strike it. But how?
Her eyes fell once more on the statue of the sun god. She tried to think like one of these native ponies, a pony whose family had likely dedicated generations to constructing this temple. How would they go about redirecting sunlight to hit the sealed door?
Then she noticed something odd about the statue. Could that be the answer? It looked so obvious from here… perhaps a little too obvious.
Rainbow glanced at Rarity. “You thinking, Rares?”
Rarity nodded. “Yes, darling, I am.” She stood up and started walking over to the statue, leaving a befuddled Rainbow Dash behind her. “And I think I have an idea…”
Once more Rarity found herself staring up at the islanders’ sun god. He was an impressive figure to say the least. Broad shoulders, a sharp jawline, and massive and muscular wings all stood to make him look strong and attractive. She could only imagine the kinds of stories the villagers once told about him and their other deities. Certainly, many of them were carved into the stone walls of the temple, but Rarity doubted there was anypony alive today who could read the forgotten language of Ponynesia. Maybe Daring Do could, but she always seemed more concerned with the temples in the jungles and deserts of Equestria’s south, not the cultures of islands lost in the middle of the sea.
Rainbow Dash watched from the door as Rarity investigated the statue. “What are you doing with that?” she asked. “I don’t know how a stupid statue is going to help us open this door.”
“It’s actually very simple,” Rarity said. “How else are we going to get sunlight on the door if not with a mirror?”
Her horn lit and engulfed the surface of the disk held between the statue’s outstretched wings. As soon as she had realized that the disk was connected to each wing with an iron peg, she realized she could rotate it as well. The rusty pegs screeched as she applied force to the disk, but soon she managed to turn it so it would direct light to the sun door. Holding her breath, Rarity turned around to watch the door magically open and grant them entry.
Only it didn’t.
Rainbow looked on in confusion between Rarity’s crestfallen face and the impassive door. “Are you sure that’s what you’re supposed to do?”
Rarity frowned at the door. She knew she’d aimed the disk right; there was even a little golden circle of reflected light on the center of the door! What did she do wrong?
She found the answer when she looked up… and saw only blue sky. This was a sun temple, and the oculus had been put in the roof for a reason. It was simply too early in the day.
“We need to wait for the sun to shine directly down on us,” she said. “And I have no idea how long that will take.”
“Uhhh…” Rainbow screwed her face as she thought. “Like, an hour, I think. Maybe less. It was pretty late in the morning by the time you woke up.”
“So we have time to kill,” Rarity said. “Maybe we should put it to good use and do some exploring.”
“There’s certainly a lot of places to explore,” Rainbow agreed. “And I also want to know what happened to the other pony that was here.”
“Did Gyro tell you there was another pony here?”
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, stallion named Steam Valve. She said that they took him away a few nights ago. Probably that night when they came up here to throw that festival thing that we almost got caught in.”
Rarity shuddered. “I don’t want to think about how they may have killed a pony inside of this temple while we were just outside.”
“Well, there’s no body and no blood, so we really can’t say what they did with him.” She started walking clockwise around the first floor, and Rarity intercepted her on her way to the next door. “Maybe he’s inside one of these rooms.”
“Maybe.” Floating the medallion off of her neck, Rarity started working on the doors around them. It seemed like all the rooms on the first floor were living quarters for ancient priests and disciples. Simple bed frames were tucked away in the corners, recognizable only from a few splintered timbers that hadn’t completely rotted away with the passage of time. Tattered garments made from coconut thread hung from pegs in the walls, and the odd bit of tarnished silver or dull gold on scattered jewelry pieces spoke a little of the wealth of the clerics that once controlled this temple. But there wasn’t anything that could help them survive out here for an indeterminate time, and there was certainly no little pegasus figurine. But, to be fair, Rarity figured she knew exactly which door the figurine was hiding behind.
“How many priests do you think they had here?” Rainbow asked when they finally finished clearing out the first floor rooms.
“Probably around eight,” Rarity guessed. “That’s the number of large rooms we came across, at least. They probably had twice as many lesser disciples, judging by the size of the other rooms.”
“This place must’ve been amazing to see in its prime,” Rainbow said. “Imagine this huge temple just filled with ponies, all praising their sun god. It must’ve been a sight to behold.”
“Everything about this island feels that way.” Rarity shook her head. “That city outside once held thousands of ponies. The seas between all these islands were probably full of canoes. This was a kingdom of four islands, once…” Then her ears fell. “Now there’s just minotaurs that want to kill us, and they’re desecrating the ruins of an equine legacy. I don’t know what’s more sad: that the Ponynesians are gone, or that the minotaurs are here.”
“Who knows what happened to them.” Sighing, Rainbow turned her attention to the nearest flight of stairs. “I guess we should keep on looking. The shadows are really starting to move, though, so it shouldn’t be too long before the sun gets overhead.”
Rarity nodded and followed Rainbow over to the stairs. The stairs were a little farther apart than she was used to back in Equestria. Maybe the Ponynesians were bigger than the average Equestrian? She felt like she was stretching a little bit to climb the next step, but she was tall enough that it wasn’t much of a problem. Rainbow, on the other hoof, had to lift her legs in exaggerated motions to keep climbing upwards. It took a lot of effort on Rarity’s part to keep her giggling suppressed, and even then, she knew Rainbow knew by the time they made it to the top.
Rainbow only shot Rarity a sharp glare when they stopped for breath at the top of the stairs. “I’m aerodynamic,” she grumbled, preempting any comment from Rarity.
“Yes, yes, I’m sure.” Rarity shot Rainbow a wink and walked to the edge of the balcony. She was surprised by how small things looked down below. It hadn’t looked like the second floor was that high up, but they were already well above the statue’s head. And yet the third floor still towered far above them, almost within reach of the skylight above. Of course, not like that was very helpful. If Rainbow couldn’t fly, then there wasn’t any way they could use it to escape. On the bright side, that meant the minotaurs couldn’t use it to get inside without a lot of rope.
Rarity just hoped they didn’t have that much rope…
There were fewer doors up here on the second floor. In fact, there were only three, one on each wall save the wall directly over the entrance to the temple’s heart. A quick peak in the nearest door revealed a large gallery with more sun-shaped portholes overlooking the mountain slopes. Based on the orientation of the temple, Rarity figured they had to be looking out over the south side of the island. In fact, she could see a tiny smudge of green in the distance that was probably the other western island she could see from their home island. But again, this room didn’t offer much in the way of escape. She doubted that the mirroring room would, provided it was another gallery like this one.
“Seriously, where’s the fire escape in this stupid temple?” Rainbow grumbled when she saw there wasn’t any way out through that room. “This is against regulation.”
Rarity rolled her eyes at Rainbow’s quip. “Maybe we should call the Ponynesian building commissioners and get them to look this place over,” she said, brushing past Rainbow and returning to the balcony. “They’ll certainly mandate some changes to fit within regulations.”
She moved to her left, toward the middle door. This one was bigger than the other two, so she figured it had to be important. And thankfully, unlike the sun door down below, this one had a familiar locking mechanism in its face. She slotted the medallion in without a second thought and turned it, causing the doors to split and open.
What she saw inside made her scream.
“Rares?!” Rainbow, who had been trailing a bit behind, immediately galloped to Rarity’s side. Blue hooves wrapped around Rarity’s shoulders to comfort her. “What did you see?” Rainbow asked moments before finding out for herself. Rarity felt Rainbow’s legs stiffen in shock as she flinched backwards. “Holy…!”
There were bones. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Incomplete and scattered equine skeletons lied across the floor in pieces, like they’d been thrown inside this dark room without a second thought. Countless faceless skulls stared at Rarity through the open door, some with horns. Whatever this room had once been used for, now it was nothing more than a mass grave.
The bones still covered in blood and flies scared her the most.
Rainbow pulled Rarity away from the door and shut it. Trembling, Rarity merely slumped down against the stone balcony, her shaking forelegs crossed over her chest. “There… there were so many…” she murmured, in shock of what she’d seen behind that door. “So many!”
“Most of those bones were ancient,” Rainbow said. “Most of them. Those must’ve been Ponynesian skeletons behind that door. Who knows how they ended up there.”
“There’s no question about it!” Rarity laughed, but it was shrill and borderline hysterical. “The minotaurs did that! This is all their fault! All those dead ponies! And Gyro’s friend is one of them too! And… and when they get us, we’ll join them! They’ll throw our bones inside once they eat our flesh! Do you think they’ll keep our skeletons intact? Maybe I’ll be spread out across the room, mingling with other dead ponies who were unfortunate enough to have lived on this damnable island while the minotaurs were here!”
“Rares…” Rainbow kneeled down in front of Rarity and tried to calm her. “It’s not gonna happen, okay? I promise, it’s not. We’re leaving here in one piece.”
“But what if we’re trapped in here forever? What if we can’t find another way out?!” Rarity started hyperventilating. “We’re going to be skin and bones like Gyro! Celestia, I want to stay thin, but not that thin! Maybe I’ll just curl up with a skull when we run out of water and wait for the end! At least I’ll be in a grave then!” She started laughing and rocking back and forth. “I’ll be burying myself while I’m still alive!”
A sharp pain kicked Rarity out of her hysteria. Tears poured from her eyes as stinging pain began to throb in her left cheek. In front of her, Rainbow Dash idly rubbed her hoof, her face halfway between something worried and something apologetic. “You feel better?” she asked when Rarity sat upright and rubbed her smarting cheek.
Rarity shook her head. “No… but thank you anyways.” She winced with each touch of her hoof; she doubted Rainbow meant to hit her as hard as she did, but the side of her muzzle was probably going to bruise come morning. Chewing on the inside of her lip, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “Should we tell Gyro?”
Rainbow nodded after a second. “We should,” she said. “But not now. She just needs to focus on resting and gathering strength. And we’ve gotta focus on getting through that door.” She stood up and helped Rarity to her hooves. “Let’s just ignore what’s behind this door, okay?”
“I’m in agreement with that.” Rarity closed her eyes once more. “We have more important things to focus on.”
“Yeah…”
Turning around, Rarity hung her hooves over the balcony and watched the shadows on the ground. “I think I’ve done enough exploring for today,” she said. “Let’s just wait until the sun gets overhead. What do you think?”
Rainbow Dash completed her tenth lap around the second-floor balcony. After discovering the mass grave in the central room, she needed some time to clear her head. It seemed like the longer her and Rarity spent on these islands, the more horrifying details they discovered just below the surface. And the more she learned, the more Rainbow wanted to get back to Equestria as soon as possible.
What had happened to all those ponies? It was a question Rainbow wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to. What had happened to Steam Valve was obvious enough; she doubted that the minotaurs had brought all the food they ate that night up the mountain with them. Why they would starve a pony to skin and bones before eating them, she didn’t know, but the stallion was just bits of bone and rotting flesh now. That much, for all the good it would do, had been easy to figure out.
But what about the other skeletons? Rainbow didn’t know anything about forensics and that stuff, but she could at least tell that the other bones were old. They were spotless and yellowish, having been picked clean by scavengers long ago. They’d been sitting in that dark room for who knew how long. But why were they there? Were they also victims of the minotaurs, carved up for meat like Steam Valve? Or did something else happen entirely? At the very least, she felt like she could rule ritualistic burials out. If that had been the case, the skeletons would’ve been preserved and arranged nicely around the room, not just thrown in piles on the floors.
Rainbow sighed and shook her head. So much mystery surrounded these islands, and she doubted she’d ever solve any of it. Besides, it wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered was getting back home.
Her eyes wandered over to Rarity, who sat beside the statue of the sun god on the first floor. The poor seamstress wasn’t ready for any of the trials they’d suffered since washing up so long ago. Even though she’d proven remarkably resilient and focused to their survival, Rainbow didn’t know how much more she could take. Her hysteria at seeing the bones was more frightening to Rainbow than the bones themselves had been. Rarity seemingly breaking and giving up at that sight wrenched her heart in ways she didn’t expect it to. And the only thing Rainbow could think of to snap her marefriend out of it was to slap her across the face. She already felt like a horrible pony for doing it.
A blue hoof stomped on stone in frustration. “Fuck this place,” Rainbow swore, glaring at the stones around her. How much more would they have to see before they were found? How much more would they have to endure? Though Rainbow felt confident that she could suffer even the worst to survive, she worried for Rarity. Rarity, so delicate and proper, so pretty and ladylike. A lady shouldn’t have to deal with the things they were dealing with right now.
Getting back to Equestria in one piece was no longer the most important thing for Rainbow. Getting Rarity back home safe was much more important. And if she had to, Rainbow would gladly do anything to bring her back.
A deep note of rock striking rock boomed around the chamber. Blinking, Rainbow whipped her head around, looking for the source of the noise. Down below, Rarity did the same, crawling to her hooves and searching around. Her blue eyes lifted toward the balcony where Rainbow stood. “Did you hear that, darling?”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said. The ground began shaking as something heavy moved across it, accompanied by the heavy grinding of stone against stone. That was when she looked to the right and saw a circle of radiant sun striking the golden face of the sun door. “Hey! The door!”
Rarity’s ears perked and her head turned to the side. “Celestia, it’s finally happening!” Her white head tilted back and she shielded her eyes with a hoof. “The sun’s just overhead now!”
Sure enough, the statue of the sun god was bathed in brilliant sunlight, and the disk on its back redirected some of that light toward the sun door at the far end. As Rainbow watched, the door began to slide back into the wall and rotate to the side, revealing the interior chamber. She couldn’t see much of it from up here, but what she could see glittered like gold in the light.
“I’m coming down,” she announced, spinning in place and finding the nearest staircase. She had to be careful with her descent; the stairs were just a little too far apart for her, and she worried that if she took them too fast, she’d fall flat on her face and break her teeth. Why were Ponynesians so tall?!
She made it to the first floor with a little effort, but thankfully her teeth were all still where they should be. By now, the golden sun door had completely retracted into the wall, baring access to a chamber that seemed like it was painted in liquid gold. Even from where she stood, Rainbow could see how the insides glowed in the reflected light.
Rarity stood in front of the open door, peering into the chamber with eyes wide. She seemed almost surprised when Rainbow walked up alongside her and brushed her side with a wingtip. After flinching away from the sudden touch, Rarity shook her head and beamed. “It’s beautiful!”
And Rainbow had to admit that it was. Beyond the sun door was a spacious chamber with a ceiling that rose up to the floor of the room above it, giving lots of open space to the inside. Here, golden statues of pegasi were regularly spaced along the walls, each one with a fire bowl resting at its hooves. Three altars had been placed in the room, carved from the same stone as the mountain’s guts, with the largest and grandest altar sitting in the middle of the back wall. Stone pews gilded in gold were arranged on both halves of the room, and a walkway of pure gold stretched from the door to the main altar. Even the sun door itself hardly seemed out of place; it’d been perfectly carved to slide into the wall, where it simply decorated the stone as an enormous golden sun, perfectly mirroring a second fake door resting in the wall to the left.
Both ponies slowly advanced into the chamber, their mouths open in awe. “There’s millions of bits worth of gold in this chamber alone,” Rarity said. “And I don’t think it’s been touched in ages!”
“The minotaurs were probably too stupid to figure out how the door worked,” Rainbow said. She could still see the circle of sunlight on the far wall, interrupted by two equine shadows. “We’re the first inside since Ponynesia vanished.”
Rainbow nodded along and turned her eyes toward the back of the room. A golden box rested in the far wall, with all sorts of sun motifs worked into the metal. Grinning, she swiftly trotted toward it, skirting around the enormous altar just before it. She raised onto her hind legs and opened the box, cheering when she found exactly what she expected inside.
“I found it!” she exclaimed, pulling a little statuette out of the box. It depicted a pegasus standing on one hind hoof, wings outstretched as if he was taking off into the sky. It was nearly the exact same size and shape as the crystal pony figurine that had been left back at their home island.
Rarity squealed and bounced from hoof to hoof. “We did it!” she exclaimed. “We found it! Heavens, I didn’t think we’d actually be able to do it, but here we are!” Her magic snatched the statuette out of Rainbow’s hooves and brought it closer to her face so she could see it. “We’ve already found two, and now that we have this thing, we can leave this island behind!”
“Heck yeah! We showed those stupid minotaurs who’s boss!” She extended her hoof for Rarity to bump it. “We’re the best!”
Rarity responded by kissing Rainbow instead. She set the figurine off to the side as the two ponies drew up into each other’s forelegs, using their partner for balance as they stood on their rear hooves. “And now we’re one step closer to Equestria,” Rarity said, fluttering her eyelashes at Rainbow. “One step closer to home.”
Rainbow kissed Rarity again. “You said it,” she said when they parted. Falling back onto all fours, she pointed her wing at the statuette. “Now come on, let’s grab this thing and go back to Gyro. After all, how much you want to be that door’s gonna close when the sun dips out of sight again?”
“Good point,” Rarity said, plucking the statuette off of the altar. Together, both ponies trotted out of the room with a hurried spring in their step, not wanting to be trapped inside. But once they were outside again, Rarity smiled and closed her eyes. “Two down, two to go!”
When Rainbow and Rarity made their way back to the worship room, they found Gyro had moved from the corner to one of the windows. There she sat with her chin resting on the bottom sill of the porthole, letting the fresh mountain air blow over her thin and bony face. Her ears perked when she heard hoofsteps, but she didn’t have enough strength to do more than tilt her head to the side. “You’re back,” she croaked. “I heard all this rumbling and I didn’t know what was happening.”
“We were getting ourselves back to Equestria,” Rainbow said. She pointed to the pegasus statuette when Rarity set it down on a nearby altar. “We need this thing if we’re gonna get home.”
Gyro blinked. “Why? It just looks like some statue to me.”
“There’s some sort of magical effect over these islands,” Rarity said. “Or, at least, that’s what we think. When the Concordia went down, we expected Princess Luna to visit our dreams to try and find us, given our close relationship with her. But in the weeks since we washed up here, there’s been nothing. Don’t you find that a bit strange?”
“That… is strange, I suppose,” Gyro said. “Something’s stopping her from finding your dreams?”
“That’s the idea,” Rainbow said. “We found a little shrine underneath our island that had a crystal pony figurine but there were spots for three more. We figured, four islands, four shrines, four pony races? It couldn’t be a coincidence.”
“So now we’re trying to find these figurines to see if that lowers whatever magical effect is hiding these islands here,” Rarity finished. “That’s why we left our island to come here. And before we’re finished, we’ll have to visit the other two islands as well.”
The engineer nodded. “Huh,” was all she had to say at first. “Okay, so that’s a start then. But how are we going to get out of here?”
Rainbow and Rarity looked at each other. “We haven’t found an exit…” Rarity admitted.
But Rainbow shook her head. “That’s not true, Rares.”
Gyro cocked an eyebrow. “So which one is it?”
“There’s a skylight in the main chamber,” Rainbow said. “It’s easily big enough for us to go through. It’s probably like ten feet across. Maybe more.”
“But there’s no way to get to it,” Rarity protested. “It’s carved into the ceiling and there’s no way to access it. The third-floor balcony is too far away to even get close.”
“Yeah, but you’re a unicorn,” Rainbow said. “You have magic.”
Rarity shook her head. “I don’t know teleportation or transmutation magic, Rainbow. Only telekinesis and prestidigitation. Neither of those are very helpful.”
“Not true.” Rainbow shook her head. “Rarity, you lifted a raft that weighed a ton, probably literally. We’re all little ponies. Piece of cake in comparison! You can just lift us out of the skylight thing and we’ll be on top of the mountain!”
“But what about me? I can’t lift myself out!”
“Yeah you can! Remember Starlight? She could make herself fly with her telekinesis. I don’t see why you couldn’t either.”
“I thought that was dangerous,” Gyro said. “That’s why unicorns don’t do it.”
“It is,” Rarity said. “It’s very disorienting and the feedback you get from encasing your horn in your own spell makes it difficult to concentrate. Believe me, every unicorn has tried to pick themselves up when they’re little. It’s one of the first things we all try to do when we can start using our magic effectively.”
“Listen, Rares,” Rainbow said, walking up to Rarity. She put her hooves on the seamstress’ shoulders and began massaging them. “If there’s anypony that can do it, it’s you. And it’s really the only choice we have, unless you want to fight your way through all those minotaurs probably camped outside the temple. I believe in you.”
Rarity didn’t look so convinced. “And what if I can’t? I could just end up falling to my death while trying to fly! It’s too dangerous!”
Gyro pushed herself away from the window. “If nothing else, Rainbow and I can find a vine or something to lower through the skylight once we’re out.”
It wasn’t exactly the best plan, but at least it was a plan, Rainbow supposed. What mattered was that they got out of the temple as soon as possible. “That’s an idea,” she said. “But we should at least go now. I don’t want to waste any more time inside this temple than we have to.”
“I suppose,” Rarity reluctantly agreed. Together, her and Rainbow started gathering their supplies for the great escape, while Gyro found the strength to walk. Within a few minutes, both Rainbow and Rarity had loaded up all they could on their persons, with Rarity holding the majority of the bulky items in her magic. Gyro joined them at the doorway on unsteady, sinewy legs.
Rainbow gave her a concerned look. “Are you going to be okay?” she asked. “Can you keep up?”
“So long as you don’t go too fast,” Gyro said. “I can move, just not very quickly.”
Rarity shot her a sympathetic smile. “Darling, as soon as we’re off this island, you’ll have lots of time to relax and recoup your strength on ours. There’s plenty of food and water there.”
“Yeah, you’ll be feeling good as new in no time!” Rainbow started through the door, the other two mares following her with a swish of her tail. “I hope you’re ready to finally be free of this dumb temple.”
“I don’t want to spend a second longer in here than I have to,” Gyro said. “I’m ready for the nightmare to end.”
They made it halfway down the short hallway before they heard stone booming against stone down the long entrance passage. Jumping in place, all three Equestrians looked to the left in time to see the doors opening. They simply stood there, frozen with horror, as several minotaurs forced the enormous stone doors open, revealing the chief in the middle with a hastily crafted makeshift star amulet in one hand. The moment his eyes fell on the ponies, his face twisted with rage and he pointed a beefy finger at them, bellowing something in his native language.
Rainbow didn’t waste any time shoving Rarity and Gyro down the hall. “We gotta go! Now!” she screamed. Spinning in place, she lowered her head, flipped the skeletal earth pony onto her back, and galloped toward the main chamber, ignoring the starved mare’s protests. Heavy hooves thundered down the hallway after them, but thankfully, the ponies had a head start. As soon as they entered the main chamber, Rainbow turned to Rarity. “We have to get up and out now.”
“We need to go upstairs first,” Rarity said, galloping toward the stairs. “Field strength degrades the further from the horn it is. I wouldn’t be able to get you all out from the ground floor before my magic fizzled away!”
Rainbow cursed as she started on the stairs. “Fine! To the top then!”
Huffing and panting, the ponies climbed the steps all the way to the top as fast as they could. Down below them, Rainbow heard the minotaurs’ hooves enter the main chamber and fanning out. They only had a couple of minutes until they were found, and as soon as Rarity started using her magic, they’d know exactly where they were. Time was of the essence. She just prayed Rarity would be able to fly herself out of the temple.
They nearly collapsed against the third-floor balcony when they crested the last set of stairs. After a moment to catch her breath, Rainbow turned to Rarity, who was already red in the face and still panting. “Rares, we have to go now,” she said. “We don’t have much time!”
Rarity shakily nodded. “Okay, okay. I’ll send you two up first.” Magic built on her horn and she closed her eyes. “I just hope this works!”
Rainbow felt the tingle of Rarity’s magic wrap around her and Gyro. A second later, she flinched as her hooves left the ground and an intangible force dangled her over the temple floor far below. She saw minotaurs point up at her and shout, and several ran towards the stairs. But up above her, the oculus in the ceiling drew closer and closer. Sunlight shined down on her shoulders, and then…
She was out.
Rarity unceremoniously dumped the two ponies on a patch of dirt and stone on the oculus’ edge, but Rainbow cheered nonetheless. They were out now, out of the horrible temple. She looked aside at Gyro, who shook and trembled in the light. “You alright, Gyro?” she asked, shaking the mechanic.
“Now we just need to try and keep it that way.” She looked back in the temple to see Rarity float up and dump the rest of their supplies through the oculus. “Come on, Rares! You gotta get out of there!”
“A second to catch my breath, please!” Rarity shouted back. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a second. Almost as soon as she said that, a group of minotaurs climbed the stairs, set their sights on Rarity, and readied their nets.
Rarity gasped and drew back, only there was nowhere for her to run to. Rainbow gripped the edge of the oculus, every instinct telling her to swoop in and save the day with flight she didn’t have. She felt utterly helpless from where she watched, unable to do anything to save her marefriend.
In a spurt of quick thinking, Rarity took the necklace off her neck and flung it at the minotaur closest to her. The shocked minotaur fumbled with the stone medallion, buying Rarity just enough time to make her move. The other minotaurs threw their nets, but instead of running, Rarity flung herself over the edge of the balcony. Time felt like it slowed for Rainbow as Rarity plummeted from a height that would surely kill her. But before she hit the floor, the unicorn enveloped her body in a blue glow that slowed her momentum and halted her in midair. Minotaurs all around the temple looked on in confusion as the unicorn simply hovered in the middle of the temple.
Rainbow blew a huge sigh of relief and cheered. “Yeah! Rarity!” she exclaimed, pumping a hoof. “Way to go! Now let’s get out of here!”
Rarity’s cheeks puffed, and then she shifted upwards. Bit by bit, Rarity rose toward the surface while the stunned minotaurs merely looked on. Though her field of magic flickered a few times, she lifted herself up to the edge of the skylight, so tantalizingly close to safety…
“Come on, Rarity!” Rainbow cheered her on, trying to help her find that last spurt of energy she needed to rise the last few feet. “You can do it!”
“I… can’t…” Rarity panted and panted. Sweat poured down her face. “My horn…”
The field fizzled, popped, and vanished in time with a sharp squeal from Rarity. Her alabaster hooves clawed at open air as her telekinesis failed her. But before she could fall, Rainbow lunged over the edge and hooked a foreleg around Rarity’s. Rarity jolted as she came to a sudden stop, and she opened her eyes to stare right into Rainbow’s.
“I’ve got you!” Rainbow grunted, trying to haul Rarity up the last bit. “Just hold on!”
But she was slipping, too. Rarity, being the heavier unicorn, was dragging Rainbow towards the hole as well. Both ponies knew it. They’d both go tumbling through the skylight and they’d both die from the fall.
“Just go!” Rarity insisted, her hoof slackening. “Save yourself!”
“Rarity!” Rainbow shouted back. “No! I won’t—!”
Something tugged on her tail, stopping her from slipping. She heard grunting and hooves sliding on stone behind her… and then she felt herself being dragged backwards. Rarity gasped as she began to rise, and in desperation, she tightened her grip on Rainbow’s hooves. Little by little, they rose…
And then Rainbow hauled Rarity up the rest of the way. Grunting, groaning, all three ponies collapsed onto the stone as Gyro let go of Rainbow’s tail. They simply laid there, trying to catch their breaths and letting their hearts slow down. But it wasn’t long before Rainbow smirked at Gyro.
“If you’re that strong after being starved for weeks, then I’m afraid of what you’ll be like once you get some meat back on your bones,” she joked. “Earth ponies are overpowered.”
“And nopony realizes it,” Gyro said with a smirk. “That’s the best part.”
Chuckling, Rainbow shook her head from side to side. “I like you, girl,” she said. “You’re alright.” Then, sighing, she forced herself to sit up. “We should find somewhere to hide. It’s not going to be long until those minotaurs come looking for us…”
Rarity had never felt so exhausted, frightened, and excited in her life. Exhausted because of all the effort it took to lift herself and two ponies out of the temple and then scramble down the side of the mountain for someplace to hide. Frightened because the minotaurs were hunting for them and would surely kill them if found. Excited because they were one step closer to home and on the verge of leaving this island behind for good.
But right now, it was the fear that held her the tightest. Her, Rainbow, and Gyro had scrambled down the southwest slope of the mountain as soon as they were able to, knowing fully well that the minotaurs would be trying to scale it to find them. What they needed now was somewhere to hide and wait the search out. Hopefully they’d be able to slip away under the cover of darkness and return to their home island. But even then, Rarity doubted they’d ever be safe again. Now the minotaurs knew that they were real, and it’d only be a matter of time until they sought revenge.
“In here.” Rainbow pulled back some scraggly scrub covering a dusty hollow in the side of the mountain. “We’ll hide in here and wait until dark.”
Rarity didn’t waste any time complaining; staying alive was preferable to staying clean. She made sure that Gyro crawled inside first before following suit and sliding over enough for Rainbow to duck in as well. Wedged in the little den between the two mares, Rarity fought for enough space to stretch out her stiff legs. Hopefully she wouldn’t cramp up in the meanwhile.
Rainbow finished adjusting the last of their supplies near the entrance of the den. She’d tucked them away as best as she could behind some of the shrubbery, but there simply wasn’t enough room for everything. But really, what choice did they have?
“If any of the minotaurs come close, they’ll see those,” Rarity observed.
“If any of the minotaurs get close, they’ll see and hear us.” Rainbow tried to find a better position to rest in, grimacing as dirt and stones dug at her back. “We just have to hope they don’t.”
“And if they do?” Gyro asked. The bony mare had huddled up into a nearly impossibly small ball in the back of the den. Without meat on her bones, she looked like a pile of gray toothpicks. Hopefully the bounty of fruit on their home island would help the mare fill out again.
“Then we go down fighting.” As she said that, Rainbow pulled one of the spears out of their supplies and laid it across her lap. “Maybe the threat of a pointy death will get them to go away.”
Rarity shook her head. “I doubt that. As far as they’re concerned, we must’ve defiled their temple or something. Plus, we burned down one of their granaries. And their canoes.” She shot Rainbow a pointed glare.
Rainbow did her best to ignore it. “Yeah, okay. Maybe they’re a little mad at us. But at least once we get off of this island, we won’t have to deal with them for a while. They’ll have to rebuild their canoes and their granary if they want to survive. They’ll be too focused on collecting food and rebuilding to go after us.”
“Celestia, I hope so,” Gyro said. “If I ever see a minotaur again it’ll be too soon.”
“At least not in this capacity,” Rarity said. “The occasional minotaur you find in Equestria doesn’t eat ponies. At least, I assume not.”
Gyro shrugged. “If only these ones could’ve been the same.”
“Well, we outsmarted them, and now we’ll outmaneuver them. We just have to be patient and not freak out.”
“Easier said than done,” Rarity said. “We still have another six or seven hours of daylight, maybe more. If we can’t move until it’s nighttime, we’ll have lots of time hiding in this dirty, cramped hole.”
“Then we’ll pass the time.” Rainbow leaned forward and made eye contact with Gyro. “Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself, Gyro? We haven’t really gotten a chance to know you yet. Now’s as good a time as any.”
Gyro offered a reluctant smile. “There’s not much to know about me,” she said. “Compared to two Element Bearers, I’m just a boring earth pony.”
“A ‘boring earth pony’ who saved our lives!” Rarity exclaimed. “I think there’s more to you than you think, Gyro. Everypony is special. You don’t have to be a celebrity to be worth talking about.”
Rarity could tell that she’d brightened Gyro’s day even more. “Oh,” the mechanic said, uncurling a bit. She managed to sit up some, or at least as much as she could manage with what little energy she had. “Well, I mean, I haven’t really done all that much that you girls would care about. I was born in Baltimare, went to a trade school to work with steam machinery, and I’ve served on a few airships for the past ten years or so. This was my third tour on the Concordia. Really, nothing special.”
“I bet you saw so many wonderful places on your travels,” Rarity said. “It sounds like quite the romantic life, flying from port to port, seeing all sorts of new things and people.”
Gyro abashedly blushed. “If it’s romantic, nopony told me,” she said. “I’m still waiting on that special stallion to come around someday. At least I’ll have a chance to actually meet him now.”
“And what a story you’ll have to tell him!” Rarity exclaimed. “If surviving an ordeal like this doesn’t impress and win over any stallion you set your sights on, it’s only because they’re jealous.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed. “This’ll make a heck of a story to tell everypony back home.”
“Where else have you gone, darling?” Rarity asked the mechanic. “I’ve been fortunate enough to travel here and there, but not often do I get the chance to visit far-flung places around the globe. Where was your favorite?”
Gyro thought for a moment. “It’s going to sound ironic giving everything that’s happened over the past few weeks, but I loved it when we stopped at the Grand Caymare islands on the Sunset about five years ago.” She smiled as she reminisced. “Sunny days, beautiful beaches, wonderful food and wonderful ponies… If I was a millionaire, I’d retire there. Or at least, if you asked me a month ago, that’s what I would’ve said.” She pointed out the hollow. “After all of this, I don’t think I’d ever be able to look at a tropical island the same.”
“I know what you mean,” Rarity admitted. “Every time I see a beach I fear I’ll find myself back on the island with no way home. I would have loved to visit such beautiful islands like these under better circumstances, but they’re probably ruined for me now.”
“At least I’m not afraid of heights,” Gyro said. “After taking the plunge off the Concordia, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to work on an airship again. But I didn’t freak out when we escaped the temple and climbed down the side of the mountain, so I think I’m fine.”
“Good to hear,” Rainbow said. “As long as we come out of this intact, then I think we’ve won.” Groaning, she closed her eyes and leaned back. “Speaking of which, I’m going to try and get some shuteye. Somepony wake me if you hear minotaurs stabbing us to death.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “We will, Rainbow. You’ll probably be the first to know.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want to come in second.” And then she began to snore softly.
Chuckling, Rarity exchanged a glance with Gyro. “You get used to her. Trust me.”
Rainbow Dash woke some time later with a growing crick in her neck and soreness in her back. Sleeping halfway hunched over against a stone wall had really done a number on her spine. Add a few days of sleeping on hard stone floors to that, and she felt like it’d be a miracle if her back ever stopped aching. She couldn’t wait to go back to sleeping on sand and ferns. Sweet, comfortable sand and ferns.
Of course, they were no clouds, but given the situation at hoof, she’d take what she could get. Rainbow never would’ve thought that sand would’ve been the favorite choice on her list of things to sleep on a month ago, but here she was.
She rolled to her right, and immediately ended up with a face full of white hair. Rarity snoozed at her side, forehooves twitching and horn occasionally glowing in her sleep. Every so often, she’d murmur or silently move her lips, though Rainbow couldn’t make out any words. At the very least, the unicorn dreamt peacefully. That was good; she’d earned her rest after everything she’d managed today.
Further back in the cave, Gyro had tucked herself back into a little bony ball. She’d even used her hind legs like a pillow, reminding Rainbow of a cat. One of those weird nearly hairless cats from southern Equestria, but a cat nonetheless. It would’ve been kind of cute to look at, if Gyro’s severe malnutrition didn’t make her look like a skeleton.
Rainbow rolled to her left. The sun had gone down, leaving the dark veil of night to descend on the island. She’d been asleep for hours; she must’ve been more tired than she’d thought. But miraculously, the minotaurs didn’t find them, even if both of the other ponies who were supposed to be keeping watch had fallen asleep as well.
It was about time they finally got some luck instead of having to make their own.
But that didn’t mean they were out of the woods yet. If she held her breath and listened, Rainbow could hear distant voices in the dark. There were still minotaurs on and around the mountain. They’d have to be careful if they wanted to sneak back to the raft without getting caught.
Speaking of which, it was about time that they moved out. After munching on half a loaf of bread to take the curb off her hunger pains, Rainbow gently poked Rarity’s side until she stirred. At first, the seamstress seemed confused and disoriented, but Rainbow placed a hoof over her white muzzle so she wouldn’t make any noise until she remembered where she was and why they had to be quiet.
When she finally had her wits about her, Rarity gently removed Rainbow’s hoof. “It’s dark already?” she whispered. “Celestia, I must’ve slept like a rock.”
“You deserved it,” Rainbow said, nuzzling the mare’s cheek. “What with all the awesome magic stuff you pulled today.”
“Yes, I suppose I did.” Rarity tried to work out some of her muscle soreness in what little room she had in the cramped cave. “Is it safe to move? When are we going to go?”
“Soon.” Rainbow passed off the other half of the bread loaf. “Get a bite to eat and wake Gyro. We need to get a move on after we get our strength back.”
Rarity nodded and took the final remaining loaf of bread out of the basket. Instead of prodding Gyro, she simply held the loaf under the mare’s nose and waited. Within a few seconds, Gyro’s eyes fluttered open, and she licked her lips. She snatched the loaf of bread between her hooves and took a ravenous bite out of it even before she really realized what was happening. Cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk, she glanced between Rainbow and Rarity for a moment before swallowing what was in her mouth. “…Hi.”
Rainbow chuckled and Rarity giggled. “This probably sounds dumb, but don’t eat too much right now, Gyro. We’re gonna be hiking down the mountain shortly.” Tucking the rest of their food into a bundle, she pulled the bag closer to herself. “Glad to see you’ve still got your appetite, though.”
Gyro wiped some of the crumbs off her muzzle. “Please don’t make food jokes around starving ponies, they’re insensitive and I’m offended.” She smirked and bit off half the loaf in a single massive bite. “Can ya gib muh thuh watuh?”
“I suppose now’s a bad time to criticize your table manners as well,” Rarity remarked as her magic took hold of the jug and passed what little of it they had left to Gyro. Gyro set the loaf of bread in her lap and tilted the jug back, draining the rest of the water in a few gulps. After a moment to consider what she’d done, she set the jug down and hung her head. “Sorry, you two were probably thirsty, too…”
“It’s fine,” Rainbow assured her. “At least we’re not going uphill. Plus, we’ve got a pot of emergency water in our raft. We’ll be fine.”
“Where is your raft?” Gyro asked. “Is it nearby?”
“East side of the island. We’ll have to do a bit of walking.”
Sticking her head out of the den, Rainbow scanned the mountain for any movement and listened for noise. The only voices were far away and she didn’t see anything crawling around the slope, so she ducked back inside and nodded to Rarity and Gyro. “Right, let’s get our crap and get going. They’re still looking for us, I think, so we don’t want to waste any more time.”
Both Rarity and Gyro shook their heads in understanding and started to climb to their hooves. Rainbow stepped outside of the den, carrying what she could in her mouth and across her back, trying to make space for the other two. They each mimicked Rainbow and grabbed supplies with their mouths and slid what they could onto their backs. While it would’ve been simple for Rarity to carry everything in her field, it would’ve produced too much light in the dark of the night. What they needed now was to move quickly, quietly, and stay out of sight.
Rainbow led the procession of fugitives directly down the southern slope as best as she could. If they got to sea level, they wouldn’t have to worry too much about minotaurs being all around them. Plus, there was more tree cover down by the crashing waves of the southern shore. With the backbone of the island to shelter them from the interior, she hoped that they’d be able to move without being seen. Plus, the flatter terrain would be easier to navigate with everything they carried on their backs. The last thing any of them needed was to trip and fall down the side of the mountain, possibly hurting themselves and making a lot of noise as they fell.
So it was a huge relief to Rainbow when her hooves finally touched sand. She took a moment to just stand by the water and dig her hooves into the wet grit, scrubbing dirt and dust out of the frogs. Rarity and Gyro ended up doing the same around her, and Gyro in particular stared off into the infinite stretch of sea to the south.
“I haven’t seen the ocean in weeks,” she said. “None of this feels real.”
“You better believe it, girl, because we’re about to bid this place bye bye!” She slapped Gyro on the shoulder and grinned at her. “Trust us when we say that our island is a bona fide island getaway!”
“I just wish it had cabanas and a spa,” Rarity said. “Or even just alcohol.”
“Eh, maybe we can ferment a coconut or something,” Rainbow said. “But come on! Enough standing around, let’s move!”
They trekked on through the darkness of the island as quietly as they could, ears swiveling this way and that to pick out sounds of minotaurs through the dense foliage. Once, Rainbow had them stop for several minutes until the voices up ahead grew quieter, but apart from that, they didn’t hear or see anything more as the beach grew shorter and the backbone of the island grew steeper and steeper.
And then they made it. Resting just inside of the trees was the raft, still carefully placed and concealed where Rarity had left it. “And this is our ride home!” Rainbow exclaimed to Gyro. “We built it ourselves and it got us over here. Now it’s gonna save our lives again!”
“That’s impressive,” Gyro said. “And it’s big enough for all of us and our supplies?”
“Oh, that we’re quite sure of,” Rarity said, dropping her supplies. “It’s not exactly a small raft. It’s roughly ten feet by ten feet. A big square that could easily carry another pony.”
Then her horn lit up, and after a moment of exertion, she dragged it out of the sand and flopped it into the water’s edge. Grunting, she wiped her brow and started picking up the supplies. “I’m going to have such a dreadful migraine tomorrow. I can just feel it.”
“At least we won’t need your magic for anything tomorrow,” Rainbow said, hopping onto the raft and picking up one of the oars. “We can just be lazy on the beach all we want. I’m certainly not interested in immediately turning around and heading to another island.”
“And I’d like to help,” Gyro said as she too climbed aboard. “I just can’t help all that much while I’m still skin and bones.”
Rainbow grinned. “See? Perfect excuse to take a little time off.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” Rarity said, stepping on as well. “We could all use the rest after these past few days.”
“Or weeks,” Gyro said.
“Or weeks,” Rarity amended. Then her magic pushed off of the sand, and the raft rode the retreating surf out into the water. Grabbing the other oar in her magic, she set it to the water and started to paddle. “Home free! So long, minotaurs!”
“It wasn’t nice knowing ya!” Rainbow exclaimed as well. “Don’t come visit!”
And then the current began to pull them out to sea, and the horrid island faded into the darkness of the night.
There was nothing but the gentle rocking of the waves in the middle of the night. There was no wind and nearly no noise, save for the clunking of the logs of the raft as the current batted them against each other. For Rarity, there was only the light of the moon, the stars, and her horn as her and Rainbow paddled across the sea.
Like the first time, they’d made good progress out to the halfway point, but then the currents started to fight against them. Still, out here, there was no way that the minotaurs could catch them. They were safe, and the island was little more than raised stone and trees behind them. Up ahead, Rarity could see the treetops of their home island, so close yet so agonizingly far away.
Rainbow Dash set her oar aside when they drifted out into the middle of the strait. “I need five,” she said, grunting and flopping down on the raft, dangling her left legs over the water’s edge. “Celestia, I’m gonna be so friggin’ sore tomorrow, holy crap…”
Rarity took the opportunity to rest her horn as well. “I’m simply happy that my horn didn’t split from all the exertion I forced upon it today,” she said. “The last thing I needed was to lose my magic for another week or so after all this.”
“Yeah, that’s good that you didn’t,” Rainbow said. Her legs lazily paddled in the water. “And soon I’ll be flying again! How awesome is that?”
Gyro shifted at the back of the raft, causing it to wobble slightly. Rarity turned to see her staring back the way they’d come, forehooves trailing in the water behind the raft. Smiling, she touched the earth pony on the shoulder. “Feels good to be gone, doesn’t it, darling?”
“You have no idea,” Gyro said. The corners of her mouth twitched. “If I never go back, it’ll be too soon.”
“Then it’s a good thing you won’t have to,” Rainbow said. “Our island’s in sight! We’re just two or three hours out!”
Rarity winced and looked at her oar. “Don’t remind me,” she said. “I’d nearly forgotten how miserable paddling out to that island had been. If only we had a better method of propulsion, we could be home much faster and a lot easier.”
“I’d suggest sails, but there’s no wind, so that wouldn’t even be helpful,” Gyro said. “You can’t find some way to make this thing move faster with your magic?”
“I’m… not sure,” Rarity said. “I never was a scholar or a mage. I just make dresses for a living.”
Gyro thought for a moment. “Is your telekinesis fine enough to move water?”
Rarity chuckled. “My telekinesis is fine enough to stitch thread and weave fibers. Water is easy!”
“So what if you pushed the water out of the way in front of the raft and raised it behind it?” Gyro asked. “That would make a gradient that would drive the raft forward using gravity. It’d be like going downhill without actually going downhill.”
Rainbow blinked. “You can do that?”
“I’m… surprised I didn’t think of that,” Rarity said, looking at the water. “If this works, Gyro, I’ll owe you a dress when we get back home.”
“I thought I was getting one for free anyways once this was all said and done,” Gyro teased. “For being a fellow survivor and everything.”
“Fine, two dresses, then,” Rarity said. “You’re going to drive me out of business if you keep this up!”
“She can have mine,” Rainbow said.
“She might fit yours now, but I doubt she will when she puts some weight back on.” Rarity stopped, blinked, and offered Gyro an apologetic smile. “Erm… I didn’t mean it in that way, darling. Earth ponies are just… thicker than pegasi.”
Gyro laughed. “I don’t care. Honestly, once I’m back to my old self, I could probably break Rainbow’s back if I stood on her. Earth ponies are dense.”
“You can’t be that dense,” Rainbow protested. “I mean, you can read!”
Rarity snorted in spite of herself and tried to cover her muzzle with a hoof. Gyro just stared at Rainbow for a few seconds before chuckling and shaking her head. “Right… knew it wouldn’t be too long before we ended up there.”
“Heh, sorry. Couldn’t help myself.” Sitting upright, Rainbow turned her attention to Rarity. “Well, Rares, want to give it a whirl?”
Rarity straightened her posture and shuffled toward the front of the raft. “No rest for my horn,” she grumbled. “But I suppose it’s better than exerting myself for another few hours.”
“If this works, you’ll be back at the island in under an hour,” Gyro said. “Trust me, I’m an engineer.”
“I thought you said you were just a mechanic!” Rainbow shouted.
“I never said that.”
“Girls, can you please be quiet,” Rarity hissed at them. “I’m trying to concentrate. Weaving manafibers tight enough to stop water from sliding through them isn’t as easy as picking up a brick, you know!”
Rainbow raised her hoof. “Actually, I don’t know, so…”
“You’re two words away from getting dumped into the water,” Rarity growled. Then, focusing her breathing, Rarity let her horn glow. The buildup was slow and deliberate at first, allowing her to save energy and not strain her horn to create the field. She felt the water pushing against her magic, trying to find a way through, but concentration and focus kept it out. Once she’d developed a large enough field, she angled it down and curled the edges up above the water to make sure that nothing would drain inside.
The shift in momentum was subtle at first, but after a few seconds, Rarity could feel it. The water she moved from the front of the raft she raised in the rear, causing the whole raft to pitch downwards by about twenty degrees. And, as Gyro predicted, gravity began to pull the raft down into the gap Rarity had made in front of it, only to raise again at the water she moved under it. Pretty soon, what started as a slow glide had turned into a quickening surf.
“I told you so,” Gyro said, and Rarity felt certain the mechanic was smirking. “It’s just making an infinite gradient over flat terrain. That kind of stuff is what magic’s for, right?”
“Somepony tell me when to slow down,” Rarity said through gritted teeth. “I’m keeping my eyes closed so I don’t get salt spray in my face and ruin my concentration.”
She acutely felt the raft shift over her magic as Rainbow moved a bit forward. “Well, we’re going a lot faster than just paddling would’ve gotten us. I give it like half an hour. Think you can keep it up for that long?”
“If I can’t, I’ll probably fall into the water,” Rarity said. “Please do catch me before that happens.”
Rainbow chuckled. “You can count on that,” she said.
Time passed, but to Rarity, it seemed like an eternity. At least once she started the raft moving it didn’t take much energy to maintain, but it was an exercise in her endurance. After all she’d used her horn for these past few days, she was starting to think she had more magical strength than she realized. When she’d originally suggested taking lessons from Twilight and Starlight, she’d meant it as a joke, but now she was feeling a little more serious about it. If she had the strength to pull this off, then imagine what she could do with actual magic!
“You can slow down, Rares,” Rainbow said, barely audible over the whipping wind. “We’re almost there.”
Nodding, Rarity tilted the magical field back a bit, raising the bow of the raft and allowing it to bleed off speed. When the salt stopped spraying her in the face, she opened her eyes and saw the trees of the island looming in front of them. Had they really gone that far that quickly? “How long was I doing that for?” she asked.
“Like I said, probably about half an hour,” Rainbow said. “You were pretty much in a trance for half of that. You unicorns are really good at meditating and crap.”
They had just enough momentum to ride the surf onto the beach. As soon as the logs scraped sand, all three ponies hopped off, and Rarity dragged the raft out of the swash. Once it was safely up the beach, she fell to her haunches and felt the sand under her hooves. “Home, sweet home!” she exclaimed. “Oh, how I missed you!”
“I wonder if Chirp kept the shelter clean for us,” Rainbow said. “Come on, let’s take a look!”
It was probably the best sleep Rainbow had gotten in a while.
As soon as they’d returned to their shelter last night, she’d felt all her fears and worries melt away. It was still standing, still in one piece, and still dry inside. Flopping down on that bed of moss and fronds was the greatest feeling in the world. No more stone, no more mountain grit and chilly air. Just greens and sand, providing a comfort she’d sorely missed these past few days.
When she finally woke up the next morning, the shelter was empty, but she could tell by the way the sand had been moved that two other ponies had slept inside it with her. She immediately felt a pang of guilt; poor Gyro had no bedding of her own to sleep on, and it looked like Rarity had tried to drag over some fronds to fashion a makeshift space for the starved mare to sleep. All that must’ve happened while Rainbow was asleep. After all, she knew that the moment her head had hit the metaphorical pillow last night, she had passed out. Rarity and Gyro had to fuss with getting some simple bedding made for the new mare while Rainbow was contentedly snoring away.
But speaking of the other mares, Rainbow wondered where they were. It looked like it was at least the late morning, judging by the angle of the light coming through the gaps in the walls. She’d already slept in late enough, so she forced herself to get up and out of bed. It’d be a good time to take stock of the island and see if anything changed since they’d left.
Of course, as soon as she sat up, her neck screamed in protest. Like she’d predicted the night before, everything was sore and hurt. At least now that they had the pegasus statuette, she could take a few days to rest and relax. After all the stress and crap they’d gone through on the minotaur island, Rainbow knew that her and the other mares deserved it.
She stepped out into the sun, and for once didn’t feel the urge to stay low and out of sight. The familiar crashing of the waves greeted her, accompanied by a subtle breeze and a choir of birds. Looking around the camp, she saw that their supplies were still sitting in a jumbled mess by the hut. Rarity and Gyro likely hadn’t felt it worth the time and effort to organize them yet. If they felt anything like how Rainbow felt, they probably just wanted to enjoy the peace and the sun. She did notice that Rarity had added a few more tick marks on the calendar plank. Now there were twenty-three marks instead of the nineteen that were on it when they’d left.
Rainbow simply regarded the plank for a time. They’d already been stranded for more than three weeks? At the rate things were going, Rarity’s proclamation of ‘forty notches until freedom’ was starting to seem a little optimistic. They’d be lucky if they were home before a hundred notches.
That was a scary thought. Three or four months until they got home? It was almost impossible to imagine… but that was what they were looking at. At least getting home in three months was better than not getting home at all.
Hoofprints led away from the camp and towards the pond, so Rainbow decided to follow them, figuring she’d find either Rarity or Gyro soon enough. And after a little bit of walking, that was exactly what she found. Sitting by the water’s edge was Gyro, snacking on star and sugar apples in a basket by her side. It was probably the liveliest Rainbow had seen the mechanic since they’d rescued her… was that only a day ago? Everything that’d happened at the sun temple had just been a dizzying whirlwind of events.
“How you feeling?” Rainbow asked, catching Gyro by surprise. The earth pony jumped but quickly calmed down once she got her wits back about her. Her muzzle was plastered with fruit juices, and Rainbow couldn’t help but chuckle. “Feels good to have all the food you could want again, right?”
Gyro smiled and wiped some of the juice off of her chin. “I think I’m full for the first time in forever,” she said, pushing the basket a few inches away. “I don’t want to eat too much or I’m pretty sure my stomach will explode. It’s probably the size of one of those coconuts by now.”
“Well, there’s plenty more food where that came from,” Rainbow said. She sat down by Gyro’s side and helped herself to a drink of water. “You know, when me and Rares first came here, we were afraid to drink the water because of disease and parasites and crap. We wanted to boil it first. You know, survival 101.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t give a damn.” She took another drink and grinned at Gyro. “I figure if the birds drink from this pond, then it’s gotta be fine. Plus, I’m pretty sure there’s a spring or a source for this pond somewhere underground. That means the water’s moving and it’s fresh, so we don’t have to worry about it too much. You’ll notice there’s not a whole lot of mosquitos here.” She flinched when she felt a prick at her flank. “Just stupid fucking green flies!”
Gyro whipped her tail at one that landed on Rainbow’s side to help her out. “They haven’t been bothering me,” she said. “I guess I’m too dry and stringy for them.”
“Well, consider yourself lucky,” Rainbow grumbled. After a moment to look around, she glanced back at Gyro. “Rarity go to the south hill for more food?”
“Yeah. She told me to just hang out here where the water’s at.” Gyro flopped onto her side, rubbing a hoof over her belly. “You girls will have to give me the tour when I can actually walk again.”
“You did pretty well hiking down the mountain,” Rainbow said. “But yeah, just rest up and crap. You don’t need to exert yourself or anything for a few days. There’s lots of food and lots of water. The most important thing is just getting you back up to strength before we try and hit up the next island.”
The mechanic nodded. “Yeah, sounds fair. I just hope that the other islands aren’t like the one we just came from.”
“If they are, that might mean there are other survivors out there,” Rainbow said. “Rares and I thought we were totally alone until we found you. Now I’m hopeful that you aren’t the only one.”
“Hopefully they’re better fed than I was,” she said. “I only lasted this long because I’m an earth pony and we’re really stubborn.”
“You remind me of Applejack,” Rainbow said. “Just without the country twang and obsession over apples.”
“I’m flattered, then,” Gyro said. “Maybe I’ll get to meet the rest of your friends in person when this is all over. Assuming we make it out of here alive, of course.”
“Well, we’ll make it out alive or die trying,” Rainbow joked. “Really, there’s only two ways this could go.”
Chuckling, Gyro closed her eyes. “You said it,” she agreed. “Hopefully it goes the way we want.”
“That’d be nice.” Standing up again, Rainbow glanced toward the south. “I’m gonna go find Rarity. Just hang tight, and if you see a macaw that’s really friendly, just tempt him with some food. His name’s Chirp and he’s pretty cool.”
“Chirp,” Gyro echoed. “What a clever name.”
“I know, I only come up with the best names.” Waving her good wing, Rainbow started off toward the south. “Seeya!”
Rarity hummed while she worked. After accomplishing all sorts of feats she once felt impossible with her magic, plucking fruit off of trees and bushes was easy by comparison. Plus, the gentle use of her horn didn’t aggravate her migraine that much. At the very least, it was something she’d been expecting, and because she’d been expecting it, it wasn’t so bad. Her head just pounded, but doing something helped her take her mind off it.
She couldn’t help but glance down at the ground under her hooves every once in a while. It was strange to imagine that the south hill housed a hidden temple deep inside. The key to their salvation and the source of the magic protecting the islands lied beneath her hooves, completely concealed from the outside world. Rarity was just amazed that she and Rainbow had ever managed to find it.
Still, they were one step closer to getting back home. For now, Rarity had left the statuette with Rainbow back at the camp. One day, they’d have to go and put it down below with the other, but Rarity didn’t feel like swimming through the tunnels just yet. That could wait until a later date.
The sweet taste of a fresh star apple washed over her tongue as she bit into one. She still couldn’t believe that her and Rainbow had managed to sail to the minotaurs’ island and live. Not only that, but they’d found exactly what they were looking for, and brought another survivor back with them. All in all, it went probably much better than Rarity had expected. Sure, she’d been scared witless for half of the time, but now that her and Rainbow and Gyro were back in one piece, she was simply amazed at everything she’d done. Would the other islands be this simple?
She dashed that thought aside with a shake of her head. The last thing she needed was to jinx herself now. The south and southwest islands would be a challenge in their own right. She just didn’t know what she could expect from them.
But that wasn’t something she felt like she had to worry about now. Right now, the important thing was waiting for Gyro to recover so they’d be at full strength for the next island they decided to tackle. That meant that they had some downtime before they had to move, and Rarity was intent on enjoying it as best as she could. And, admittedly, Rainbow torching the minotaurs’ canoes meant that she could sleep easier at night, at least for a time. The minotaurs would be too concerned with rebuilding and trying to bring in what they need to survive to launch an expedition across the strait to attack her and Rainbow. They were safe for the time being, and Rarity planned on capitalizing on it as best she could.
That didn’t prevent her from yelping and jumping in surprise when she felt something unexpectedly grab her. Blue covered her eyes as she was playfully wrestled to the ground by fuzzy hooves. She nearly ended up knocking over the basket of fruit she’d been collecting as she was pinned to the ground.
“You been busy, huh, Rares?” Rainbow asked, standing over top of Rarity. Even though she didn’t weigh all that much, she had positioned herself so that it would be difficult for Rarity to remove her. Not that Rarity minded all that much, though.
“Busy enough,” Rarity said. “Somepony had to do work while you were sleeping.”
“That just means I’ll be well rested for later,” Rainbow teased, lowering herself down so she was lying on top of Rarity. “You said we should celebrate after we got back to the island…”
Rarity felt herself blushing. “I did, didn’t I?” she asked, demurely fluttering her eyelashes. “That would be nice, I’d think.”
Rainbow leaned in and nuzzled Rarity’s cheek. “Sounds awesome to me,” she said. “I can’t wait to get started.”
“A little patience, darling, please,” Rarity said, staying Rainbow with a hoof. “I’m a lady, and I won’t stand to be ravished under the open sun like this. Besides, teasing aside, we do have work to do to continue our survival on this island.” At Rainbow’s disappointed look, Rarity stroked her chin. “Tonight, darling, I promise. For now, though, I wouldn’t mind sharing an appetizer with you…”
The teasing lilt in her voice made her intentions clear enough to Rainbow, who perked up at the offer. “Good, I need something to tie me over,” she said, moments before she locked her lips with Rarity’s. Rarity hummed in delight as she felt Rainbow’s tongue slip into her mouth, and she wrapped her legs around Rainbow’s body and pulled the smaller pegasus close. Firmly locked together, the two ponies twisted and panted as they struggled to find some way to press their bodies even closer against each other. When Rainbow tried to end the kiss, Rarity put one hoof behind Rainbow’s head and pressed their muzzles together again, earning a snort from the pegasus. Her flat teeth toyed with Rainbow’s tongue before she fought back and forced hers into Rainbow’s mouth, flipping the pegasus over as she did so.
And then she was on top, pinning Rainbow’s good wing to the ground as she used her weight and size to trap the smaller pegasus. She savored the moment of power she had on Rainbow, who squirmed slightly, and stroked her cheek. “Don’t like to be on the bottom, darling?”
Rainbow frowned and shifted, but couldn’t move her legs from where Rarity had pinned them. “I can’t really move,” she said. “Not without getting rough.”
“You wouldn’t marehandle your marefriend, would you?” Rarity asked. “I like to be treated gently and with care.”
“Kinda hard when you’ve got me pinned,” Rainbow said. “How do you expect me to—!”
Rarity’s muzzle silenced Rainbow before she could finish her thought. She put her passion and weight into the kiss, actually sliding Rainbow back an inch across the ground. It felt like the world around her was suddenly growing warmer, if that were even possible with the scorching summer sun already beating down on her back from high up in the sky.
When they broke it off, Rarity licked her lips and smiled. “You don’t have to worry about that, darling,” Rarity teased, bopping Rainbow on the nose. “I know how to take the reins when necessary.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and squirmed a little more. “You mind letting me go, Rares? I’m starting to get kinda uncomfortable.”
“Only if you say the magic word,” Rarity sang.
Sighing, Rainbow flopped her head back against the ground. “…Please?”
“Much better,” Rarity teased her, but she slid off to the side nonetheless. Rainbow stretched her legs and wing, grunting, and rolled onto her side. Her eyes locked on Rarity and she smirked. “Dang it, Rares, why do you gotta be so proper? I just really wanna go for a ride or several right here, right now. This is criminal, leading me on like this!”
“Oh, shush,” Rarity said, standing up. “The best things in life are worth waiting for.”
“Not when you keep teasing me with them.” Rainbow pouted and crossed her forelegs. “You better not tease me again tonight.”
Rarity pressed her neck against Rainbow’s in a hug. “I won’t, Rainbow, I promise. I’m looking forward to it as much as you are.” She allowed herself a warm smile. “I think it’s about time.”
Then, sighing, she went back to the berries. “I better get back to finishing this up. Chirp was around here earlier, but who knows where he’s flown off to. I would’ve thought that me collecting food would catch his attention, but apparently not. He’s off doing his own thing.”
“Yeah, it’ll be nice to find that little featherhead again,” Rainbow said. “I haven’t seen him since we left. I wonder what he’s been up to.”
“Probably the same old, same old.” Rarity dropped a few more sugar apples into the basket and stood up, moving to another tree further down. “I’ll see you back in camp for lunch, unless you want to help.”
Rainbow waved her good wing. “Nah, it’ll be fine. I’ll take care of some things around camp, our hut was looking a little shoddy. Plus I need to get new bandaging for my wing and all. Haven’t been able to do that since we left.” She spun in place and started back down the northern end of the hill. “See ya in a bit!”
Rarity hummed her goodbye and went back to work. Tonight, she’d finally give Rainbow what she wanted. And, truth be told, Rarity was looking forward to it too with nervous anticipation.
One way or another, it’d be something to remember. That, she was sure of.
Rainbow left the south hill feeling warm and fuzzy and happy. There was just something magical about spending time with Rarity that left her feeling that way. Even if it was originally just the stress of surviving and the desire for companionship that had drawn them together, Rainbow was happy with how things were turning out. Though she was fairly certain that Rarity was drawing things out before getting to the meat of the matter simply because she could.
She sighed and shook her head. Mares like Rarity were always tricky.
Along the way back to her hut, she stopped at one of the trees she usually collected vines from. With a little bit of searching, she managed to find a short and green vine, still soft and malleable without its hardened bark like the more mature ones. She bit onto the end and walked away from the tree, pulling and jerking her head from side to side, trying to encourage the vine to snap off of the tree. After some effort, she finally managed to bring it down, then coiled it up and hung it around her neck. Vining plants weren’t that common on their island, and immature ones were even less so, so Rainbow hoped she wouldn’t have to harvest them for much longer. At the very least, she knew she was about halfway healed, maybe more. Wing injuries usually healed in four to six weeks, and it’d been more than three weeks since they ended up on the island.
Maybe that was another thing to wait for. The next island would probably be a breeze if they went to it when she could fly again and Gyro was up to full strength. Besides, it’d probably take at least a week or two for Gyro’s ribs to start filling in. They had time to waste and relax under the excuse of recuperating and planning for the next excursion.
When she made it back to their camp, Rainbow finally got a chance to observe just what kind of state their shelter and supplies were in. Apart from some sand streaking the fronds and a few gaps in the walls and roof, their shelter was still in good condition. The gaps and holes could be easily fixed—they just needed to harvest more fronds from somewhere—so that didn’t worry Rainbow too much. And besides, she could tell that they had clear skies for another two days. The air was heavy and dry, so the high pressure system would keep any inclement weather away for the time being.
She shifted her attention to the pile of wood and scrap. It was still scattered across the sand from when the minotaurs had torn it apart some time ago, but at least it was mostly there. But the wood was also quickly becoming soggy and unusable with all the rain it’d collected since Rainbow and Rarity had dragged it out of the water. They’d need to make some kind of structure to at least shelter it from the worst of the rain in the future, otherwise it would start molding and rotting. Rainbow cursed herself for not thinking about that earlier, but they’d been concerned with other matters.
That got her thinking. They still had a bunch of treetops leftover from building their raft. Maybe they could drag those back to their camp and use them to build a structure like that to shelter the rest of the wood. Even better, since they knew how to make tools now, maybe they could fashion an actual wooden hut instead of something made out of palm fronds and vine. The permanency offered by that would be so much better than having to rely on a shelter that would probably fall apart in a really bad storm. Like if the island got hit by a hurricane or something.
Rainbow’s eyes wandered to the sky. Hurricane season wasn’t over yet. There was still a chance something bad like that could happen. They’d need to be prepared in case it did.
Rolling her shoulders, Rainbow twisted her neck around and started fiddling with the makeshift sling with her teeth. She managed to get one of the loops between her teeth and pulled, undoing the rough knot she’d made to hold it all in place. Once she’d done that, the whole wrap untangled and fell off of her body with a shake. Grimacing, Rainbow poked around her broken wing with her nose, letting it hang limp instead of clinging to her side.
Her feathers were all disheveled and the hair under the wing was matted and sweaty. But it didn’t really hurt anymore, which was good. She was half tempted just to leave it hanging free instead of rebinding it in an uncomfortable vine sling, but she knew that wouldn’t help her at all. Just because the bones might have mended, it didn’t mean that they’d reinforced enough for her to really use the wing yet.
At the very least, Rainbow figured it was about time she actually took care of herself and preened. She hadn’t been keeping up with in over these past few weeks because of her broken wing, but her feathers were a horrible mess. Starting with her good wing, she sat down in the sand and held the feathers up to her mouth, running them through her lips and gradually smoothing them back into shape. Preening her good wing wasn’t difficult, and it felt good to be listening to her instincts again. After a few minutes, she had a wing full of straight feathers and a small pile of broken blue feathers lying in the sand.
Then she turned to her broken wing. She preemptively clenched her jaw as she tried to stretch it. A few sharp stabs of pain nailed her along her wounded limb as she unfurled it for the first time in weeks, but she managed to stretch it out straight regardless. The joints snapped and popped until finally she held her trembling limb out perfectly straight at her side. Then, just as gently, she tried to turn it inwards to angle the feathers toward her face, but gave up with a hiss and a wince. Her bones weren’t mended enough for her to start twisting them like that.
Wing flaps surprised her, and she turned around to see Chirp flying down from a nearby tree. Grinning, Rainbow turned in place to face the macaw. “Chirp!” she exclaimed, lowering her head to be on eye level with the parrot walking across the sand. “There you are! I missed you, little guy. You miss me?”
Chirp chirped and paired it with something he muttered. It almost sounded like he was trying to speak a word or two but didn’t quite get it across clearly. Fluttering his wings a bit more, Chirp crossed the distance between him and Rainbow and immediately put his beak to the sand, exposing the back of his head.
Smiling, Rainbow nuzzled the bird’s feathery head. “Somebirdy wants scritches,” Rainbow cooed at the parrot, rubbing the soft red feathers with her nose or a wingtip. “Glad to see you haven’t forgotten about me.”
The macaw squawked and raised his head. Eyeing Rainbow’s disheveled wing, he walked across the sand and started surveying the messy blue feathers spread out in the sand. Then, to Rainbow’s surprise, he bent over and started running his beak through one, trying to preen it as best he could.
The sight was almost too much for Rainbow. Not one for acting girly and emotional, she was nevertheless touched by the macaw’s sweetness. “Heh, thanks, little guy,” she said, fanning her wing out a bit more for the macaw to more easily work on her feathers. “You’re an awesome bird, you know that? I might have to take you back to Equestria with us when we go back home.
Chirp quietly tittered a few times and crawled onto Rainbow’s wing to work on the next few feathers. While he worked, Rainbow laid her head down flat on the warm sand and decided to soak up a little sunlight. “I hope you’re not trying to impress me as a mate, though,” she teased. “I know birds do that sort of thing. I’m already taken, though, so sorry.”
The macaw didn’t seem to mind. He just continued to preen, stopping occasionally to scratch an itch or fluff his own feathers.
With a contented sigh, Rainbow closed her eyes. “It’s good to be back.”
With the excitement and danger of visiting the minotaurs’ island over with, getting back to work was almost like a reprieve for Rainbow. There wasn’t a reason to hide or sneak around. Once more, she could finally just walk around under the sun and enjoy the silver linings of being trapped out in the middle of nowhere. It really was like an island getaway vacation when she didn’t have to worry about finding enough to eat and drink and avoiding minotaurs to stay alive.
But the warm sun and clear blue skies were also a curse when it came time to actually do work and not just nap on the sand or play on the beach. There weren’t any clouds to provide any shade, and the island was incredibly humid. By the early afternoon, Rainbow was dripping with sweat and constantly held her good wing out at her side like a feathery radiator. And there was still a lot to do.
While Gyro took it easy near the spring and focused on recovering her strength, Rainbow and Rarity were busy almost until sundown. Once Rarity returned with another harvest of fruit, her and Rainbow started putting together a second shelter. Without the tools to add onto the existing one, at least not without tearing the whole thing down, they simply started scavenging planks from their salvage pile and erecting them into the frame of an even bigger hut. As Rarity had put it, it was “time to upgrade.”
Of course, a bigger hut meant more work and more material to build it. By Rainbow’s estimates, they had enough salvaged wood and nails to put together something twice as big as their current shelter. Palm fronds weren’t a problem at all, considering the island was covered with the trees, but if they ever wanted to build anything more, they’d need to collect the wood themselves. At least building the raft had proven to them that they could cut down trees and work with the wood using stone tools. If they happened to find more survivors on any of the other islands, they would certainly need to do so if they wanted to make huts for them as well.
By the time sundown arrived, Rainbow and Rarity had put together the frame of their new hut. At Rarity’s insistence, they’d shaped it like a blunted T, adding on a protrusion to the middle of the rectangle to form an entryway. It created a proper entrance to the structure, giving it a sort of refinement and purpose that made it seem more like a small house than a crude construction to keep the wind and rain out. As they finally decided to call it quits for the day, the two ponies took a moment to appreciate all they’d accomplished.
“Looks like we’re getting set to move in,” Rainbow said. “Looks kinda permanent, don’t you think?”
“I certainly don’t intend on tearing it down and rebuilding it like we did with our last one,” Rarity said. “The minotaurs already know we’re out here. If they ever come again, we’ll be forced to stand our ground and fight them off.”
Rainbow shook her head. “It’s not that, it’s just…” She looked over the care they’d taken in placing every joint and the extra effort that had gone into the entryway. “It’s like we’re admitting defeat. That we’re going to be here for the long haul.”
“I’m not sure I follow, darling.”
“Like… I don’t know.” Rainbow scratched her chin. “It was fine when it was just a little crappy hut we put up to keep the rain off of us and everything, because we weren’t planning on using it forever. It was just there to keep us dry. But this is like, something more. It’s not just a hut to keep us dry, this is the foundation of a home. We wouldn’t put all this effort into something if we weren’t planning on using it for a long time.”
Rarity furrowed her brow. “And why would that be a bad thing, Rainbow?” she asked. “We know that we’ll be here for some time. We aren’t going to simply pack up our things and be on a boat back to Equestria tomorrow. We could be here for… well, this could take months, Rainbow. I think it’s better to acknowledge that now instead of living in the vain hope that by not building a permanent structure and refusing to believe we’ll be here longer than a week, rescue will find us sooner.”
Rainbow’s ruby eyes fell. “I guess you’re right,” she said, pushing her hoof through the sand. “I just don’t want to believe it. I just want to go home and get on with my life. I don’t want to spend Celestia knows how long out here in the middle of nowhere. And it’s stupid, but some part of me is afraid that if we build this big hut thing, we’ll never go home. We’ll be stuck here forever and either die horribly or live the rest of our lives like hermits.”
Rarity sat down next to Rainbow and wrapped her tail around the pegasus. “Building something like this isn’t going to change anything,” Rarity said. “I think I understand what you mean, and I don’t blame you. I’m afraid that we’ll never come home, too. But so long as we keep trying, we’ll find a way back eventually.” She pointed her hoof at the frame in front of them. “Building a house isn’t going to change that. If anything, it will make the days more tolerable until we can finally go home. It will make our time on this island feel nowhere near as long if we can live in some level of comfort instead of the bare minimum.”
“I… I guess.” Rainbow chewed on her lip. “Whatever. It’s stupid.”
Rarity blinked. “It’s a valid concern, Rainbow. It’s not ‘stupid.’ You’re just worried about getting back home, and I understand that. There’s nothing more to it.”
Rainbow looked to the side and saw Rarity watching her with concerned eyes. Still, that was enough to make her smile. “Thanks, Rares,” she said, nuzzling the mare’s cheek. “Thanks for caring.”
“I really do care about you, Rainbow,” Rarity said in a soft voice. “You mean a lot to me, and we’re marefriends now, and, well…” She swallowed hard, blushing. “A-And I believe I… I love you.”
Rainbow blinked in surprise, her eyes locked with Rarity’s. Though the seamstress was blushing fiercely, her gaze was unwavering and determined. She did not look away, even as the seconds ticked on and the only thing to break the silence was the crashing of the waves on the shore.
“I…” Rainbow felt her tongue go dry and her chest begin to flutter. “You… you love me? Really love me?”
Rarity nodded. “It’s… taken me some time to admit it to myself, to be fair,” she said, finally abashedly looking away. “I needed to feel out our relationship… make sure it was more than just the heat and stresses of the moment. But after the temple, after everything we’ve been through together…” Her eyes sparkled in the sunlight as they flitted back to Rainbow’s face. “I felt like I was missing something. That feeling of knowing there’s somepony you care about and who cares about you more than anything else. And given all we’re still likely to face before we get home… I didn’t want to wait too long and then never get the chance to say it.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “So I love you, Rainbow. I just want you to know that.”
Rainbow’s tail swished across the sand. “I love you too, Rares,” she said. “I just didn’t know when it would be right. The right time to say it.” She shook her head. “I’m bad at the romance crap. But I love you too.”
Rarity leaned against Rainbow’s side. “You don’t have to be good about it, Rainbow,” she said. “Just honest.”
“Just honest?” Rainbow briefly smirked. “I’m no Applejack, but I think I can do that.”
“That’s all I can ask for.” She nosed the bottom of Rainbow’s chin, and Rainbow angled her head to present her muzzle to Rarity. Their lips met, only now it was for something new… something more.
The skies were getting dark by the time the three ponies settled down for dinner. Rarity went out to the pond to fetch Gyro and bring back some water in the jugs they’d salvaged from the other island, and then the three ponies went down to the beach to eat. There, they sat side by side by side with Rainbow in the middle, simply eating and watching the water rush in and out.
To Rarity’s surprise, Gyro finished eating first. Grimacing, the mechanic lowered the last of her sugar apple from her mouth and simply held it in outstretched hooves. It took her a moment before she dropped it back in the basket and frowned at the sand. “I can’t eat anymore,” she grumbled. “My body’s still not used to food. You’d think after starving for a month it’d want nothing more than for me to gorge myself to my fill.”
“Yeah, just be careful with it,” Rainbow said. “Eating too much can actually kill you. You just gotta get back into it a little bit at a time. Don’t rush.”
Rarity pursed her lips. “Heavens, I’m so sorry for you,” she said. “That must be torturous.”
“The first two weeks were the real torture,” Gyro said. “After that, it just felt like I had a hole in my gut. It didn’t hurt anymore at least.” She swallowed hard and sucked at her lips. “I thought that meant I was going to die soon…”
Rainbow nudged the earth pony. “Hey, don’t worry about that crap anymore. You’re safe and with friends now. Let’s just keep looking forward, not backwards, ‘kay?”
Gyro dipped her head. “I’ll try…”
Rarity and Rainbow ate a little more before they both decided they’d had their fill for the night. After drinking some water to wash down the fruit, Rarity carried everything back to their camp. When she returned, she found Rainbow and Gyro exactly where she’d left them, watching the waves ripple over the dimming sea.
As she settled down, Gyro flicked an ear at the tickling breeze coming in off the water. “So, you two have lived on this island by yourselves this whole time?” the mechanic asked. “With nopony else?”
“We were lucky,” Rarity said, bobbing her head. “Well, lucky in the regards that there weren’t any minotaurs on this island to contend with.”
“And just plain lucky that we survived in the first place,” Rainbow said. “A bit of the Concordia’s hull hit our lifeboat as it took the plunge and broke it open. Somehow we didn’t die when we hit the water. And then Rarity managed to get to me while I was still unconscious from getting my wing broken and the waves washed us ashore.”
“I just did what I had to,” Rarity said. “I paid for it by splitting my horn, but it’s largely fixed now. The chip in the tip should go away in another week.”
Rainbow smirked. “Which you’ve handled surprisingly well,” she said. “I thought having a chip in your horn would’ve driven you insane. It’s probably not fashionable, right?”
Rarity pouted and huffed. “I’d like to believe that I know when to stop being dramatic and focus on the actually prominent issues facing us.”
“Yeah, you’d like to believe.”
Blue magic scooped up a pony-sized pile of sand and floated it above Rainbow’s head. “You don’t know how tempted I am, darling,” she said.
Rainbow stuck her tongue out at her. “Do it. I’ll just cover you in sand then. And unlike me, I know you actually care.”
Gyro giggled as the two mares stared each other down. “You two are so cute together,” she said, covering her muzzle with a bony hoof. Then she stopped and cleared her throat. “I mean… I hope I’m not reading that wrong…”
Rarity and Rainbow blinked, and Rarity dumped the sand back onto the beach. “That obvious, was it?” Rarity asked.
“I’m not judging!” Gyro quickly defended herself, throwing up a hoof. “I was just wondering, that’s all.”
Rainbow leaned against Rarity and grinned. “We’re two awesome ponies,” she said. “It’d be a crime or something if we didn’t hitch up.”
The seamstress rolled her eyes and patted Rainbow’s back. “You’d be surprised how much the two of us have in common beneath the surface. That, and given the stresses of just surviving this whole ordeal, it was almost guaranteed to happen.” She nuzzled the back of Rainbow’s head, earning a protest from her marefriend. “And Rainbow can be surprisingly cute and adorable when she doesn’t have her guard up.”
“Rarity!” Rainbow exclaimed, pouting. “That’s not true at all!”
“Mmmm… I’m sure.” Rarity nibbled on Rainbow’s ear and gave it a slight tug. She could almost feel Rainbow beginning to blush. Some part of her wondered if she should feel bad for teasing her marefriend like that. But then again, what were marefriends for?
Judging by the smile on Gyro’s face, it was working. “I certainly think you two are fit for each other,” she said. “Between the two of you, I’m certain you could conquer anything.”
“It’s how we’ve survived this long,” Rainbow said, pulling away from Rarity’s nuzzles and cuddles and shooting her a frown. Her gaze softened a bit when she added, “I didn’t think it at first, but after three weeks of this crap, she’s proven really reliable and helpful. And mostly free of complaint.” She shot Rarity a look. “Mostly.”
Rarity scoffed. “Can you blame me for at least indulging myself a little? This is hardly the situation I’d call ideal. I feel like I’m owed a lot more complaint time than I’m actually using, given everything I’ve had to suffer through.”
“I’ve certainly done my share of complaining,” Gyro said. “Nopony was around to hear it, though. Given where I just came from, though, this is a tropical paradise.”
“We’ll see how long the novelty lasts,” Rarity said. “While I certainly enjoy the island’s beaches and pleasant weather, the flies and absence of civilization take their toll on you. I’m half tempted to spend an entire week combing the island over and killing every fly I can find.”
Rainbow nodded along. “If you thought not eating was bad, wait until you’re the one being eaten. At least it’s better than the minotaurs, though.”
“Sure.” Gyro frowned out across the water. “How do we know they won’t come for us? They saw us escape.”
“I burnt their boats before we got to the temple,” Rainbow said. “I don’t remember if I told you or not. But it’ll be some time at least before they decide to head this way. Besides, they hardly ever stop here. They only landed twice in the twenty days or so that we were here.”
“That we’re aware of,” Rarity amended. “And while I didn’t approve of Rainbow destroying the minotaurs’ livelihood—”
“Why not?” Gyro interrupted. “They killed and ate all my friends. They deserve what they get.”
Rarity momentarily fidgeted as she found herself at a loss for words. “Well… I can understand where you’re coming from, at least. But I didn’t want to leave these islands a murderer.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to get back home,” Gyro said. “Even if that means killing a few minotaurs. They’ve killed a bunch of us already, so I don’t mind evening the score.”
“We’ll get home,” Rainbow insisted. “Don’t worry about that. And we’ll just deal with this stuff as it happens. Hopefully we won’t have to kill anybody.”
Rarity nodded along, but that dark cloud hovered over her thoughts. Could they really get out of this with their consciences intact? Or would they have to fight and kill to survive?
She really hoped they wouldn’t have to. She wasn’t sure if she could bring herself to do it.
The sun dipped below the horizon, and soon nighttime drowned the island.
Rarity watched the stars come out, one by one, lying on her back in the sand. The damp sand down by the water clung to her coat and worked its way into her mane, but she didn’t care. She hadn’t cared about such trivial things in a long time. When the sand was everywhere, it didn’t make any sense to try and pretend you could escape it.
Conversation between the three mares wandered listlessly from topic to topic. From childhood memories to schoolyard crushes to weird family traditions, they covered a small sampling of nearly anything. To Rarity, it almost felt normal. A thousand miles away from civilization, and girl talk was still girl talk. Even Rainbow would chime in here or there, alleviating some of the conversational workload off of Rarity’s and Gyro’s shoulders.
After a minute of silence, Gyro launched the next topic with a surprising question. “If you had only one thing to eat while we were stuck here, what would it be?”
Rainbow’s ears perked. “Of course, the starving mare is talking about food.”
“Shut up,” Gyro said, chuckling. “It’s been on my mind a lot, lately. Can you blame me?”
“I can’t imagine the cravings I would have suffered had I been in your position.” Rarity grunted and rolled her shoulders, hollowing out a more comfortable form-fitting space in the sand. “Anything to eat would’ve been preferable to nothing.”
“No, no, I’m not talking about if you went through what I did,” Gyro said. “Like, let’s say we were trapped on this island for another year.”
“Heavens forbid!”
“Yeah, sucky, but whatever. What I mean is, if you had to eat only one thing the entire time here, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, what would it be?”
Rarity frowned up at the night sky. “That’s a good question. There’s a lot of dishes I like, but I’m not sure what would be my favorite.”
“I’d want mushrooms,” Gyro said. “Sautéed with some olive oil, salt, pepper, maybe a little garlic too.”
“Mushrooms?!” Rainbow seemed shocked. “Out of everything you could ask for, you’d just want mushrooms? That’s crazy, girl! At least treat yourself!”
“There’s nothing I like better,” Gyro said. “I could eat them all day. My family was poor, but growing up, we always had mushrooms. And it’s a good thing I liked them, because I was SOL if I didn’t.” Rarity saw the mechanic smack her lips together on the other side of Rainbow. “Damn, now I really want some. I really shouldn’t have asked this question.”
“My mom always made this really awesome pasta and potato sandwich on sourdough,” Rainbow said. “A couple of those a day would be awesome.”
“Don’t take offense, Rainbow, but that sounds absolutely horrid.” Rarity shuddered. “I think I’d be sick of that by the end of the first week.”
“Oh yeah? What about you then, Miss High Fashion?”
Rarity thought for a moment. “A fresh piada straight from Bitaly,” she said. “Lettuce, cheese, peppers, and slathered in a rose sauce… do I get to add a wine to this as well?”
“Why not?” Gyro said with a shrug. “I’m curious how a pony like you is going to pick between a thousand different fancy wines.”
“Hrmm…” That was a good observation. Rarity had sampled wines from all over the globe—how could she possibly choose just one? But then she remembered the one she’d had before this whole journey started. “A Premier Cru Château Sigalas-Rabaud. It has good memories.”
Rainbow blinked. “A what?”
“It’s a type of sauvignon-blanc,” Rarity said. “I prefer the ones made in more tropical climates. They have a sweeter, fruitier taste. It’d pair nicely with my piada and the warm climate we’ve all found ourselves in.”
“I’ll pretend I know what you mean ‘cuz I don’t drink wine.”
“Hear, sister,” Gyro said, and the two mares bumped hooves. “I like gin.”
“Gin?” It was Rarity’s turn to be surprised. “I wouldn’t have taken a mechanic to be a gin enthusiast.”
Gyro raised an eyebrow. “What, you think I’d be pounding back beer and whiskey like my fellow grease monkeys?”
“To put it one way, yes.” Rarity shook her head. “I apologize, I just wasn’t expecting it. At least you have better taste than Rainbow.”
“Hey!” Rainbow crossed her forelegs over her chest, and her wings paddled some sand aside. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you think Boars Light and Blue Ribbon are alcohol.”
“They are!” Rainbow sat upright, forced to defend her honor. “They’ve got a percentage on the can and everything! That’s alcohol!”
“Anything below five percent isn’t booze,” Gyro said. “I’ve had root beer stronger than that.”
“Oh yeah? Bet I can shotgun a can faster than you!”
“Yeah, because you’re only drinking water with a little bit of liquid wheat in it.”
Rarity chuckled but decided to intervene before it got too far out of hand. “I feel like I should step in before you two ladies start measuring your nonexistent dicks against each other.”
Rainbow blinked. “Okay, that is not a word I ever expected to hear out of your mouth, Rares.” Smirking, she lied down on her side and put a hoof on Rarity’s chest. “‘Dick?’ You don’t have a fancier term for it?”
“You must be rubbing off on her,” Gyro teased.
Rarity huffed and gently pushed Rainbow away. “‘Penis measuring contest’ doesn’t have the same degenerate ring to it, I feel. Besides, I felt like I should speak in words that you’d understand.” She stuck her tongue out at Rainbow and winked, making the other mare roll her eyes.
“There’s another one,” Rainbow said. “Jeez, Rares, you’re full of them tonight.”
“Am I?” Rarity feigned looking around. “I’ve been stuffed before, Rainbow, but I don’t see any here. Unless you have a secret you’re not telling us.”
The reaction on Rainbow’s face made that comment worth it. “You… holy crap, Rarity, you’re not for real, are you?”
“I certainly hope you didn’t think I was an amateur at this,” Rarity said. “Rainbow, I’ve seen a lot of stallions over the years. Many tied to the fashion industry are decidedly effeminate, it’s true, but you meet a lot of ponies at high profile parties. And it’s hard to build a steady relationship when you have paparazzi breathing down your neck 24/7, so many of us… fit in a few flings here and there, so to speak.” She blushed a little bit, but girl talk was meant for stuff like this. Stuff she wouldn’t talk about with stallions or anypony outside of close friends. “I’m fairly certain I’ve seen the most stallion junk out of the three of us, unless I’m misreading you, Gyro.”
“You’re not,” Gyro grumbled. “I’m just a sexually frustrated mare who couldn’t catch a dick in a glory hole if she tried. And even if I did like mares, it’s obvious you two are… taken.”
Rarity and Rainbow exchanged looks. “True enough,” Rarity said. “At least being willing to play ball for both teams has its benefits.”
“I just don’t like dick,” Rainbow said. “Never been interested.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Gyro said. “Vaginas are nasty. As a mare with one, I can say that vaginas are nasty. I wouldn’t want to stick my nose near one.”
Rarity chuckled and went back to looking at the stars. “Oh, Celestia, how did we get here,” she wondered aloud.
“That one’s simple,” Rainbow said. “We were stupid enough to jump off an airship in a hurricane and lucky enough to survive.”
“I meant on this topic, but thank you for the reminder, darling.”
Gyro’s mouth opened wide as she let out an enormous yawn. “Yeah, well, it happens.” Grunting, she rolled over and paused for a few moments to gather her strength before standing up. “It’s getting late and I don’t have the energy to stay awake much longer. I get exhausted so easily now.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Rarity said. “If you want to, use our bedding in the small hut. It will likely be better than sleeping on the sand.”
The mechanic blinked. “But wouldn’t I be taking your bedding?”
Rarity shot Rainbow a look and got almost the same look in response. “We… likely won’t be needing it, tonight.”
Gyro mouthed an ‘Oh’ and smiled. “Well, thank you. You two have fun,” she added with a wink. Slipping into the shadows, she was gone in a few seconds, leaving Rainbow and Rarity alone on the beach.
When they were sure she was gone, Rainbow grinned and sat up. “Well, Rares? Ready to have some ‘fun?’”
Rarity likewise smiled and forced herself to sit up. “Of course, darling,” she purred. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
The sand down by the water was warm and mushy from the waves rolling in and out. Rarity could feel it separating and sliding around with every step she took. Clumps of moist sand would cling to her fetlocks, only for the next wave to wash them away.
Rainbow walked by her side, wing over her back. Together, they leisurely walked the perimeter of the island under the silver glow of the moon and the fiery twinkling of distant stars. It was a clear night, and the waters around the island looked like crystal. The air was warm, coupled with a gentle breeze. With Rainbow’s feathery wing draped over Rarity’s shoulders, it was the perfect night to simply sit outside and do nothing.
But the two ponies weren’t just getting into a whole lot of nothing. There were innumerous little touches, nuzzles, and squeezes along the walk around the island. They talked, they giggled, they were happy. Occasionally, they’d stop by the water and kiss for a few seconds, then turn and stand side by side as they looked out over the dark infinite around them. Like so many times since they first washed up on the island all those weeks ago, Rarity felt like it was just her and Rainbow, all alone in an infinite starry void.
Eventually, their walk took them to the lagoon. They had to cut over the west arm of the south hill, given that the beach turned into craggy rocks around the hidden entrance to the shrine under the island, but soon enough they found themselves standing at the edge of pearly white sands. In the moonlight, the perfect beach looked like fresh snow.
Rarity felt like she was trespassing on some holy place as her and Rainbow walked to the water’s edge. Their hoofprints tore up the perfect sheen of the sand, ruining what would be an otherwise picturesque moment. But those thoughts were drawn out of her mind when her and Rainbow sat down side by side at the edge of the swash zone, just barely out of reach of the lapping waves.
“This place is beautiful,” Rarity said. “I haven’t been back here since long before we left for the other island.”
“We’ve been busy,” Rainbow said. “But yeah. It’s weird how awesome this island can be if we just ignore all the bad stuff.”
Rarity leaned against Rainbow’s shoulder, even though she was still bigger than her marefriend. “Ignore all the bad stuff,” she echoed, her thoughts spreading out. “It’s moments like these that make me think, and I don’t know what to make of them.”
“Make of what?” Rainbow’s eyebrow climbed up her head. “You… aren’t thinking of staying, are you?”
It was a tough question for Rarity to answer—surprisingly difficult when confronted with a view like this and the happy companionship of the mare at her side. “I want to go back to Equestria,” Rarity said. “I miss civilization and its comforts. I miss fashion and our friends. I miss my job and our hometown. But there have been days when I just wanted nothing more than to… ball it all up and throw it away.”
She frowned out over the waters of the lagoon. “Dismantle my fashion empire or sell it off and be done with all the publicity and celebrity shoots and… and bullshitting it takes to advance in that world. The asses you have to kiss just to stay ahead of the game. The ponies you have to smile and wave to when you want nothing more than for them to just go away.”
Rainbow watched as Rarity’s face contorted between several conflicting emotions. “In a way, this whole thing has been a vacation for me. My schedule was completely booked from the moment I arrived in the Confederacy to the moment I left. I had to channel my inner Twilight and block out six hours of sleep each night before I had to get back to work. Apart from the leisurely flights there and back, I would have had no free time to just live and enjoy myself. And then we ended up here and I haven’t had to deal with any of it. Nothing at all.” Her lips trembled as she fought between the urges to smile, frown, or simply cry. “Am I a bad pony for enjoying this? For part of me wanting it? What am I?”
“You’re not,” Rainbow insisted. She leaned back against Rarity, nudging her into the embrace of her wing and dusting her lips over the unicorn’s cheek. “You’re just stressed, Rares. That’s all there is to it. It’s the craziness of trying to do what we gotta to survive here. And we will survive, okay?”
Rarity dipped her head. “Stress… okay.” Her eyes met Rainbow’s and she blinked back a confused tear. “But it’s… it’s not like me,” she insisted. “I feel like even thinking about this means I’m giving up on home. That I’m content to live out the rest of my days like a hermit on this tiny island and eat nothing but fruit with ‘apple’ in the name and coconuts. I don’t want that, but I don’t want to go back to what I came from, either. I nearly broke these past few months.”
Rainbow blinked. “Broke? What do you mean?”
“You don’t read the tabloids, right.” Rarity sighed and pawed at the sand. “The tabloids are running smear campaigns on me. But that in itself doesn’t mean anything, right? They do that to everypony. They make up things about us that are blatantly untrue just to get ponies to read them. But they started accusing me of using my charm and beauty to sleep my way to the top. How else would you describe such a meteoric rise in just a few short years?
“That isn’t what bothers me, though,” she continued. “It’s the mail. I get letters from ponies who call me names, say they’re sickened with me and don’t want anything to do with me or my company—over a lie published in a paper that spoon-feeds its own feces to the idiots who buy it! These ponies take what they read at face value and insult me and accuse me of betraying their trust and the trust of Equestria as an Element. And the paparazzi are always camped outside of my homes, even when I’m out of town, just waiting for a chance to snap a picture of me deep-throating some executive for capital to launch a new line or something like that! I haven’t had privacy in forever, and I’m just… so tired of it all!”
Rarity didn’t even know that she was heaving and panting or that tears were staining her cheeks until Rainbow hugged her and wiped them away with a wingtip. Trembling, Rarity closed her eyes and leaned into Rainbow’s embrace, sniffling and hiccupping—but not crying.
Eventually, Rainbow tilted Rarity’s head back and planted her lips against hers. There wasn’t any tongue, nothing passionate, but the mere act made Rarity rein in control of her nerves. Placing her hooves on Rainbow’s chest, she tried to slide in as close to the pegasus as she could, synchronizing their breathing and letting their lips and teeth gently tug at each other. With a sniffle, she opened her eyes and broke off the kiss, her breathing tentative and restrained.
It was Rainbow who drew her back in. Pivoting about to face Rarity head on, she slid closer until their chests almost touched. “You’re stronger than all that, Rares,” she said. “Idiots aren’t worth your time. You just gotta ignore them and keep doing your thing.” Smirking, she added, “There’s a reason why I don’t read the tabloids, and it’s not because I’m just an oblivious idiot who doesn’t think about them. Spitfire gave me that talk the day they made me a full member of the Bolts. If you never read what’s in the tabloids, they can’t get you, and at the end of the day that’s just what they want, because it gives them more crap to write about.”
“It’s just… so hard when it’s everywhere,” Rarity mewled. “Can you blame me for wanting an out?”
“No, but I know you, Rarity. This is what you’ve always wanted. And I’ll clip my wings if a bunch of anonymous bullies force you to retire.” She gently jabbed a hoof into Rarity’s chest. “We’re gonna get out of here, and you’re gonna get back to the job and do it better than ever. And nopony is gonna be able to touch you after all this.”
That brought a little smile to Rarity’s muzzle. “I… You’re right,” she said. “I just need to keep being myself and not let anypony change that. Thank you, darling.”
Rainbow answered with a kiss instead of words. Moaning and grunting, the two mares drew each other close as they exchanged kisses and nuzzles. Rarity’s heart started fluttering, and she felt tingles of electricity crawling up and down her skin as their passion grew more and more heated. Within minutes, it reached a climax, a point of no return where both ponies knew what waited for them if they proceeded further.
They broke the kiss just long enough to catch their breath. Then, smiling, Rainbow leaned in and rubbed noses with Rarity. “You ready?” she whispered. Those two words held so much in them: anticipation, hope, anxiety. They were a mirror of Rarity’s own feelings.
Rarity kissed Rainbow’s nose and took her hooves in her own. “Take your time,” she said softly. “Don’t feel rushed on my account.”
Rainbow chuckled. “I may like going fast, Rarity, but even I know when it’s time to slow down.” They kissed one more time, and then Rainbow put her hoof on Rarity’s chest, gently forcing the unicorn to lie down. Crawling on top of her, she pinned Rarity to the ground, their ragged tails twisting together. “I love you, Rarity.”
Rarity squeezed her legs against Rainbow’s flanks, holding her in place. “I love you too, Rainbow,” she said, locking eyes with her marefriend. She brushed a lock of yellow hair out of Rainbow’s face and smiled.
Then she gasped as Rainbow nipped at her neck and started working her way down, down, down…
The sun was still low in the sky by the time Rainbow woke up the following morning. It took her more than a few dazed moments to sort through her memories and remember where she was and how she got there. Little by little, the haze over her mind lifted, and she remembered the events of the night before.
She groaned and sat up, letting sand fall off her shoulders and out of her messy, tangled mane. By her side, Rarity didn’t look much better, but at least she slept with a smile on her muzzle. The sand all around them was tossed up and turned over, a testimony to what had happened last night. Even a lingering scent occasionally tickled Rainbow’s nose, glued to the hairs around her muzzle.
Rarity stirred in her sleep, humming and squeaking and making those other strange noises that only she made. Smiling, Rainbow lied back down on the sand and wrapped her forelegs around her marefriend, gently drawing her closer against the sand and into a cuddly hug. Nosing through Rarity’s mane, she hummed and kissed her head, fluttering her eyes shut and simply enjoying her scent.
The good memories of the previous night came trickling back to Rainbow. It’d been everything she’d hoped for… and more. She knew she’d remember that night fondly for quite some time. Hopefully Rarity felt the same.
Eventually, one sapphire eye opened, squinting at the dawn light. “Mmmrrrrr… Rainbow?” Rarity mumbled, her brain struggling to wake up. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, kissing Rarity’s head again. “I’m up.”
“Mmmm. Good.” She felt lips peck at the base of her neck and Rarity squirmed into a better position. “Hold me closer, darling.”
Rainbow obliged, finding some way to pull the seamstress even further into her downy embrace. They snuggled together on the beach for a long time, listening to the crashing of the waves around them and the chirping and calling of the birds in the trees. Little by little, the island woke up, and little by little, Rainbow felt the itchiness brought on by laziness gnawing at her limbs. Given that she really had to relieve herself as well, she finally wormed her way out of Rarity’s embrace and shambled over to a nearby tree.
When she returned, she found Rarity lying on her stomach, chin in the sand, watching a pair of sand crabs fight along the water’s edge. Padding across the beach, Rainbow found herself at Rarity’s side and smiled down at her. “Enjoying the show?”
“It could use a dramatic orchestra and some better special effects,” Rarity grumbled. One by one, she drew her limbs in until they were coiled at her sides, then stood up and shook a smattering of sand off her coat. She yawned once and arched her back, then turned to Rainbow. “My legs still feel like jelly. I needed that, apparently.”
Rainbow snickered. “I’m glad I was up to snuff for a diva like you.”
Rarity’s horn flared for a moment as she gave Rainbow’s shoulder a light telekinetic shove. “You obviously need practice,” she said, smirking as she walked past the pegasus. “But it was good. Thank you, Rainbow.”
“So long as I didn’t disappoint,” Rainbow said, falling in at Rarity’s side as they made their way back to their camp. “You’ll have to teach me some of those moves. Where did you learn all that?”
“I thought I made it evidently clear last night when talking with you and Gyro that I’ve had plenty of time to practice. For some of the better ones, thank Twilight.”
Rainbow stopped. “…Twilight?!”
Rarity blinked, then chuckled and shook her head. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean in that way. I just meant that… well, she has a library that rivals the one in Canterlot, right? Sometimes you have to… ask for help to find what you’re looking for.”
“Ohhhhhh…” Rainbow shook her head and caught up to Rarity. “Okay, that makes a lot more sense. I was gonna say, I didn’t know that you and Twilight had a… thing.”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. I love the mare to death, but I want love and passion in a relationship, not a paranoid and nervous mare trying to woo me over with relationship advice she’s reading from a book she brought to our date for that exact purpose.”
“Heh. True that.”
“I mean, she’s sweet and all,” Rarity continued, stopping for a brief moment at the top of the south hill to pick a sugar apple off its plant. “And I have no doubt that someday she’ll find someone who will make her very happy. She just needs to learn to get out there and not do everything from behind the cover of a book.”
“I just assumed she’d be single forever,” Rainbow said. “I wonder how she feels having Starlight around the castle. Ponies just fall into that mare’s lap.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t let it go to her head. Twilight is understanding like that.”
They made it back to their camp and approached the hut, within which they could hear heavy snoring. Rainbow took a moment to cover her muzzle and suppress a laugh before turning to Rarity. “Gee, you’d think Big Mac was sleeping in there or something. She’s so loud!”
“Astonishingly louder than you,” Rarity teased.
“Hey!” Rainbow frowned. “I don’t snore… loudly!”
Rarity winked at Rainbow. “How would you know? You’ve never been awake when it happens.”
“Shut up.”
Rarity sighed and took a step closer to the door. “Should we wake her up? She deserves her rest, don’t you think.”
“Yeah, probably. I—!” Rainbow cut herself off and wrinkled her nose. “Oh wow, that smell!”
Rarity blinked. “She hasn’t bathed since we saved her from the temple, has she?”
Rainbow emphatically shook her head. “Nope. I don’t know how we didn’t notice it earlier. We must’ve been too busy with other crap and trying not to die to the minotaurs.”
“The hut probably concentrated the odor,” Rarity said with a shudder. Straightening her shoulders, Rarity let her horn flare to life and stuck her head through the door. “Alright, that’s it, missy!” she shouted, and moments later, she dragged Gyro out of the hut with a startled yelp from the mechanic. “You need to take a bath! You smell like rotting cabbage!”
Gyro flailed and struggled in the sand as Rarity dragged her toward the beach, magic wrapped around her tail. “Ack! What did I do?! What’s going on?!” Her eyes locked with Rainbow’s and she frantically clawed at the sand. “Rainbow! Help! She’s gonna kill me!”
Rainbow instead fell down laughing, hooves kicking at the sand as she rolled around. “Oh, Celestia, this is too good!” she shouted between giggles, watching as Gyro’s four hooves tore four shallow lines in the damp sand as Rarity approached the water. Her laughter redoubled when Rarity flung the mare about ten feet into the surf and through a breaking wave. Moments later, Gyro’s head popped out of the water, and the two mares started shouting at each other from across the waves, at least until another knocked Gyro down again.
Shaking her head, Rainbow stood up and trotted down to the water after them. She could already tell that Gyro would at least keep things lively until they managed to get back home. And really, with nothing but long and hot days on the horizon for the foreseeable future, that was a godsend.
Gyro frowned as she sat at the edge of the swash, blue eyes scowling over the ocean. Water dripped from her mane, her muzzle, and nearly every inch of her body. She looked like a drowned cat. Considering her treatment at Rarity’s hooves, it wasn’t too hard to believe.
Rarity hummed to herself as she worked. She’d taken a coconut husk and had turned it into a makeshift loofah to scrub the grit and filth out of the mechanic’s smoky gray coat. Gyro gently rocked back and forth as Rarity worked, deadpan expression glued to her face the entire time.
The husk floated over to the water, where Rarity washed it out in the foam of a wave. “I would’ve expected you to be more thankful,” Rarity said. “You were positively filthy!”
“I would’ve liked it more if you’d just let me go to the water and wash myself out instead of throwing me in,” she grumbled. “You could’ve asked nicely.”
That much was true, Rarity knew, but her instincts had taken over upon smelling that concentrated, revolting smell. “You had all day to wash yourself out yesterday after spending who knows how long living in your own filth. If I didn’t do something, I would’ve feared that you’d start spreading the plague.”
“Gee,” Gyro grumbled, “thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it too much, G,” Rainbow said from where she lounged a little further up the white sand. “That’s just Rares overreacting and crap. Dirty things scare her.”
“Then I’m amazed you’ve lasted this long,” Gyro said to the unicorn.
“Salt and sand cannot be avoided, no matter how much I try,” Rarity said. “But we can at least stay clean.”
“She’s focusing all her energy she would’ve spent on complaining about the sand into her hate for you being dirty,” Rainbow chimed in. “Don’t take it personally.”
Rarity set aside the makeshift loofah and grabbed their brush and comb. “If only we had soap or shampoo,” she muttered to herself. A white hoof pointed to the waves. “Go wash off in the seawater and then I’ll brush you down.”
Gyro grumbled, climbed to her hooves, and staggered down into the water. “Being dirty doesn’t bother me,” she said as she splashed into the waves. “I’m a mechanic. I’m usually covered in coal dust and grease for days on end. There’s a saying that you’ll never find an airship engineer with a white pillowcase.”
Rarity’s face twisted through several different levels of revulsion and disgust. “That’s… you can’t…”
“Pfffhahaha!” Rainbow hollered and slapped the ground. “Good job, girl, you broke her!”
“Serves her right.” Gyro lowered herself to her stomach and let the next wave splash over her. She blew a cloud of droplets from her nostrils and shook out her short mane before returning to Rarity’s side. “Can we hurry this up? The water’s really cold and I don’t have any fat left to stay warm.”
Rarity blinked and wiped some sweat from her brow. “…Right. This should only take a few minutes, and the sun will take care of the rest. Plus, a gray coat like yours will help you hold and retain the heat.”
“Good, because I’m pretty sure it’s almost as hot out here as it is in an airship’s boiler room and I’m still shivering.” She closed her eyes and tried to still her shoulders while Rarity gently went over her coat with the brush. “You got any food? I need to eat.”
“You always need to eat,” Rainbow teased.
“I mean…” Gyro pointed to the gaunt spaces between her ribs. “Can you blame me?”
“Not at all.” Rolling back onto her hooves, Rainbow turned around and trotted back toward their campgrounds. “I hope coconut and fruit sounds good, because that’s pretty much all we got.”
“I’ll snack on some of the grass around the spring later if I want something different,” Gyro called back just before Rainbow disappeared through the tree line. After a moment, she chuckled and added, “You girls haven’t found any mushrooms around here, I take it?”
“If we did, I certainly wasn’t going to eat them,” Rarity said. “Who knows if they’re poisonous or not.”
Gyro shrugged. “I mean, I’m not a farmer, but I am an earth pony. We’re all connected to the earth in some way, even if I prefer to be flying above it. We’ve got an eye for this stuff.”
“Forgive me if I’m doubtful,” Rarity said. “I know many earth ponies who are terrible at gardening. One of the models I regularly hire for dress shoots can’t keep a flower alive to save her life. Or the flower’s. I learned to simply give her a bottle of wine as gratitude instead of a bouquet, because the daisies would be pushing up other daisies inside of a day.”
“Alright, fair, I’m probably full of shit anyway.” She sighed as Rarity set the brush aside and started to comb through her mane. “Still can’t help the craving, though. I can’t believe we got on this stupid topic last night.”
“You were the one who brought it up, if you recall correctly,” Rarity teased.
Gyro’s eyes rolled in their sockets. “Yeah, whatever.” Then her ears perked and she smiled at Rarity. “About last night…”
Rarity felt a tinge of blush entering her cheeks even before Gyro asked the inevitable question. “Yes?”
“Did you and Rainbow… you know?”
The seamstress allowed herself to smile briefly. “We did.”
“And…?”
“Well, if I can tell you one thing about it…” Rarity licked her lips and savored those memories from the night before. “What she lacks in experience, she makes up for in passion.”
“Really?” Gyro looked back in the direction of the camp in case Rainbow happened to be walking through the trees right at that moment. “I would’ve thought a mare like her would’ve had some practice.”
“I never said that,” Rarity said. “Just that I know more than her.”
A splash of color began moving through the trees, and both mares dropped the topic as Rainbow started making her way over to them. “I’ll ask you about it later,” Gyro said with a wink.
Rainbow stopped next to the two and put down a basket full of food. “We need to harvest more coconuts,” she said, sitting down and joining them on the sand. “We’re running out.”
“We’ll take care of that tomorrow,” Rarity said. “Today, we should focus on finishing our new hut. Can you tell what the weather will be like, darling?”
The pegasus frowned and stuck her nose to the sky. “Clear for today, but I don’t think it’ll hold,” she said. “There’s clouds moving in. It’ll probably start raining by midday tomorrow.”
“Then we certainly don’t want to be caught out in the rain with only half a hut,” Rarity said. She pulled a few star apples out of the basket and started working on them. “Let’s eat breakfast and then get it taken care of. Gyro, you can simply take it easy. We don’t expect you to do any heavy lifting yet.”
“Good.” The mare started tearing into her meal, swallowing juicy fruit in large gulps. “License to be lazy, I love it.”
“Yeah, enjoy the break while you can,” Rainbow said. “Soon we’ll probably need those muscles for something.”
Rarity hummed to herself as she worked. In front of her, a large pile of palm fronds lied on the ground. As she worked, she’d pull one out, strip the vanes of the frond off, and add them to the mat she was weaving. By now, the mat was almost four feet square. Rarity figured she could get it to five feet before it became too unwieldy to work with. So she kept at it, making careful but dedicated progress with what she had, tying off the ends with coconut fiber when she needed to.
Rainbow returned after a few minutes with another clutch of palm fronds held in her mouth. Spitting them out, she swatted at a pesky fly buzzing around her flank and regarded Rarity’s work. “You’re making good progress on those.”
“I am,” Rarity said, glancing aside at the pile of mats she’d already made. “We need a lot of these to make the roof and the walls. How many more can you get?”
“I’ve only cleaned off like, four of the treetops,” Rainbow said. “We’ve still got another six to work with. After that, you’ll have to start sawing them off with your magic.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Rarity said. “I already have so much to do.”
Rainbow frowned at the seamstress. “I told you I’d help if I could…”
“I’m just teasing, darling.” Rarity plucked another frond from the pile and quickly disassembled it. “You doing the hard manual labor of sawing the fronds off of the fallen trees and bringing them back here is good enough. I’m much more skilled at weaving and assembling our walls and roof than you are. Besides, you helped enough with the heavy lifting yesterday in assembling the frame of our hut.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Rainbow sighed and sat down on the sand. Her eyes wandered over toward their old hut and spied the gray figure sprawled out in front of it. “Gyro looks like she’s enjoying herself.”
“More than she ought to, if you ask me,” Rarity said with a slight smirk on her muzzle. “All our guest has done is eat and sleep since we brought her here. You’d figure she’d at least help with the dishes.”
Rainbow snorted and shook her head. “I won’t complain about the downtime,” she said. “We need this time to relax instead of setting our sights on the next island. We’re in no hurry.”
“At this point, no.” Rarity finished tying off the ends of the mat and gently floated it over to the pile with the others. “We’ve been gone from Equestria for, what, twenty-six days? What’s a little longer?”
Memories of their conversation last night came back to her, and Rarity immediately dipped her head. Rainbow must’ve been thinking the same thing, but she coughed and shook her head like it was nothing. “Yeah. We’re not getting anywhere in a hurry. Still, though, it’s nuts that it’ll be a full month since we left Canterlot soon.”
“I never knew my life was going to take a twist like this a month ago,” Rarity mused. “Funny how quickly things can change.”
“Yeah.” Rainbow flopped onto her back, scattering sand around her. “You ever wonder what happened to those pirates?”
“Captain Squall and her crew of miscreants and ruffians?” Rarity shook her head. “I figure they either went down with the Concordia or escaped on their barge. Hopefully we won’t see them again.”
Rainbow nodded. “It’d be pretty ironic if they were the first ones to find us.”
“At that point, I think I’d rather hide instead of letting them take me prisoner,” Rarity said. “Even if it is a chance to get back to Equestria.”
“Yeah, screw that,” Rainbow said. “We’ve got our own plan. I don’t want to deal with those assholes again if we can help it.”
A loud snore from Gyro interrupted their conversation. Chuckling, Rarity nevertheless kept a sad smile on her face. “And there’s Gyro, too. I don’t think they’d treat her kindly if they captured us. We’re worth our weight in gold, but she’s not. I’m afraid of what they’d do to her.”
“Hopefully we won’t have to worry about it,” Rainbow said. “We’ll just focus on surviving and making sure the minotaurs don’t bother us. That’s pretty much all we can do right now.”
“Mmm.” Once more, Rarity’s magic started the task of weaving a palm mat from scratch. “We’ll pull through somehow. I just wish this island had a salon.”
“I wish this island had a friggin’ bar,” Rainbow grumbled. “Seriously, I don’t think I’ve been this sober in forever. I could really use some Apple Family cider.”
Rarity nodded along. “I know how you feel. I would suggest trying to ferment a coconut or some fruit that we have here, but we don’t have any yeast.” She sighed, and her shoulders slumped forward a bit. “Now I really regret drinking that entire bottle of champagne the night we found it. We should’ve saved it.”
“Eh, it probably wouldn’t have lasted.” Rainbow watched Rarity work, and the corners of her muzzle twitched. “On second thought, maybe it’d be awesome of those pirates came back,” Rainbow said. “We could go steal a crate of their rum or something.”
“Please don’t say things like that,” Rarity scolded. “We don’t actually need them coming here.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” She grunted as she forced herself to sit up. “Do you need me to do anything? Need any help with some of this stuff?”
“I just need more fronds,” Rarity said. “I’ve got enough to put two layers on the roof, which should hopefully keep the rain out, but I need more for the walls.”
Rainbow sized up the hut and nodded. “Shouldn’t be too bad,” she said. “I think we’ll have enough if I strip another three trees.” Grunting, she stood up and cracked her neck. “Better get back to it, then.”
Before she could go, Rarity reached out with her blue magic and tugged on Rainbow’s tail. “Don’t leave your lady without properly saying goodbye,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes.
Rainbow smirked and trotted back toward Rarity. Bending down, she kissed the mare, her wingtips fidgeting at her sides. When they separated, she ran her hoof down Rarity’s muzzle and up the side of her head, ending at her ear. “It’s not goodbye, it’s just seeya,” Rainbow said. “I’m only going to the other side of the island.”
Rarity stuck out her lower lip. “But that’s so far…”
Rolling her eyes, Rainbow kissed Rarity again. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
“If you insist…”
“I do.”
A loud cough made both of them jump. Glancing to the side, they saw Gyro sitting upright and watching them with one eyebrow raised. Flustered, Rainbow turned around and marched off, and Rarity put her attention back to her work.
After a moment, the mechanic chuckled. “You two lovebirds just can’t help yourselves, can you?”
“I don’t see the problem with it,” Rarity said, hunching over the mat.
“I’d say get a room, but I can tell you’re still building it.”
The sun was beginning to set by the time they were finished.
Rarity took a step back and wiped her brow. How long had she been working on this? Ten hours? It had to be something like that. The only breaks she’d taken today since she started were for lunch and an early dinner. Now, with the sun completely out of sight, hidden by the trees of the island, Rarity could finally say that they were finished.
Rainbow Dash took her hooves off of the wall she was working on and cut the end of a coconut fiber rope with a knife. “How’s it look?” she asked, stepping back a few paces to end up at Rarity’s side. She wiped some sweat off her brow and licked dry and salty lips as her eyes wandered over their work.
“It’s not much,” Rarity said, but a smile nevertheless appeared on her muzzle. “But it’s home.”
‘Home’ was certainly one way of putting it. Unlike their previous hut, which was barely more than a glorified and squat lean-to, this one actually looked like a place ponies could live in. It had a sloped roof for washing the rain off and solid walls made from palm fronds woven into mats. They’d even left gaps in the walls to serve as windows, which would be easy enough to shutter with spare palm mats Rarity had mounted in a frame of sticks for support. Though they didn’t have a working door owing to their inability to make hinges, they’d attached loose-hanging palm fronds to the top of the frame that provided enough shelter and privacy to the inside of the structure. For the moment, the interior was nothing more than one big room, but it wouldn’t take much effort to weave more palm mats and partition it into separate spaces.
“Hopefully we won’t have to rebuild this one,” Rainbow said. “This one took a lot more work.”
“I intend to preserve it,” Rarity said. She started picking up some of the leftover fronds and arranged them into a bundle. “And so long as we take care of it, it should last us a long time.”
“Yeah.” Cracking her neck, Rainbow looked over her shoulder. “Hey, G, wanna check it out?”
Gyro’s ears perked. “You two finally finish it?” she asked, turning around to get a good look behind her.
“Yeah! It only took forever and a half, but it’s done.” Rainbow beckoned with her head. “Take a look.”
The mechanic rolled her eyes and stood up, shaking sand off of her thin underside. “And I was just enjoying the beach,” she said, walking away from the waves and navigating the thin tree line. “Why do you have to make the poor starved mare do so much walking?”
“You’ve hardly moved like ten feet all day today,” Rainbow said. “Exercise builds muscle, remember?”
“Not when there’s no spare energy to go around.” Gyro immediately sat down as soon as she reached the two other mares; Rarity could tell at a glance that the poor earth pony was still easily tired. That likely wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. The engineer’s pale blue eyes wandered over the building and she smiled. “Well, it’s not collapsing on itself, so that’s a good start.”
Rainbow lightly shoved Gyro. “Shut up.”
“Seriously, though, that’s pretty neat,” she said. “It actually looks like someplace you could live. I’m no civil engineer, but it looks like it should hold in a storm.”
“I certainly hope so, if it’s going to rain tomorrow,” Rarity said. “It will certainly be put through the test then. I doubt that we managed to make the roof entirely leak free on our first try.”
“We’ve got extra palms and crap to fix it,” Rainbow said. Smirking, she moved to the house and leaned against one of the beams holding it up. “And it’s sturdy, too. We got this thing wedged deep into the sand. It’ll take a huge storm to rip it up.”
Gyro chuckled. “Now you’ve gone and done it. It’s over now.”
Rarity playfully swatted Rainbow over the back of her head with a frond. “Why do you insist on jinxing us in all the worst ways, Rainbow?”
“Eh, life’s more fun that way,” she said. “Otherwise it’d be too easy. We’re too good at surviving out here.”
“Maybe you should write a survival guide when we get back to Equestria,” Rarity said. “I’m sure it’d sell well. We just need to have Twilight edit it before you try and publish it.”
Rainbow groaned. “Every time I try to take something I write to Twilight for help, she leaves more pages of notes in red ink than I have in the thing I actually wrote.”
Rarity giggled and covered her muzzle. “Do you ever try reading her notes and seeing what you did wrong?”
“Nope.”
“That would explain a few things.” Shaking her head, Rarity stood up. “If only we had something to christen our new house with. Unfortunately, we have a terrible shortage in things to drink.”
“We can have a feast, though,” Rainbow said. “A little extra food won’t hurt. Besides, there’s still plenty here on the island. We’ve only ever touched, like, a corner of the south hill.”
Gyro winced and rubbed her stomach. “Holy crap. I didn’t think it was possible, but the thought of even more food is making me feel sick.”
“That’s only because your stomach’s the size of, like, a pea or something now. You just gotta stretch it out.”
“A little at a time,” Rarity cautioned. “Eating too much after severe starvation can be fatal. Still, Gyro’s been pacing herself, so I don’t feel like we have to worry about that too much.”
“Yeah, yeah. But like, food.” Rainbow immediately started trotting over to the other hut, where all their food stores were kept. “Let’s do it.”
Rarity blinked. “But we already had an early dinner,” she said.
“And now we can have another one! Come on!”
Chuckling, Gyro started walking off after Rainbow with a shake of her head. “Does this mean I get the old hut all to myself?”
“If you want it, darling,” Rarity said. “I’m not sure I could use it again after you stunk the place up last night.”
Over the next few days, Rainbow and Rarity worked on making their new hut feel like home. They gathered as much fresh bedding as they could find and laid it out in the middle of the larger structure. They allowed it to sprawl some, considering they had more space than the previous shelter. Rarity certainly didn’t mind the extra space; while she enjoyed cuddling with Rainbow, sometimes a mare needed a little room to stretch. At least now she could roll in her sleep and not end up with her face pressed against the palm walls or buried in sand.
Gyro slowly settled into the routine as well. It seemed like she grew a little stronger with each passing day. Rest and food did wonders for the mechanic, and it didn’t take long for Rarity to notice that she wasn’t huffing or panting after walking from the spring to the beach. Though she still looked gaunt and thin, it was obvious she was getting her strength back. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too much longer before she was back to her usual self.
For her part, Rarity simply enjoyed the lazy days and the comfort they afforded. Not having to worry about walking the knife’s edge to survive almost let her relax like she was simply on vacation—almost. As far as Rarity was concerned, it wasn’t a vacation without a spa, and their current situation found her dreadfully lacking one. Though she could occasionally pry a massage out of Rainbow, the pegasus’ hooves simply didn’t have that practiced, refined touch that all good masseuses have. Hopefully she’d learn a thing or two by the time they finally got back home.
It was during one of these barebones, amateur massages that Rarity noticed something. Lying on the sand, stretched in front of the old hut, her eyes wandered to their calendar plank. Out of curiosity, she counted the tick marks in groups of five that they’d scratched out so far since they’d been here. It came to her as a bit of a shock when she counted thirty of them—and they hadn’t even added today’s to the board yet.
“Thirty-one days?” she murmured aloud, her voice rich with disbelief.
Rainbow stopped working on her shoulders and quirked an eyebrow. “Huh?”
“We’ve been on these islands for thirty-one days,” Rarity said. “We’ve been here a month!”
“A month?” Rainbow blinked and shifted her ruby eyes to the plank. “Wow. Time flies, I guess.”
“We’ve been so busy I’d completely forgotten about it.” She abandoned her massage for the time being to inspect the board and add today’s mark to it. “Who would’ve thought we’d be here this long?”
“Who would’ve thought we’d be here in the first place?” Rainbow frowned and rolled her shoulders. “The wreck feels like a lifetime ago.”
Rarity nodded. “We’ve certainly matured much since then, Remember when we thought rescue would find us in a week?”
Rainbow blew air out the side of her mouth and shook her head in disbelief. “To be fair, we didn’t know just what we’d gotten ourselves into. We didn’t know there was any spooky magic stuff going on here that’d make it impossible for rescue to find us. We just figured Twilight would have the whole navy combing the seas looking for us.”
“Which she very well might have done, but that wouldn’t help us anyway.”
She took a step back to survey their camp. Two huts, a pile of scrap and salvage, baskets full of food and jugs full of water, stone tools and steel knives. A tiny pegasus figurine carefully wrapped in cloth and hidden away inside of the larger hut. A third set of hoofprints that wandered between the spring and the beach. On the other side of the island, a raft made from trees they felled with tools they made was tucked safely within the trees. All of it was a far cry from that first night spent huddling under a lean-to as the rains pummeled them and the wind tried to blow them off the island.
“We’ve come so far in a month,” Rarity said. “Accomplished so much.”
Rainbow nodded. “We did what we had to do,” she said. “And then some.”
“Imagine where we’ll be in another month.”
“Hopefully, we’ll be back in Ponyville, having cider with the girls.” Rainbow sighed and her mind’s eye wandered off somewhere else. “What a story we’ll have to tell. You think they’ll believe it?”
Rarity smirked. “I know they’ll believe it. Even if some of our little adventure thus far seems unbelievable.”
“We gonna tell them about the urchins and our first kiss?” Rainbow asked, winking.
Rarity’s cheeks warmed; she still felt a little embarrassed about that whole ordeal. “Maybe not the specifics,” she said. “A first kiss born out of utility doesn’t have quite the same romantic charm to it.”
“Eh, that’s just what you think,” Rainbow countered. “That’s what started everything though.”
“Hmmm. I suppose.” She turned to the side and meandered her way to their shelter, Rainbow trailing at her tail. “When did you first know you liked me?”
“Me?” Rainbow thought for a moment. “Uh… the tennis game,” she said. “You were looking pretty sexy with the sweat and your hair tied back and stuff like that. And you’d just barely beat me, so you were pretty athletic too, which was awesome. And I mean, I always thought you looked pretty.”
Rarity chuckled. “I remember that game being quite the throttling, not a close contest.”
“Yeah, well, you’re remembering wrong or something.”
“Quite.” Rarity shook her head. “For me, it was when you were poisoned,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much you meant to me until I was in danger of losing you. The thought of losing you scared me more than I’m willing to admit, but it got me to realize how much I cared.”
She ducked into the shelter and Rainbow followed her, brushing some of the loose fronds aside. “Pssh. You weren’t in danger of losing me. I’m Rainbow Dash! Nothing stops me!”
“I’m sure if you’d been stuck with eight or nine spines instead of just seven, I don’t think you’d be standing here right now.” Rarity’s eyes lowered. “You probably don’t remember much of that, but I do. I was there for the whole thing. Every time your heart fluttered and twitched, I was afraid it’d be your last. You were so weak you could hardly breathe. Imagine what the poison from just one more spine would’ve done to you.”
Rainbow’s eyes fell. “I… guess…”
Turning in place, Rarity put her hoof on the side of Rainbow’s muzzle. “It’s nothing to be upset about, Rainbow,” she said. “The important thing is that you survived. You don’t have to do it with glory and bravado. You just need to live. We just need to live.” After a second of chewing on her lip, Rarity leaned in and kissed the other mare. When they split again, Rarity offered her a smile. “I don’t care what else you do, Rainbow Dash. Just promise me you’ll live and we’ll both be very happy mares.”
Rainbow smirked back at Rarity. “Sounds like an easy enough promise to keep,” she said. “I will, Rares. You can count on that.”
“Good.” Rarity looked over her shoulder to their bedding and a mischievous grin crept onto her muzzle. “What do you think Gyro’s doing right now?”
“Mmmm.” Rarity turned around and started sashaying over to the bedding. “Maybe we can use a moment to ourselves?” The end of her tail teased Rainbow’s nose.
Rainbow grinned stupidly back. “A moment or two. Or three.”
Thirty-five notches stared Rainbow in the face. The days just kept piling up, and admittedly she was beginning to feel lazy. It was simply a result of knowing where they needed to go and what they needed to do to find a way home but not doing it, instead opting to rest and prepare for the next excursion. To a mare who had lived her life by doing everything now, the R&R was almost torturous.
Her, Rarity, and Gyro had just finished up dinner. Once again, all they had was another meal of star apples, sugar apples, coconut, and some grass to mix things up a little. After eating nothing but those four foods for more than a month now, Rainbow was starting to grow sick of them. She was very tempted to start nosing around for edible roots just for something different to eat. Gyro’s constant cravings for mushrooms were also starting to wear off on her. At this point, who cared if they were poisonous so long as they tasted different?
All her thoughts finally culminated in her opening her mouth. “We should roast some coconut,” she said. “Holy crap, if I don’t eat something different I’m gonna friggin’ gnaw my hoof off just for the taste.”
Rarity grimaced. “Why did you have to bring this up?” She stuffed the last of a sugar apple clove into her mouth and swallowed it as quickly as she could. “I was just ignoring the fact that I’ve been eating the same things for a month now and doing a remarkably good job at it.”
“You two speak for yourselves, food’s food and I’m like a hundred pounds lighter than I should be right now.” Gyro stuffed another sugar apple in her mouth and spat out the rind moments later. “And I’m starting to get good at eating these things. They’re certainly a little too exotic for my paygrade back in Equestria. I’m enjoying them.”
“We’ll see how much you’ll enjoy them when you’re not skin and bones and you’ve been here for a month.” Wiping her muzzle, Rarity slid a little closer to Rainbow and sighed. “I don’t even think we have what we need to roast coconut. We don’t have adequate cookware, we hardly have enough chopped wood for a fire, and we don’t have any oil to cook them in. We’d need a little time to prepare first.”
“Feh.” Rainbow frowned in disappointment. “And here I was hoping for something a little different tonight.”
“There’s always your marefriend,” Gyro said with a wink. “She’s always on the menu.”
Rarity began to vigorously blush through her coat. “Gyro, darling, must you?”
Rainbow could barely contain her laughter. “G’s just messing around, Rares. Besides, is she wrong?”
The seamstress huffed and held her nose up in the air. “Some of us consider ourselves in too high of standing to make crass jokes like that.”
“That doesn’t answer my question…” Rainbow sang, leaning back against Rarity. When Rarity refused to say anything or even look at Rainbow, the pegasus laughed and smooched Rarity on the cheek. “Love ya, Rares.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Rarity grumbled. Rainbow just shook her head; if she just gave her a few minutes, Rarity would quit being saddle-sore. In the meanwhile, though, with her hopes of getting something new to eat tonight dashed, Rainbow turned her eyes to the east. “Beach?”
“Beach,” Gyro echoed, and the mechanic stood up and started to walk down to the shore. “Come on, maybe we’ll see the stars tonight.”
“After the rain we’ve had the past few days, that’d be awesome,” Rainbow said. She nudged Rarity with her nose and waited for the seamstress to sit up before she teased her cheek with her lips. “You good?”
“Good enough.” Rarity stood up, arched her back and glanced toward the east. “We better stop her before she makes us sit in the water again.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, shaking her head and trotting after the earth pony. “That wasn’t fun. That mare likes the water too much.”
They did manage to catch Gyro before she decided to lie down too close to the water’s edge, and instead stopped her where the sand was still soft and powdery. Gyro chuckled as the couple planted their hooves in the sand and adamantly dropped to their stomachs, refusing to go any further. “Come on, why do you two always gotta be like that?” she asked them, settling down on Rainbow’s right. “It’s just a little water, it won’t hurt you.”
“We’ve spent too much time soaked with the rain these past few days, thank you,” Rarity said. It’d been raining almost nonstop for much of that time, which confined them to their shelters—except when they needed to get a drink or relieve themselves. Then they had to brave the pouring rain before scampering back to the safety of the large hut, where they all huddled together and waited for the skies to stop trying to drown their island. Today had been the first time that it hadn’t been raining almost all week—for as much as the three survivors could remember what day of the week it was.
Gyro eased herself to the ground next to them and sighed. “You’re no fun,” she said. “Truth be told, I only go down so close to the water to watch you two fuss when the waves touch your legs. It’s pretty funny.”
“You know what was pretty funny?” Rainbow asked. “When Rarity flung you into the surf to take a bath.”
Rarity giggled into her hoof. “I could do it again if you want,” she said. “Since you’re so adamant about getting into the water.”
“No thank you,” Gyro said, frowning. “I like the water, but I don’t like to be soaking wet. Just my hooves.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Rainbow grunted and leaned against Rarity’s side. “I like these kind of hang outs, though. Just us three and the sea.”
“They’re pleasant,” Rarity said. “It’s certainly something nice to do when the sun goes down and there’s not enough light to work with outside.”
“It’s relaxing.” Gyro smiled and rolled onto her side, her cheek resting in the sand. “Who says being stranded has to be all bad, all the time?”
“I plan on getting my money’s worth out of it,” Rainbow said.
Rarity frowned at Rainbow. “You didn’t even pay any money to be on that flight. It was all covered by the CWC and the Wonderbolts!”
“Yeah, so?” Rainbow shot back. “I’m getting their money’s worth out of it.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Rarity grumbled. “Let’s just enjoy the evening.”
“Eh, you’ll get no complaint out of me.”
Gyro chuckled and rolled her eyes. “I feel like I’m stuck playing babysitter with you two…”
Another week passed without much change. The minotaurs never showed up, the food didn’t run out, and the shelter didn’t fall down. It rained on occasion, usually for a day or two, but the last three days were sunny and pleasant. Rarity enjoyed the sun after having to deal with so much rain and shivering wetness. Perhaps even more than that, she simply enjoyed watching Gyro grow stronger by the day as she settled into the island’s routine.
She couldn’t believe that they’d been here for this long. Six weeks? It’d been a month and a half since her and Rainbow (and Gyro) had washed up on the islands. A month and a half of struggling to survive in the absence of civilization, of fending for themselves. A month and a half since Equestria likely first heard of the airship’s mysterious disappearance. How long had everypony considered them dead for? A month? A few weeks? It depended on how stubborn those ponies were, but it’d been long enough that Equestria had to have given up on them. That in itself was a scary idea: that help wasn’t coming for them and there wasn’t any way around it now. Whatever hope Rarity had harbored about being suddenly rescued one day was dashed. They were well and truly on their own.
But even still, she could look around their campsite and feel a sense of pride. They’d done so much, just three mares lost in the middle of nowhere. A lot more than she would’ve imagined they’d be able to when they first washed up and saw just how bleak their prospects were. They had a hut and a house, plenty of food, and all they needed to live. At the very least, if they never made it back to Equestria, maybe somepony would find this island and find their bones within one of the huts and realized just how much they fought and struggled to survive, and how much they were able to accomplish before they ultimately fell.
She heard a mare grunt off to the side, and she angled her head to see Gyro pulling a crude sledge of wood and other scrap across the sand. The mechanic leaned against the vines she held in her mouth, dragging the heavy weight they were attached to through the grit. Sweat glistened on her body, but her coat seemed tighter and her legs a little thicker. Her barrel had filled out nicely in the couple of weeks she’d been on their island, and she recently started hauling weight across the sand to try and rebuild some of her muscle. Rarity already knew that Gyro could pull more than she could, and the mare was still half-starved and not yet fully recovered. The sledge of wood had to be about three hundred pounds, easily.
Rarity watched Gyro reach the end of the clearing, catch her breath, and turn the sledge around. When they made eye contact, the seamstress shook her head from side to side. “Must you make me feel inadequate?” she asked, pointing to the wooden sledge. “I feel fat and lazy just from watching you do that.”
Gyro smirked and dragged the sledge over to Rarity. Spitting out the vine, she rolled her shoulders and hopped up and down on the sand a few times. “You said the F word.”
“What ‘F word?’” Rarity blinked. “You mean ‘fat?’”
“Yeah, that one,” Gyro said. “I don’t have any and you’re triggering me.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and turned aside. “You should be happier,” she said. “So many mares would kill to cut down on their fat.”
“Yeah, but like, to healthy amounts, not like me.” Gyro coughed once and kicked the sledge. “A little fat’s good for you, but it’s kinda hard to build it up on fruits and stuff without any hearty grains to really munch on. At least I’m getting my muscle back. Soon I’ll be at full speed again.”
“What is your full speed?” Rarity asked. “I’m somewhat curious.”
“Well, on the sledge, I could do eight hundred,” Gyro said. When Rarity’s eyes widened, Gyro chuckled and held up a hoof. “Dragging a sledge isn’t as hard as it looks. I bet you could pull three hundred. We’re ponies, we’re good at stuff like that. I know some big stallions with Clydesdale blood, they could probably pull half a ton. Earth ponies, of course,” she amended. “But I think that goes without saying.”
“I’ll say.” Rarity sat down in the sand and floated over a jug of water, offering it to Gyro. While Gyro took several gulps, Rarity smiled. “I’ve never seen a pegasus that could pull that much weight. Unicorns, yes, but always through magic. How much you can lift is more tied to your concentration and your horn’s natural spiraling. Sharper spirals have an easier time leveraging magical power than more shallow ones.”
Gyro set the jug down and wiped her lips. “What’s the tradeoff? I’m an engineer, and one of the first things they teach you is that everything has a tradeoff.”
Rarity nodded along. “Control,” she said. “You trade power for precision. Princess Twilight has a very sharply coiled horn, and the same is true of her student, Starlight Glimmer. They’re very powerful unicorns and know a lot of mind-boggling spells. But they lack finesse and precision with their magic; they find it difficult to multitask and maintain several different fields and spells at the same time.” Rarity tapped her horn. “My horn has below-average spiraling, which means I’m weaker than they are, but I have much greater control over my magic. I can maintain five separate fields without breaking a sweat. I can do ten if I really focus and concentrate, which is useful for dressmaking. There’s so much that needs to be done all at once.”
The engineer whistled. “That’s something,” she said. “I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be able to just do things by thinking about them. Same sort of thing goes for pegasi. What’s it like to have two extra limbs sticking out of your back?” She frowned and glanced at her shoulders. “Like, how do you even keep track of them all? Four legs and two wings—that’s a lot.”
“They’re simply born knowing how to do it,” Rarity said with a shrug. “When Twilight first became a princess, she really didn’t know how to use her wings at all. Flying was difficult for her at first, and they’d open or flap from time to time like they had a mind of their own. It was really something.” Shaking her head, she turned her eyes toward a nearby tree where Chirp was preening and watching them. “But she got used to them. Now she can fly without even thinking about it.”
“Huh.” Gyro shook her sweaty mane out, scattering a few drops of perspiration into the sand. “Think I could become the princess of steam engines? A wing and a horn sound like they’d be pretty awesome with my earth pony strength.”
“I’ll ask Princess Celestia and see what I can do,” Rarity said with a laugh. “So long as you learn something about friendship along the way.”
The mechanic shrugged and cocked an eyebrow. “You certainly learn a lot about friendship with the other ponies you have to share an engineering bay with,” she said. “We’re all greasy and sweaty and smell awful all the time. If you don’t like who you’re working with, you’d probably end up killing them with a wrench or something after the fourth month you’ve had to work with them.”
Rarity shuddered. “I can’t possible imagine working in such conditions,” she said. “That’s far too much dirt and grime for me.”
“Eh, I’m sure you’d be fine,” Gyro said. “Like Rainbow’s been saying, you’ve been doing pretty good out here in all the sand and salt with the nearest spa thousands of miles away.”
“We make do with what we must,” Rarity said. “At the very least, the constant rainfall is good for washing it off and getting as clean as possible out here. It’s not like I’ve been caked in sand and salt for a month straight.”
“True enough.” Gyro shook her head. “I’m just not used to bathing all that often. It’s not that I don’t like bathing, it’s just that there’s no point when you’re gonna get dirty again the next day. Maintenance work isn’t a clean job, especially in a huge engine room with roaring boilers and filled with coal dust. I’ll probably have COPD be the time I’m forty.”
“I certainly hope not. That sounds awful!”
“We live with it,” Gyro said with a shrug. “Besides, I’m sure a unicorn doctor or something somewhere has a neat little spell to fix me up real good.”
“I’m not sure that’s how it—!”
“Rares! G! Where are you guys?” It was Rainbow, bursting through the trees leading to the south hill. It was obvious from her panting and sweating that she’d run back to the camp as fast as she could, and she had to take a moment to swallow and catch her breath.
“Rainbow?!” Rarity exclaimed, whipping her head in Rainbow’s direction. “What is it? Are the minotaurs back?” She felt her stomach drop; this was the last thing they needed. How did they get their boats built back up so quickly?
But to her surprise, Rainbow shook her head. “No, it’s not that. Something else!” She turned in place and pointed back the way she came. “Come on, you gotta see this! It’s amazing!”
And then she was gone, darting back into the undergrowth. Rarity and Gyro exchanged looks before they both shrugged at each other.
“What do you think she’s talking about?” Gyro asked. “If it’s not minotaurs, then what?”
“I suppose there’s only one way we’ll find out,” Rarity said, and she started off after Rainbow. “Come on, let’s see what she’s found.”
Rarity frowned as Rainbow led her and Gyro on some merry chase. She asked Rainbow numerous times what they were going to see, but Rainbow never answered. That left Rarity stuck between trying to stay close to Rainbow and lingering far back enough for Gyro to keep up. Despite her strength training exercises in pulling a sledge across the sand, the mare still didn’t have all that much endurance and tired easily. By the time they made it to the south hill at a brisk canter, Gyro was beginning to sweat and sway.
Up ahead, Rainbow Dash crested the top of the hill, then turned around and impatiently swished her tail back and forth. “Come on, you guys! You’re gonna miss it!” she hissed at them, keeping her voice surprisingly low. “Hurry up!”
“Rainbow Dash, if you would just tell us what exactly it is that we’re missing, then maybe I would feel inclined to pick up my own pace just a little,” Rarity shot back. “Just please give me and Gyro a straight answer already! You better not have dragged me and the poor mare all the way out to the south hill for nothing!”
Rainbow frowned at them. “Don’t you hear her?”
“Her?” Rarity asked, pausing about halfway up the hill. “Hear who? I’ve been so busy trying to help Gyro keep up with us that I haven’t—!”
“Shhh!” Rainbow glared at her. “Listen!”
Though Rarity was quickly becoming irate with Rainbow, she did at least take the time to stop and listen. Once there weren’t any more competing sounds to listen to save for Gyro’s panting at her side, Rarity started to pick out a song through the background noise of the day. Even the birds had fallen silent to listen to something otherworldly and haunting.
Gyro closed her muzzle and let her nostrils flare so her panting wouldn’t drown out the tune. “What is that?” she whispered, turning wide-eyed to Rarity. “Another survivor?”
Rarity shook her head and felt a giddy bit of nervous excitement tickle her hooves. “A siren,” she said. “And she sounds close!”
“Don’t just stand there, you two!” Rainbow hissed at them, beckoning them up the hill with her wing. “Don’t you wanna get a look?”
“A look?” Rarity asked, galloping up the hillside. “Can you really see her?”
“Look for yourself!”
Rainbow disappeared over the crest of the hill right before Rarity reached it. As soon as she did, however, she slowed down and looked down into the lagoon. There, she saw a sight she never thought she’d see: a living, breathing, singing siren. Before she could get a chance to really look at her, however, Rainbow threw a star apple at Rarity’s face. When she flinched and looked in the direction the fruit projectile had flown from, she saw Rainbow crouched low behind some undergrowth, hiding her from the lagoon but letting her get a clear look at the action.
Rarity hesitated just long enough to catch Gyro’s attention as she climbed the hill before darting off to the side. Settling in by Rainbow, she poked her head through an opening in the plant matter and set her eyes on the singing siren below. “That’s what they look like?” she whispered in awe. “They’re so… gorgeous!”
“I wouldn’t call them that,” Rainbow said, peering between the leaves. “She’s really big and those teeth are nasty looking.”
The siren in the lagoon was certainly both of those things… yet they hardly came close to describing her. Perhaps the biggest understatement was Rainbow’s. The siren was big, and almost freakishly so. She lied on the sand, tail curled around her body as she sang, but she would have easily dwarfed Rarity or Rainbow. Rarity figured that the siren’s head alone was as big as she was. She looked more like a cross between a dragon and a fish instead of a fish and a pony. Given the sharp, wedge-like beak and enormous teeth Rarity could see in her mouth every time she opened it to hit a higher note, the musical visitor could probably gut a pony in a single bite if she felt inclined. And given how sailors feared sirens, Rarity figured she probably would.
But even then, she was beautiful. Green scales covered her body from head to fin, and her form was long, sleek, and slender. Smooth contours and a thin waist belied powerful muscles built for swimming long distances. Her eyes, when Rarity could see them, were similarly emerald green, and her gill fringes at the base of her jaw and the large dorsal fin protruding from the back of her neck glistened in the sunlight with all their translucent glory.
And all of that together had nothing on the beauty of her voice. Like before, it was perfectly tuned, even wavering just the tiniest bit to introduce some character and richness. The timbre was like nothing Rarity could ever have expected; her voice could simultaneously sound like a soloist, a choir, and something heavenly, and she slipped between them at will. Though there were no words, everything was annunciated clearly, effectively, and without hesitation. As far as Rarity could tell, there wasn’t a single wrong note in the siren’s alluring, hypnotizing song.
She felt herself rocking forward onto her hooves. So hypnotizing… she just wanted to walk down the hill and listen to the siren’s music all day…
She jolted out of it when she felt something grab her tail and drag her back into a seated position. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw Gyro spit out her tail and give her a worried look. “Are you okay?” she asked, lowering her eyebrows. “You and Rainbow both weren’t answering me, and then you were trying to stand up…”
Rainbow winced and shook her head. “What? Oh, no, yeah, we’re fine,” she said, shooting a look at Rarity. “…Right?”
“Her song,” Rarity said, looking at the siren once more. “It’s just so… beautiful. I just want to go down there and talk to her. Maybe listen to her sing. It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before.” She sniffled once and added, “I feel like I’m going to cry if I don’t.”
Gyro blinked. “Aren’t sirens supposed to use their songs to lure stallions to their deaths?” she asked. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“But it’s so pretty,” Rainbow whined. Her wings fidgeted at her sides. “We’re not stallions. She won’t hurt us.”
“Yeah, but you two like mares, and I’m pretty sure that’s kinda messing with your heads a bit.”
Rarity cocked her head. “You mean you don’t feel it too?”
“It’s pretty, but it’s not making me starry-eyed and stuff,” Gyro said. “I don’t feel a need to go down there and talk to her. I’m content to just watch from here. That fish could snap me up in a bite. I’m not gonna get within snapping range.”
The siren paused for a moment to paw at the sand with her large, split hooves. A pointed tongue flicked over the sharp ridges of her beak, and a green gem in her chest glowed faintly. When she sang again, it was a different song, this one joyous, festive, and fast. It made Rarity want to stand up and dance like she would during a parade or something through Canterlot.
“She’s practicing,” Rarity concluded, feeling her tail wiggle back and forth. “Celestia, she’s good.”
“How’s about I just make sure you two don’t go anywhere and we can all just listen to her for now,” Gyro said. “It’s clear she doesn’t affect me. It’s just you two we need to worry about.”
“I’d like that,” Rainbow said, swaying back and forth and tapping her hoof in time with the music. “That sounds awesome. Maybe we can go dancing, too.”
“No dancing,” Gyro growled, and she wormed her way between the two mares to keep them under control. “Just listening.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and bumped her flank against Gyro’s. “You’re no fun. You’re like my mother.”
“Believe me,” Gyro groaned. “Sometimes, I really feel like it…”
Rarity felt every single note of the siren’s song flow through her like she wasn’t even there. Every note cut through her body like a hot knife through butter. Whatever the music demanded of her, she felt compelled to do. And that music was trying to draw her down to the lagoon, to reveal her presence to the siren using their island as her own personal rehearsal studio.
Thankfully, she had Gyro to keep her under control. For whatever reason, the siren’s music didn’t seem to move Gyro like it did her or Rainbow. And whenever either of them started to get a little too into the music, a little too eager to go down the hill and get a closer look at the siren, Gyro would drag them back to the bush. Maybe Gyro was right, Rarity decided. Maybe the siren’s song didn’t affect her because she wasn’t interested in mares like Rainbow or herself. Whatever it was, the only reason Rainbow and Rarity didn’t go down the hill was because of the mechanic’s vigilance.
But the siren sang like nothing Rarity had ever heard. Even the duet her and Rainbow had eavesdropped on weeks ago at the shore in the middle of the night had nothing on listening to a siren sing up close and in person. Perhaps it was the clarity afforded by the reduced distance, but this siren’s songs made the duet from those days long passed seem like amateur work. It was perfect, perfect in a way Rarity knew she’d never experience again, and that knowledge nearly made her weep in sadness.
Yet despite the trivial worries of the ponies trapped on the island, the siren sang on. She effortlessly put her heart and soul into everything, singing like it came natural to her—and Rarity knew that it did. Sirens were creatures of song, as powerful, fascinating, and dangerous as the music they sang. But to see that music embodied by a living creature was something else. Rarity had heard from Twilight the stories about the three sirens that once tried to dominate Equestria in an era long since passed. If all sirens were like the one she saw before her, she knew that Equestria wouldn’t stand a chance if they tried. How can you resist such a perfect song telling you to do whatever the siren wants you to do?
But after a time, after numerous songs spanning almost every inconceivably beautiful melody, the siren drew to a quiet conclusion on the beach. The gem in her chest ceased to glow, and she seemingly deflated as her final note dwindled to nothingness. Frowning, for it was obvious to Rarity that the siren’s downward tilt of her head and the curving of her beak was nothing short of a frown, the beautiful mare of the sea pawed at the sand beneath her hooves and sighed. Even the sigh was melodic and beautiful, not like anything Rarity would expect from a creature so large and so dangerous.
Rainbow shook her head, snapping out of whatever spell the siren’s last song had on her mind. After a moment to take in her surroundings and note the seemingly despondent siren sitting in the lagoon, she turned to Rarity. “What’s her deal? Why’d she stop?”
“I couldn’t tell you even if I knew,” Rarity said. “She seems so… sad.”
Gyro frowned at the scaly green mare sitting in the shallow water of the lagoon. “Just because her songs were pretty and everything doesn’t mean I’m gonna trust her. I’ve heard sailors who tell stories of the times they’ve been tempted by sirens. It never ends well, I can promise you that much.”
Rarity cocked an eyebrow at Gyro. “Sailors seem like the least trustworthy source of information, given their superstitions and all. Did any of them ever see a siren up close?”
The hesitation before the mechanic answered was all the confirmation Rarity needed. “Well… no,” Gyro admitted, “but they swear by those stories. It’s why their unicorns are trained in silence spells. Experienced crews will keep one around so that they can cast a sphere of silence on the ship and block out any siren’s song the moment they hear them. Usually, those unicorns are mares, for reasons we all saw today.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to us here,” Rarity insisted. She frowned as she looked at the seemingly despondent siren on the beach. “She seems so sad and lonely. I want to just go down to the beach and talk to her.”
But Gyro remained adamant. “Don’t trust them,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do if one of you got turned into pony bits by that siren’s beak. They’re dangerous, and their songs are just another reason why.”
Even still, that left Rarity biting her lip, even if she did remain stationary at Gyro’s warnings. “I just wish I could talk to her,” she said. “Do you think we could safely have a conversation from here?”
“Didn’t Twilight say that sirens could fly?” Rainbow asked. “Like they wiggle their tails and crap and then they can hover and fly like pegasi. If we let her know we’re here, she could catch us no matter where we ran to.”
“I don’t know if that’s true of all sirens or just those three that grew strong enough to try and subjugate all of Equestria once upon a time,” Rarity admitted. “Even so, that one siren is much larger than I thought they were. I imagined they’d be bigger than us, but only slightly. I didn’t expect them to be so enormous.”
“She could eat Rainbow whole,” Gyro said. “And it probably would be messy.”
Rainbow frowned. “I wouldn’t go down without a fight.”
“A fight against something like that without the ability to fly seems like it’d only go one way,” Gyro countered. “I’d put my bits on the siren.”
Then Rarity saw the siren move, and she immediately started shaking Gyro’s shoulder. “Stop bickering, you two!” she hissed, leaning further into the brush. “She’s moving!”
Gyro and Rainbow ceased arguing and peered back through the trees. Sure enough, after a few minutes of silence, the siren turned back out to the ocean. Using her hooves to pull herself through the surf and sand, the siren dragged her massive emerald body out to the water until the tide finally enveloped her fins and her tail. Then, flaring her nostrils, the siren ducked her head under the water and began to swim away, her translucent dorsal fin remaining above the water for quite some time until it finally slipped beneath the waves once more.
Rarity felt a profound sense of loss and heartbreak just from observing the sight. “She’s… gone,” she murmured, standing up and peering out over the brush. “Just like that.”
Gyro breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank Celestia,” she said, standing up at Rarity’s side. “The last thing we needed was a siren becoming a permanent guest here. Nothing good would come from that, I swear.”
“I kinda miss her music already,” Rainbow said. “It was really good.”
“Yes,” Rarity agreed. “It was.”
“It’s certainly like nothing I’ve ever heard,” Gyro said, finally beginning to relax after having to take care of Rarity and Rainbow for the past hour. “It was so beautiful. Sirens really are like angels. Too bad they eat ponies and their emotions.”
“Her gem was glowing a little bit,” Rainbow said. “Did you see that?”
Rarity slowly nodded. “Yes, I did. What do you think that was about?”
Gyro shrugged. “Maybe she was feeding off of the birds and stuff? They were definitely quiet while she was singing.”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow said. “Do you think she was feeding off of us? Her songs were definitely in my head.”
“I’m not so sure about that one, darling,” Rarity said. “I would imagine if that were true she’d be more adamant in drawing us out. She would know we were on the island, so why not go the distance?”
“I think she was,” Gyro said. “You two might’ve been really caught up in the music and everything, but I wasn’t. If I wasn’t there to stop you, you probably would’ve gone trotting down the hill and sat your dumb asses in front of her while she sang.”
Rarity pursed her lips. “Then it’s a good thing you managed to get Gyro and myself to the hill before you decided to listen, Rainbow,” she said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to stop you from doing that.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to stop her,” Gyro insisted. “Let’s not forget who the MVP was here.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Yes, quite,” she said, lightly bumpbing her shoulder into Gyro’s. “Where would we be without you.”
“Stop asking her that question,” Rainbow grumbled. “Where would she be without us?”
“Probably minotaur food or starved to death,” Gyro said. “Either of those aren’t really all that fun. I definitely wouldn’t bring my hypothetical kids if I hypothetically had any.”
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “You want kids?”
“If I hypothetically got laid by a hypothetical stallion,” Gyro said with a smirk. “Hypothetically speaking of course.”
“Hypothetically,” Rarity echoed.
Rainbow blinked. “That means like, supposedly, right?”
Rarity snorted. “I think we’re done here,” she said. “Would you like to investigate the lagoon, Gyro?” she asked, extending her hoof to the mechanic.
The gray mare gladly and exaggeratedly took Rarity’s hoof. “I’d be delighted,” she said, following after Rarity as she started to make her way down the hill. “That sounds absolutely wonderful.”
“I hate you two,” Rainbow grumbled, standing up and following them. “Why can’t everypony speak simple? That’d be awesome.”
Even though Rarity kept an eye trained toward the mouth of the lagoon, the siren never reappeared. The green sea creature was simply gone, vanished somewhere into the deep blue sea. Whether she was still hanging around the island or miles away, Rarity didn’t know. But a part of her kept hoping that she’d return, consequences be damned.
Rainbow and Gyro seemed much more contented with the current state of affairs. Without the siren and her song, Gyro didn’t have to worry about keeping an eye on the other two, and Rainbow could enjoy the beach in peace. Her and Gyro ended up chasing each other across the shallow water and starting impromptu races. Rarity was at least glad Rainbow had Gyro for that; the earth pony could keep pace with Rainbow on the ground, whereas if Rarity had tried to race, she’d be left in the dust. That just meant more time for Rarity to lounge on the sand and enjoy the sun.
So that was exactly what she did. Though the experience would’ve been so much better if she had a margarita or something fruity to drink, Rarity made the most of it. The sun was warm, it wasn’t too humid, and there was a gentle breeze off the lagoon to keep her from getting too hot. Even without the basic comforts of civilization, it didn’t get much better than this.
At some point, Rarity heard the fluttering of feathers and cracked an eye open to see a colorful red bird stalking across the sand. Chirp stopped right in front of Rarity’s nose and angled his head back and forth, obviously looking for something to eat. When Rarity didn’t move to offer him anything, he lowered his head and lightly pecked at her nose to convey his frustration.
Rarity sneezed and sat up, frowning at the bird. “Oh, Chirp, must you?” she asked. Still, Chirp cautiously padded closer and started pecking at her fetlocks. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything to eat down here.” Her eyes flicked up the slope of the hill and she pointed in that direction. “You know where the food is, why don’t you go find it yourself?”
Instead, Chirp simply looked up at her and worked his beak from side to side. “…Ello.”
It took Rarity a few seconds to process what she heard. “…Chirp, did you say something?”
“Ello,” the macaw said again. “Ello!”
Rarity was flabbergasted. She looked around and spied Rainbow and Gyro splashing across the water and waved them over. “Girls!” she exclaimed, pointing to the macaw. “Chirp is talking!”
The other two mares stopped what they were doing and turned back to Rarity. “He’s talking?” Rainbow asked, her voice ripe with disbelief. She bounded her way across the water to Rarity, shaking her head the whole time. “No way,” she said. “Really?”
Gyro followed her in and raised an eyebrow at the macaw, who was on the receiving end of loving head scritches from Rarity. “I always thought he was trying to say things before. What’d he say?”
“He said hello,” Rarity said, smiling at Chirp. “Come on, little birdy, say it again.” Chirp, however, was too busy letting Rarity scratch his head to be bothered to respond. Sighing, Rarity drew her hoof back and glared at the macaw. “You’re not going to make me look like a fool in front of these two, are you?”
Chirp angled his head from side to side for a few more seconds, expecting scratches that never came. Eventually, after pecking at Rarity’s hooves for a few seconds, he ruffled his wings and looked at Rainbow. “Ello?”
“Hey, that actually sounded like something!” Rainbow exclaimed, lowering her head to look at Chirp from eye level. “Good job, little guy! Can you say ‘Rainbow?’ C’mon, my name’s awesome, it’s the perfect thing for an awesome parrot like you to learn.”
“I don’t think he’s that far along yet,” Rarity said. “This is the first we’ve ever heard him talk. I doubt his vocabulary is much larger than that single word.”
“Ello,” Chirp reiterated.
“He’s at least passionate about it,” Gyro quipped. “That oughta count for something.”
Rarity scratched Chirp's head some more and stood up. “He’s owed a treat at the very least,” she said. “We want to reward him for talking if we want him to keep doing it.”
Gyro chuckled. “I guess head scratches aren’t good enough for your spoiled little bird.”
“I prefer to think of him as our spoiled little bird,” Rarity said, picking Chirp up with her magic and setting the bird on her shoulder. “He’s like the island’s mascot.”
Chirp responded by fluffing his wings and picking at a strand of Rarity’s salty mane, making the mare giggle. Rainbow watched him for a moment, then nudged him with a blue wingtip. “He’s a pretty great one if you ask me. We definitely need to keep him when we get outta here.”
“Whenever that will be…” Rarity sighed.
“Eventually,” Gyro said. “We’ll be getting there soon. I’m starting to feel like my old self again but fifty pounds lighter. I’ve accomplished every supermodel’s dream!”
Rainbow stuck out her tongue. “I don’t like toothpick mares.”
“‘Toothpick mares?’” Rarity asked. “What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what it says on the tin, Rares,” Rainbow said. “All those supermodels are always trying to get thinner and thinner. Some of them look as bad as G did when we first found her. I like it when they at least have a little muscle to them, some curves and stuff. Soft but firm when you hold onto them.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and started walking back up the hill. “You mean the plus-sized models.”
“I mean normal mares!” Rainbow huffed. “Stupid fashion making fillies think they have to look like skeletons to look pretty. Unrealistic body standards for mares, that’s what it is!”
“I don’t dictate the rules of fashion, darling, I just follow them.” She turned the comment into a teasing barb when she added, “You certainly have never felt pressured to follow them, especially not as a teenage filly in high school, I take it?”
Rainbow frowned down the length of her muzzle. “That’s not true…” she mumbled.
Rarity stopped and turned around. “Really? You of all mares I expected to care the least about beauty standards and the like.”
Even Gyro cocked an eyebrow and flanked Rainbow as she sulked lower into her hooves. “Rainbow Dash, concerned about her appearance? I’ve gotta hear this.”
“I…” Rainbow fumbled for words. Eventually, she settled on an angry huff and a deepening red blush to her cheeks. “Can we not talk about this now? You’re gonna ruin an awesome day for me.”
Rarity and Gyro both looked at each other and smiled. It was evident to Rarity that her and Gyro were on the same wavelength. “Alright, Rainbow, if you insist,” Rarity said. “We’ll put it off for now. But I do expect you to tell us about it later tonight.”
“It’ll be fun,” Gyro said. “We can all talk about our stupid crushes when we were fillies. More girl talk!”
“I hate girl talk,” Rainbow grumbled. “It’s so… girly.”
“It’s in the name, yes,” Rarity teased. “Quite an astute observation.”
“Why do we have to do this?” Rainbow whined. “It’s not important.”
“Because it’s funny,” Gyro said, her lips curling upwards into a devilish smirk.
“Because you’re not going to get any more of this unless you tell me who I have to measure up against,” Rarity said, gesturing a hoof to her body. Winking, she added, “It’s important to know.”
“Mmrrffff… Fine,” Rainbow groaned. “I’ll tell you about it tonight. Maybe a coconut will fall off a tree and break my neck or something and I won’t live that long.”
Rarity trotted a few steps back to Rainbow’s side and brushed shoulders with her. “Oh, come now, darling, it won’t be that bad. I promise.”
“I promise I won’t laugh too hard,” Gyro added, winking.
Rainbow’s head ducked even lower. “I hate you two…”
“Ello?” was all Chirp had to contribute to the discussion. “Ello!”
Rainbow dreaded that coming evening. As much as she wished it would never arrive, soon enough she found herself on the beach once more with Rarity and Gyro. With the shadowy advance of evening finally marching over the island, it was only a matter of time until the dreaded question was asked.
The other two mares certainly took their time in dragging it out. When they first got on the beach, they didn’t say much of anything for almost an hour. It was almost like they enjoyed watching Rainbow suffer in fear of the inevitable. But, for better or for worse, they finally broke the silence.
“So,” Rarity began, that single syllable heralding the approach of the dreaded topic. “I think we’re both owed a story, aren’t we, Gyro?”
The mechanic snorted in amusement. “It’s about that time,” she said, glancing at Rainbow. “Well? Are you gonna start it off, or do we have to play twenty-one questions?”
Rainbow hunched over, her wings bunching up at her sides. “Mmrfff… You two aren’t gonna just let it go, are you?”
“And pass up an opportunity to get something like this out of a pony like you?” Rarity vigorously shook her head. “Perish the thought!”
“Fine.” The single word felt like Rainbow lowering her head into the guillotine. “What do you wanna know?”
“Why the carefree tomcolt by the name of Rainbow Dash ever felt pressured to embrace her feminine side to woo a potential date.”
“I just wanna know who you were trying to snog,” Gyro said, a smirk accompanying her wink. “I’m getting insider access to the personal life of a former Element Bearer. That’s better than reading about it in a magazine.”
Rainbow took a breath and hung her head, stealing herself for the torment about to befall her. “It was Fluttershy…”
“Fluttershy?” Gyro echoed. She laughed a few times, making Rainbow frown at the sand. “For some reason, I didn’t expect that. But yeah, you two did go to school together, didn’t you?”
“We did,” Rainbow stated matter-of-factly, her words blunt and clipped. “I was a teenager filled with raging hormones. That’s all there is to it.”
“Oh, don’t think you’re going to get out of this one that easily,” Rarity said. “Now that I think about it, I heard the other side of this story from Fluttershy during one of our spa dates. I’m interested to hear what yours is.”
“Boring and uncool,” Rainbow grumbled. “If you already heard it from Flutters, that’s all you need to know.”
“I haven’t heard either side of this thing,” Gyro said. “I really want to hear at least one of them.”
“Go on,” Rarity insisted. “Tell us.”
Rainbow groaned and hid her face behind her feathers. “I hate you two… Fine. You want the story? Here’s the story.”
After a moment to remember blurry details not thought about for many years, Rainbow found herself staring out over the water, away from the two mares on either side of her. “I was thirteen. She was fourteen. We’d been friends for a few years, ever since the rainboom thing. She was always an interesting change of pace to hang out with, because she could keep me grounded in reality when I just wanted to do nothing but fly and race until my wings fell off. I didn’t think much about it then, but I really enjoyed hanging out around her, more than I did my other friends. Well…” she shrugged. “I didn’t really have many other friends. My attitude kinda put other ponies off. Nopony wanted to hang with somepony like me. I made them feel uncomfortable.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Rarity said. “You certainly were over-competitive back then, from what I’ve heard.”
“So sue me. Whatever.” Rainbow pawed at the sand and couldn’t help but let a little smile slip onto the corner of her muzzle. “Puberty hit us like a ton of bricks. About the only thing that grew on me was my wings, but Fluttershy… hoh, Celestia, she was a lanky kid before, but she really started… filling out into her height around then. She got the supermodel body and everything.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Rarity said. “I remember that time Photo Finish came to Ponyville and became obsessed with her. She has the perfect figure for dress modeling. It’s almost unfair.”
“Really?” Gyro asked. “I never could tell. She’s always kind of slouching in any pictures I see of her in the papers and stuff.”
“I don’t think she really wants the kind of body she has,” Rarity said. “I think she’d much rather have had a smaller, less noticeable figure like Rainbow.”
“Yeah, well she had the hot stuff for thirteen year old me, and I was struck,” Rainbow said. “And that’s kinda when I figured out I wasn’t into dudes. But I didn’t know how Fluttershy felt, but I thought it was more on the girly side of things. And you know me; I’m not girly at all, so that was problem number one.”
“Ohhhh,” Gyro said. “I can see where this is going.”
“Yeah. Pretty much. I don’t think my parents knew what to think of it. Suddenly I’m trying out Mom’s makeup and watching what I’m eating, practicing my strut in front of a mirror. I was convinced that I could impress Fluttershy enough to make her fall for me if I just acted like a girl.” Rainbow hesitated and even laughed at herself a little. “Holy crap, I feel so stupid about it now. Like, seriously.”
“Don’t stop now,” Gyro said. “I want to know if you got the girl.”
“What do you think happened?” Rainbow asked her. “When Fluttershy finally confronted me about how I was being so weird and acting like I was more interested in fashion and socializing than the Wonderbolts, I confessed what it was all about. Then she just told me that she wasn’t interested.” She shook her head. “Honestly, if I’d just approached her straight and told her that I wanted to date her, she probably would’ve been too meek to object. But because I spent a month or two acting weird, I think it worried and irked her enough that she just wanted the old me back and figured that getting rid of my delusions was the best way to do that.”
Sighing, Rainbow lowered her head to the sand. “So yeah. That’s that story. Hope I didn’t disappoint.”
“You certainly didn’t,” Gyro said. “It’s fun just getting to know more about two celebrities. I at least have this to enjoy until we get out of here.”
Rarity giggled and patted Rainbow’s shoulder. “That’s about what I know of the story from Fluttershy,” she said. “She knew that you were interested for at least a little while, even before you started acting all girly. Then she was just confused about what you were doing and didn’t know how to voice her concerns. And you’re right, eventually she worked up the courage to say what was on her mind and confront you about it.”
“Good for the both of us, then,” Rainbow said. “I nearly missed relay season over that. I got my act back together quick enough to try out for the team and make it.”
“So how does teenaged Fluttershy compare to Rarity?” Gyro asked.
The look in Rarity’s eyes made it obvious enough to Rainbow to know what the correct response was. “Not even close,” Rainbow said. “It’s not a contest. One was a stupid crush, the other… well, we’ve had sex in the sand, so I think that’s a pretty good sign of things.”
Rarity swatted Rainbow with a hoof. “Don’t be so crass about our extracurricular activities,” Rarity chided her. “Show some respect!”
“At least I didn’t make sound effects,” Rainbow said, sticking her tongue out. She whipped her head to Gyro and grinned. “There’s this one spot on Rares’ side that if you touch it just right, she makes this noise, like—!”
Rainbow suddenly found herself gagged as Rarity’s magic wrapped around her muzzle and held her jaws together. “That’s enough out of you, Rainbow,” Rarity said. “Otherwise I’ll tell Gyro where you’re ticklish.” She winked at the mechanic and added, “It’s near one of her wings.”
“!!!” Rainbow flailed against Rarity’s magic and frowned at her, and a moment later the blue field disappeared. “Hey! Let’s not say things we can’t take back!”
“I’m gonna be a wealthy mare by the end of this,” Gyro said. “I’ll get so much money in blackmail bribes, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Shut up,” Rainbow said. “We just need to find your ticklish spots. Then we’ll all be on even ground!”
“I’ve got them, but you won’t find them,” Gyro said, winking and darting her pink tongue out of her muzzle. “And it’s not like you can blackmail me with them. I’m not a celebrity!”
“I’m sure you’ll be one when we get back from all this,” Rainbow said. “One of the few who survived.”
“Yeah, well that’d be something wouldn’t it?”
“It would.” Turning to Rarity, Rainbow smiled at her. “Well, I told my story. You’re next, Rares.”
Rarity blinked. “Oh… me?”
“Yes, you.” Leaning against Rarity’s shoulder, Rainbow poked her in the chest. “What, you thought you were gonna get away with only tormenting me? Now I want to hear one of yours.”
“Yeah,” Gyro chimed in. “If I had popcorn right now, you can bet I’d be eating it. Just pretend that’s what I’m doing.”
“Well… I suppose.” Rarity shook her head. “I need a drink, first.”
“Don’t we all?”
“Of water, Rainbow, but I suppose that works too.” Standing up, Rarity spun in place and briskly trotted back to the camp. “Be back in a minute!”
Rarity spent her brief few minutes back at the campsite sifting through her old memories. What story was she going to share? She certainly had no shortage of them, much to both her amusement and her embarrassment. Crushes came and went for her like the seasons, especially when she was a temperamental teenage… dare she say, diva. Her first crush was a schoolyard crush with another colt when she was seven and didn’t know what exactly dating was, only that ladies did it. Most that came in the following years were more or less the same. Then of course, there were her celebrity crushes, especially on Prince Blueblood when she was seventeen. Though that was probably her most infamous experience, Rainbow already knew the whole story, and it wasn’t one Rarity particularly wanted to relive. So what could take its place?
Then a specific memory came back to her that made her blush. Oh, yes, that one would do perfectly. She still had pleasant feelings attached to that memory. Why not relive it one more time?
She decided to carry the jug of water back to the beach with her—Rainbow and Gyro would certainly appreciate it. Hefting it in her magic, she hummed to herself as she made her way back through the tree line and down to the shore.
“Think of a story yet?” Rainbow asked when she returned. “I know it’s gonna be a good one.”
Rarity set the jug down in the sand between Rainbow and Gyro. “I did,” she said. “My crushes are admittedly too many and too short for me to properly recount one, and I’ve always been obsessed with fashion. I haven’t had an experience like Rainbow that made me suddenly become interested in acting like a proper lady. But I do have a good story to tell about my first kiss.”
Gyro rubbed her hooves together. “This sounds like it’ll be good. Like you’ve already made clear, a mare like you has had a lot of kisses. The first had to be something special, I’m sure.”
“It… was,” Rarity said. “It wasn’t exactly the stuff of fairy tales and fantasy, but I appreciated it nonetheless. And, believe it or not, I did it behind the bleachers.”
“Behind the bleachers?” Rainbow echoed. “Not on a date at a nice restaurant or something?”
Rarity shook her head. “I was fifteen, practically a late bloomer if you’d ask me back then. I had this idea that if I wanted to be a lady, I needed to have a husband before I was twenty. After all, that’s what the nobles do all the time, especially in the olden days.”
“Meanwhile mares today don’t marry until they’re twenty-five,” Gyro said. After a moment, she lowered her head. “I checked. I’m twenty-six, by the way.”
“Give it time, girl,” Rainbow said. “You’ll have your pick of the litter when you get back. Stallions will just be eating out of your hoof!”
“Anyway, my story,” Rarity said, drawing the conversation back on topic. “Like I said, I was fifteen. I hadn’t been dating for something like six months, which was a long time for me. But there was this colt, Whirlwind, he was the defender for Ponyville’s buckball team at the time. He was handsome, athletic, fast… honestly, he reminds me of a stallion version of you, Rainbow.”
“I can see why you and Rainbow are a thing,” Gyro said. “Your tastes were already there.”
“Well, he probably wasn’t as awesome as me,” Rainbow said, puffing out her chest fluff. “Nopony’s as awesome as me.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t really know you all that well then,” Rarity said. “You were just an apprentice weathermare while you were still in school. Anyway, I liked him, and he liked me. He confessed with a rose he must’ve clipped off somepony’s rosebush or nicked from the flower girls at the market. But I agreed to be his marefriend, and we were inseparable for all of my junior year at high school. He truly made me feel like a lady. Took me on dates, we’d watch the sunset together, I cheered for him at his games… Those golden days of high school seem like so long ago now.”
“What about the kiss?” Rainbow asked. “I wanna know how it happened behind the bleachers instead of on one of those fancy dates.”
“Yes, the kiss.” Rarity hummed and stared out over the ocean, replaying the memories in her mind’s eye. “It was before the championship game of buckball season that year. Ponyville versus Manehattan. Who’d have imagined that our little town would go so far? Yet there we were, and the last game of the series was going to be played in Ponyville. Each school was tied at three games, so this would decide it. But before the game, I took Whirlwind behind the bleachers and gave him a kiss for good luck. We’d only been dating for two months at this point; I wanted to take it slow up until then, to really feel him out and get a sense of whether or not he was coltfriend material. But yes, that was our first kiss. We’d have many more after that, until we ended things when he left for college on a buckball scholarship. It was an amicable parting, at least, though sad, especially when my passions involved starting the boutique at Ponyville, not higher education.”
“Huh,” Rainbow said. “That’s kinda neat.”
“What about the game?” Gyro asked. “Did you guys win?”
“Oh, heavens no,” Rarity said, shaking her head with a little laugh. “We were horribly outscored. It was a massacre.”
“Sounds like your kiss distracted your coltfriend,” Rainbow said. “He was too busy chasing those butterflies in his stomach and not enough time chasing the buckball.”
“Whatever the reason was, I gave him a few more after the game to make him feel better,” Rarity said. “Plus a little extra,” she added with a wink.
Gyro blinked. “Did you lose it with him?”
“He was the first,” Rarity confirmed. “But not then. That would come later. I just let him play with my tail and my teats a bit. Nothing more than some touchy-feely.”
“Was that also behind the bleachers?” Rainbow asked, an amused quirk on her face.
“No. That one was in my bedroom. My parents were out that night. I knew they were coming back late, so that’s why we didn’t go further. It’s hard to cover up the smell of sex after a buckball game.”
“Sounds like that was fun,” Gyro said. “I wish I could say as much. I’ve gotten laid before,” she quickly interjected with a raised hoof before her companions’ thoughts could wander that way, “But nothing steady, nothing recent.”
“Which is surprising,” Rainbow said. Rarity saw her ruby eyes flit over Gyro’s figure. “Now that you’re getting some muscle back, I can tell that you’re a pretty mare.”
“Maybe the grease and grime is too much for a potential coltfriend,” Rarity offered. “That and all the travel would make it difficult to find somepony steady.”
Gyro frowned at the sand. “Maybe. But I love what I do. I just wish I could find somepony who loved it, too.”
“None of the other engineers on the Concordia?” Rainbow asked.
It took a second for Gyro to answer. “…Not anymore.”
“Oh.” Rainbow’s ears folded back. “Right. Sorry.”
“Meh.”
“Just give it time,” Rarity said. “I’m sure of it.”
“I hope so,” Gyro said.
“You got any stories you want to share, G?” Rainbow asked. “Surely you’ve got something good, current love life aside.”
Gyro thought for a moment. “Well, now that you mention it…”
Rainbow nodded along. “Yeah, G. That’s where you learned how to be a grease monkey and stuff.”
Gyro rolled her eyes. “Basically, though my job was more complicated than maintenance work—actual grease monkeys. I was trained to work with the engines. I know how to make any steam boiler tick, from a tiny thing as big as my head to something as massive as an airship engine. If it’s steam powered, I can run it.”
“I wouldn’t think that would be all that difficult,” Rarity said. “Steam engines simply function off of heating water to create steam and pressure. There aren’t many moving parts, right?”
“See, that’s what most ponies think,” Gyro said, pointing her gray hoof at Rarity. “But there’s more that goes into it on the other side. You have to condense that steam back down into water inside of a system where heat is constantly being applied. Condensers and all that pipework can get really complicated inside of a huge engine, like what you’d find on the Concordia.” She wistfully shook her head. “That ship was a beauty. She had four massive boilers, bigger than anything I’ve seen before. Half of the bottom decks were dedicated to her engine room. She could really fly if we put them all at full power.”
“Yeah, but like…” Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “How does this tie into crush stories?”
“I was getting to that, but you distracted me.” Crossing her forelegs over one another, Gyro stared out over the sea. “Like I was saying, I went to trade school to become a steam engineer. I liked it there. It was only focused on what I wanted to do, no dumb stuff to distract me from my passion. And I learned everything I needed to operate a steam engine in three years, so that was pretty great.
“But steam engineering isn’t really a mare’s field,” she said. “I was one of a class of about a hundred there, and there were seventeen other mares. Can you imagine that? Four out of every five ponies there was a stallion.” Chuckling, she shook her head. “Us eighteen could basically have the run of the school. We were prime real estate, and everypony wanted us.”
“Is this gonna go somewhere tragic about how you still couldn’t get laid in a school where you could’ve just picked any stallion you wanted?” Rainbow asked.
“Thankfully, no,” Gyro said with a laugh. “Although I do find the irony in it now where it feels like I’m just the unluckiest mare to have ever lived when I came from that.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, darling,” Rarity said. “But please do continue with your story. Were you idolized, worshipped as a goddess? Or were they all incredibly awkward and didn’t know how to speak with girls?”
“About half and half,” Gyro said. “Some of them were nervous stallions who just wanted to focus on learning about steam engines and nothing else. A bunch of them already had dates and marefriends, so they’d only look but not touch. But the rest were all able-bodied, usually muscular, and kind of jocks.” Her lips curled upwards. “I liked the jocks.”
“Did you have a crush on your high school hoofball quarterback?” Rainbow teased her.
Gyro blushed. “…Maybe…”
“Hah! Knew it!” Rainbow’s wingtips fluttered as she giggled. “You just want a big, muscular stallion to make you feel like a girly girl.”
“I never claimed I didn’t,” Gyro said. “But in high school I was some weird middle ground between nerdy and butch. I wore glasses and tied my hair back in a ponytail, but I also had about as much muscle as some stallions. I wasn’t very high on most colts’ lists, that’s for sure.”
Rarity tutted. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “But you look like you’ve grown into your frame since then. And you have a lovely face! I already know exactly what I’d do for you if I ever made you a dress.”
“Wait, you wore glasses?” Rainbow asked. “Did you get your eyes fixed or something?”
“No,” Gyro said. “I just lost them in the crash.”
Both Rarity and Rainbow blinked. “So… you still need them?”
“I’m farsighted,” Gyro said. “I only really wear them when I’m trying to do my job or read something. I’ve been fine out here because there’s nothing to read and I haven’t needed to work with my hooves a whole bunch.”
“Heavens, I know the feeling!” Rarity exclaimed. “I need glasses when I’m doing my fine needlework and stitching, otherwise my eyes would go cross. But you’re right, at least out here, we don’t need them as much. Has this been bothering you the whole time?”
“Yeah, but starving was on my mind a lot more.”
“Wait, but like, are we blurry?” Rainbow asked. “How many feathers am I holding up?”
Gyro frowned at Rainbow. “Three. Just because I’m farsighted doesn’t mean I’m blind!”
“Oh.” Rainbow put her wing back down at her side. “Well, I just wanted to know! How bad is it, though?”
“Bad enough that I can’t see the individual hairs of your coat from here,” Gyro said to the mare sitting right next to her. “You’re just a solid layer of blue and rainbow, and kind of blurry. But I can see the strands in Rarity’s mane clearly enough, so it isn’t much of a problem from further than five feet out.”
“Huh,” Rainbow said, furrowing her brow in thought.
“Anyways, like I was saying…” The engineer shook her head. “You two are the worst, seriously.”
“Sorry,” Rarity said, “We’re just interested in learning more about you!”
“Yeah, you’ve been here for like three weeks now, and we’re still learning things about you,” Rainbow said. “Seriously, how could you go that long without mentioning that?”
“Because it wasn’t important,” Gyro said with a shrug. “Anyway, there was a stallion in that school that I really liked named Hot Coals. I called him Hot Stuff because he was really attractive. He liked me and I obviously liked him, so we dated while we were there.” A lovey smile flitted to Gyro’s muzzle. “I feel like we made it our mission to have sex in every room of that school.”
Rainbow burst out laughing while Rarity simply seemed impressed. “Hah! Well, did you succeed?”
Gyro chuckled a bit herself. “No, but we got close. We decided not to try it in boiler maintenance room. If somepony fired one of those up while we were in there, we’d probably get burnt to death. It… wasn’t very well designed.” After a moment, she added, “The professor’s lounge was the best. They had a long table in the middle of it. We had to hide under it when the janitor walked by so he wouldn’t see us through the window in the door.”
“What happened to him?” Rarity asked. “It sounded like you two were very happy together.”
The gray mare sighed and let her shoulders sink. “We graduated and got hired by two different airship companies, even though we applied to all the same ones. So I went one way, and he went another. We tried to stay in touch, but…” She hung her head. “The letters stopped coming one day. Haven’t seen him or heard from him since.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Rarity said. Standing up, she made her way across the sand and sat down at Gyro’s side and put her weight against the mare. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, putting her good wing over Gyro’s back. “That sucks.”
“It does,” Gyro agreed. “But it’s whatever. That was a few years ago. I’m… well, not over it, but past it. For a few short months before graduation, I thought we were gonna have a life together. But we weren’t just cut out for it. He probably found somepony better on his ship while I was waiting to see him again.”
“There’ll be more,” Rarity assured her. “There are always more. Don’t let one stallion get you down.”
Gyro nodded. “I try not to… but thanks.” She sighed and rolled her shoulders. “I kind of needed that, I think. I… hadn’t talked about Coals in a while. I don’t think it’ll make anything better, but it’s nice to just get it out there.”
“We’re always willing to listen to anything you have to say,” Rarity assured her. “Just let us know, and we’ll listen.”
“Yeah, especially for an awesome mare like you, G.” Rainbow smirked and added, “I’ll even waive the fee, just for you.”
The mechanic snorted and laughed. “The day you of all ponies open a therapy clinic is the day Equestria goes insane.”
“Sounds like it’ll be fun,” Rainbow said, smirking. “I’m gonna try it when I get back!”
“Please don’t,” Rarity groaned. “I rather like Equestria just the way it is.”
Rainbow Dash woke up the next morning with a restless itch pricking at her spine. Even though it was still very early and the sun was hardly up over the horizon, she couldn’t bring herself to sit still and go back to sleep. She had to move, had to do something, and unfortunately for her, lying on the fronds next to Rarity simply wasn’t cutting it.
Carefully extracting herself from the tangle of limbs her and Rarity had become over the night, Rainbow rolled off of their bedding and stood up. She stretched each one of her limbs in succession, finishing with her good wing, which fluttered a few times, sending powerful gusts of wind circulating through the hut. She instinctively tried to do the same with her other wing, but it was still bound in vines, preventing her from opening it. Besides, that wind gust alone had made Rarity stir, so Rainbow quickly slipped outside the hut and into the morning light so she wouldn’t wake her.
Once outside, she held her good wing over her eyes to shield them from the sunlight. It promised to be another good day on the island, warm with spotty cumulus cloud coverage to provide nice shady reprieves here and there. At least Rainbow knew she couldn’t get sick of days like that. If there was one good thing about being stranded on a tropical island…
Her tongue smacked against dry lips, and she turned in place to go to the watering hole. Along the way, she passed by their old hut, now Gyro’s shelter, and heard the earth pony snoring away inside. She chuckled and shook her head. Thank Celestia that she wasn’t sharing a room with them, for Rarity’s sake. Rainbow could sleep through anything, but Rarity slept about as light as she weighed. Which, by now, was lighter than Gyro. The mechanic had really bulked up once she had a steady diet again.
When she made it to the spring, she saw Chirp sitting at the edge, dipping his beak into the water for a drink. Grinning, she trotted up to the bird, who regarded her approach with a sideways-tilted head. “Hey, little buddy,” she said, ruffling the macaw’s neck feathers with her hoof. “What’s up?”
Chirp moved and scratched his beak around a few times. “Ello,” he said, and then he pressed his cheek against Rainbow’s hoof.
“Yeah, good morning to you, too,” Rainbow said, scratching him a little more. Then, stopping, she lowered her head and took a drink from the spring as well. When she lifted her head, water dripped from her muzzle, adding more ripples to the wavy surface of the pond. Her pink tongue darted over her lips, and she bent over for a second gulp.
When she stood up again, she frowned and rolled her shoulders. That itchiness that drove her out of bed still wouldn’t go away. She felt like she could run laps around the island and still have energy to spare. It was probably because she hadn’t been doing much of anything as of late. Though she went up to the south hill and back every day just for the exercise, she needed to do something more. If she didn’t, she was worried she was going to explode.
So she smirked at Chirp and took a few steps back. “Come on, Chirp,” she said, grinning at him. “Try and keep up!”
Then she broke off into a gallop without warning, heading for the north end of the island. Chirp squawked in surprise and extended both of his wings as Rainbow dashed off through the undergrowth and across the silty sand, her hooves kicking up sprays of gray behind her. Her heart, strong and confident, resisted the urge to speed up for as long as it could, only beginning to quicken its pulse until she was halfway across the island.
Trees whipped by and her blue body burst through bushes and scraggly undergrowth. Her big pegasus lungs sucked down air and fed it to her hollow bones, holding the air for as long as possible to suck out as much oxygen as she could before exhaling. Her hooves drummed in a steady rhythm across the sand, and her good wing opened and tested the air a few times on instinct. A flash of color appeared in the corner of her vision, and she briefly turned her head to see Chirp flying after her, the macaw weaving in and out of trees and flapping his own impressive wingspan.
Then she hit the beach. The crashing waves appeared in front of her, but she didn’t slow down, not yet. The loose sand here made her hoofing a little treacherous, but she persisted without losing her balance. As soon as her blue hooves touched the harder, damp sand, she bounded once, twice, then three times, launching herself right at the edge of the water. Her hooves splashed down in the surf and she skidded to a stop as the water swelled along her fetlocks.
But the itchiness remained. She wasn’t done yet.
Before the next wave could roll in, before she even had a chance to stop and catch her breath, Rainbow spun around and launched herself back up the beach. Chirp wheeled a wide half-circle above her and pumped his wings some more, once again chasing Rainbow through the heart of the island. When they reached the pond where they started, Rainbow pressed on, her sights set on the south hill.
Now her heart began to thump in her chest and her breathing quickened. An ache settled in her joints and her hooves, but it was a good ache, the kind she got after not pushing herself for too long. She was Rainbow Dash; she needed to be pushing herself. And she hadn’t been doing that lately. But, as she started climbing the hill, that itch still remained.
But Rainbow knew what she had to do.
When she crested the hill, she kept galloping. A quick scan of her surroundings identified the sharpest drop off to the south, and she angled herself in that direction. As she ran, she turned her head around and bit down on the vines holding her wing in place. With a solid tug on the knot tying it together, she sent them uncoiling and unraveling down the length of her body. A flick of her wing was all she needed to shed the last bit, and then she grinned and lowered her head as the edge approached her, both wings held out to her sides, already playing with the air flowing through them. At the last moment, she started to flap them, and she felt gravity begin to lose its grasp on her. It couldn’t hold her for long, and she knew it.
Then her forehooves touched the rock at the edge of the steep slope, and she briefly hesitated her gallop to bring all four of her legs onto the rock at once and launched herself off of it. The air blew through her face as she started to fall down the side of the slope, teasing and tugging at her feathers. She held her wings as straight as she could, cutting through the air like razors, before she forced both of them down in a single, powerful flap. Suddenly, her momentum changed, her gut dropped down out of her throat, and she wasn’t falling. Another flap, and her glide began to pitch up. A third, and she started to climb that invisible, untouchable staircase in the sky that only pegasi knew how to use.
And just like that, her restlessness evaporated. As she pulled away from the island, one steady wingbeat at a time, she felt her spirit soar along with her body. She could fly again. She could dart through the air and do things other ponies only dreamed of. She was home.
She couldn’t help but cheer and holler as she climbed higher and higher. This was what she was born to do, and it’d been a long, painful six weeks while her wing was out of commission. But now she was back in her element, back in the sky, and it felt so right. She didn’t stop climbing until an ache in her healed wing made her stop. She knew better than to push herself now, but just the mere joy of being airborne again was enough for her.
From up here, she felt like she could see everything. It wasn’t as high of a flight as Cloudsdale, for example, but it still gave her a good view on the surrounding islands. Below her, her home island was little more than bumpy green bundles of palm trees with gently curving beaches, ending with the horseshoe-like lagoon and its rocky arms just beneath the bald south hill. Their campsite was visible from the air as two squared-off masses of gray and yellow palms in an open sandy clearing. To the northwest of the island, she could barely make out what she thought was their raft beneath some trees, still resting exactly where they’d left it.
She heard a squawk from below her, and she saw Chirp slowly circling about halfway between the treetops and where she hovered in the air. Apparently the macaw didn’t want to fly up as high as Rainbow had and was content to stay somewhere lower to the island, but Rainbow didn’t mind. She was overcome with so many emotions anyway at rediscovering her flight that she didn’t know how to properly respond to that. Instead, with some mix of tears of joy and a wicked grin on her muzzle, Rainbow dived back down to the island, passing the bird along the way.
“Come on, Chirp,” she said as her wings flared, braking her airspeed and slowing her down enough for a good, if rough, landing on the hill. “Let’s go tell the girls!”
Rarity groggily staggered out of her murky and muddy dreams when the sun hit her in the face. She’d happened to position herself exactly where the sun could come through the doorway and strike her eyes, finding the tiniest of gaps between the trees to the east and the palm fronds hanging off of the door post. Even worse, it was doggedly persistent, remaining on Rarity’s eyes as the minutes dragged into hours. At least, that’s what it felt like to her.
Eventually, sitting up with a huff, she crossed her forelegs and growled at the sun outside. “Alright, you win! Heavens above, can’t you let a lady have some peace?!” When the sun didn’t answer, she flopped back down on the bedding and closed her eyes, collecting her breath while her face was angled away from the morning light. “Celestia, put the damn thing back down or I swear to you that I’ll stitch your next Gala dress out of itchy, scratchy wool!”
Then the hut shook, and Rarity squeaked and jumped. “Waaghaahaa!” she cried out in alarm, curling up under her forelegs. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it! Please don’t drop the sky on me! I like the sun, really, just not this early in the morning!”
She heard a laugh from outside the hut and immediately glared at the sand. “What’s going on, Rares? You having a bad morning?”
“I always have bad mornings,” Rarity grumbled. “My hair is always a mess, it’s always too early, and there’s always another crisis or issue with my business that has seemingly sprung up overnight. I don’t think I’ve had a good morning in five years.”
“Even when you wake up next to me?”
Rarity glanced at the empty space next to her on the bedding. “That didn’t happen today, now did it?”
“Sorry.” The hut creaked again—what was Rainbow doing, standing on it? “I was awake and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“Understandable,” Rarity said. “We should’ve built this thing so the doorway wasn’t pointing to the east. Is it too late to change it?”
“Probably, unless you want to do all the work. It doesn’t bother me.” After a second, Rainbow added, “Oh, I’ve got something I need to show you out here. Check it out!”
Rarity staggered to her hooves and shook some of the sand out of her coat. “Why can’t you at least tell me what it is, darling? This better not be like the siren yesterday. I want to know if you’re going to lead me to something like that again.”
“I can’t really tell you,” Rainbow said. “I’ve gotta show you or you won’t believe it.”
“After seeing a living, breathing siren, I’m willing to believe a lot of things,” Rarity said, but she nevertheless walked out of the house and looked around. When she didn’t see Rainbow, she frowned. “Where are you?”
“Behind you, Rares,” Rainbow said. When Rarity spun around, she at first didn’t see anything… until she looked up. There, she saw Rainbow perched on the roof of their shelter, using one of the beams to support her weight instead of the flimsy palm frond mats. The pegasus seemed incredibly proud of her position, though Rarity was less amused.
“Rainbow, how did you get up there?” Rarity asked. “Get down now before you hurt yourself. Or worse, break our shelter.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I’m a big girl, Rares, I know how to handle myself.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Setting her jaw, Rarity went a step closer to scold the pegasus better. “Get down, Rainbow!”
“Eeesh. Fine, Rares.” She crouched low, like she was ready to pounce. Perhaps too late, Rarity realized that she actually was. “Catch me!”
“Rainbowwaitwhatareyoudoing—?!” Rarity blurted as the pegasus fell towards her. She ducked back and away before Rainbow could land on her, and too late did her horn flare too life to try and magically catch the pegasus. She was too tired to really think about using her magic at the moment.
But to her surprise, Rainbow never hit the ground. Instead, she felt a strong gust of wind, and suddenly Rainbow was falling upwards. No, not falling upwards. Flying. At first, Rarity didn’t believe it, but when she saw Rainbow giggling and laughing above her, she realized she wasn’t dreaming. “You… you’ve got your flight back?!”
“Oh man, that was great!” Rainbow said between laughs. “You totally thought I was gonna fall on you! That’s hilarious! Hah!”
“You can fly!” Rarity exclaimed, and she couldn’t help but bound about in the sand a little like Pinkie Pie. “This is amazing! This opens up so many new possibilities for us! So many new places we can get to now!”
Rainbow alighted on the sand and folded her wings back at her sides. “I know, isn’t it? It’s awesome! I’ve been grounded for so long I almost forgot what it was like to be Rainbow Dash!”
A gray figure stumbled out of the smaller hut and rubbed her eyes. “What’s going on out here?” she mumbled, still half-asleep. “Did somepony do a thing?”
“Rainbow can fly again!” Rarity exclaimed, grabbing Gyro’s hooves with her magic and sliding the startled and unwilling mare across the sand to them. “She can honestly, truly fly!”
“Not like I used to,” Rainbow interjected, holding up a hoof. “At least, not yet. My wing is still sore and my muscles are weak from not being used for a month and a half. But I’ve just gotta rehab it and exercise it, and it’ll be good as new!”
Rarity threw her forelegs around Rainbow’s shoulders and pulled the mare in for a quick kiss. When they separated, she nuzzled behind one of Rainbow’s ears. “I’m so happy for you, darling,” she practically purred. “I know how much this means to you.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s awesome,” Rainbow said, ducking away from Rarity’s nuzzles and reestablishing a more friendly space between them. “Gimme a week and I’ll be able to reach the cloud layer. We can get some real cloud beds to sleep on instead of sand and palm leaves.”
“Oh, that would be just heavenly,” Rarity said. “A real bed after all this time would be something to die for.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves on the whole dying front,” Gyro said. “Let’s just focus on staying happy and alive.”
“But of course,” Rarity said. Still, she couldn’t help but smile at this fortunate turn of events. Now they were all finally back to full strength, or at least close to it in Gyro’s case. Rarity had her magic, Rainbow could fly, and Gyro finally had some meat on her bones. All in all, their merry band of survivors was fit enough to do anything.
And if they were fit enough to do anything, then there was one thing in particular that they needed to accomplish.
“So,” Rarity said, “when do we head for the next island?”
The following few hours were spent in a confused flurry of activity. It was like organized chaos, in a sense, or at least that’s how Rainbow would put it. Her, Rarity, and Gyro all started trying to gather supplies and prepare things for the trip to the next island, but they were too excited now that they were ready to travel that there wasn’t any order or reason in how they started putting things together. The point at which Rarity had collected a basketful of coconuts was the moment they realized they probably needed to plan out exactly what their plan of attack would be.
So they used lunch to sit down and start to plan things out. Even though Rainbow hated thinking before acting instead of just doing something, she forced herself to slow down and sit with Rarity and Gyro. This wasn’t a game or a competition like she was used to back in Equestria; this was a matter of survival, of life and death. A mistake or poorly thought-out move could get them all killed.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to lead the discussion. Rarity, ever neat and organized, had taken that mantle upon herself. “I suppose our first order of business should be making sure we have enough food and water for the trip. We don’t know what we’ll find on the other two islands in terms of either.”
“We’ve certainly got that mostly covered,” Rainbow said, eyeing the scattered collections of fruit in baskets in the sand. “I think you got us enough coconuts to last a week, Rares.”
“Yes, well, I was simply trying to make sure that we had what we needed to survive,” Rarity said. “Though I suppose we don’t have room to carry that many coconuts with us over the sea.”
“Water’s more important,” Gyro said. “Like you said, we don’t know if there’s a source of water on the other islands. And coconut water will only get us so far.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “We’ve got two jugs though, so we can fill each of those up and tie cloth around the ends so it doesn’t evaporate. Too bad there aren’t any corks.”
“Unfortunately, cork trees don’t grow in this climate,” Rarity said. “Otherwise, we could make some easily.”
Rainbow blinked. “Corks come from trees?”
“Yes they… you didn’t know that?” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Where did you think they came from?”
“I don’t know!” Rainbow crossed her forelegs. “The cork store or something.”
The sound of Rarity’s hoof striking her horn was surprisingly audible. Sighing, she shook her head and dragged her hoof down her face. “Rainbow, darling, sometimes I just can’t…”
Gyro snickered but cleared her throat after a moment. “Rainbow being dumb aside, maybe we should get back to this,” she said. “We gotta figure this stuff out.”
“Right.” Rarity looked over what they’d collected so far. “So, both our jugs of water, but we’ll leave the pot here just in case. We don’t want to take everything with us. I can easily weave more baskets from palm fronds, so we don’t have to worry about those. Maybe one each of star apples and sugar apples?”
“Sounds fine to me,” Rainbow said. “If we’re gonna take coconuts, we should at least remove the husks before we do. I don’t want to have to wrestle with that later. Plus, coconuts are hard under the husk. They’d make great emergency throwing weapons.”
“The point at which we’re bucking coconuts at things trying to hurt us is the point where I give up,” Gyro said. “I’d be better just using my own hooves. I was never good at horseshoes.”
“Really?” Rainbow furrowed her brow. “But it’s an earth pony sport.”
Gyro opened her mouth to say something, closed it, then frowned at Rainbow. “That’s like saying all pegasi are good at stunt flying because they have wings. Or unicorns are good at… whatever bourgeoise sport you play.”
“Tennis,” Rainbow grumbled, shooting Rarity a dirty look.
Rarity, meanwhile, let out an exasperated sigh and subconsciously reached for glasses that weren’t there. “Ladies, we’re getting distracted,” she sung in a voice that clearly meant she was beginning to grow frustrated with the two of them.
“Sorry,” Rainbow grumbled. Gyro simply shrugged and dipped her head in submission.
“Quite,” Rarity said in a stern voice. Then, clearing her throat, she returned to the task at hand. “Anyways, that’s the food and water situation mostly taken care of. What about tools? What should we bring with us?”
Rainbow looked over their figurative toolbox she’d dragged out of the hut earlier. “We’ve got a steel knife and a steel cleaver, a stone axe, and a bunch of crappy seashell knives. And our spears and some wooden swords that probably work better as clubs.”
“I suppose like last time we won’t want to take our actual valuable steel,” Rarity said. We can’t afford to lose that.”
“I would take it and just be careful,” Gyro said. “At least it’s reliable and definitely better quality than your improvised stuff. I’d rather trust my life to that than rocks tied to sticks.”
“The good thing is that we have two steel things,” Rainbow said. “We don’t have to take both, so I’d just take the knife with us. You can do a lot of stuff with a knife.”
Gyro nodded in agreement. “I’m with Rainbow. Let’s just take the good knife and then a bunch of the other makeshift stuff. And the spears, in case we find more minotaurs.”
“I just hope that we won’t have to use them,” Rarity said. “We’re much better moving quickly and quietly instead of trying to fight for our lives.”
“Agreed,” Rainbow said. “As much as I like to kick butt, it’s better if we don’t have to kick that many butts. Eventually, one of them will kick back.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Yes, right, of course, darling,” She whipped her neck from side to side, cracking stiff vertebrae, and stood up. “I’m not sure if I can think of anything else at the moment. The raft is still in good condition and we don’t have much to take over in terms of supplies. We’re set to sail once we have everything together.”
“Yeah, but like, to where?” Rainbow asked. “We haven’t decided on an island yet. We’ve got the south one and the other west one. We should probably figure that out.”
The seamstress slapped herself on the head. “Of course! I can’t believe I forgot the most important part.” Lowering her hoof back to the sand, she looked in the general direction of the two islands, even though they weren’t visible through the trees. “Does it matter? I think they’re about the same distance away, aren’t they?”
“The south island’s a little closer,” Rainbow said. “But the water’s deeper out there, choppier. It’d probably be as much of a pain to get there as it would to go to the southwest one.”
“Then from what it sounds like, it doesn’t matter,” Gyro said. “Do we want to deal with the rough water or the longer trip first?”
“If anything, I think we should go to the southwest island first,” Rarity said. “It’s closer to the western one where we destroyed the minotaurs’ canoes. If we go there later, they might have new canoes in the waters surrounding their home island. I think it would be safer to do it that way and save the south island for later.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Sounds good to me. I don’t care either way. I was planning on flying most of it either way, now that we’ve got a better method of sailing around figured out.”
“That’s an idea,” Gyro said. “If you can fly, you can scout things out before we get there. Do a little reconnaissance!”
“Hey, yeah, you’re right, G!” Rainbow beamed and sat up straighter. “I can put my wings to good use! Find us a good landing site when we get close!”
Rarity’s purple mane bounced as she nodded along. “That definitely would be advantageous for us,” she said. “Help steer us clear of trouble as well. Do you think you can stay aloft that long? Your wing just healed.”
“I heal fast,” Rainbow said. “Trust me, I know my limits. Besides, most of it will just be riding thermals. There’s a ton of them with weather like this. I hardly have to do any work!”
“That’s good,” Rarity said. Looking at her friends, she smiled. “Then I believe we’ve determined our plan of action. All that remains now is loading up the raft and setting sail in the morning. The less time we waste, the better.”
“Yeah, we’ve already spent a bunch of time doing nothing,” Rainbow said. Her wings fluttered at her sides. “I’ve been itching to go for like, forever!”
Once they had a plan in place and had actually taken the time to think about what they needed, it wasn’t too much of a hassle to gather their supplies together in preparation for the journey tomorrow. All they had to do now was pass the time until morning came. Then, at first light, the three mares planned on leaving the island behind and striking across the water to the southwest, where unknown hardships awaited them.
Rarity set the last basket down on the raft and tied it in place. They’d amassed their two jugs of water, two baskets full of fruit and coconuts, and had bundled their spears and tools and lashed them securely to the body of the raft. They had everything they needed to survive and meet any challenges the unknown island could throw at them, and they had enough food and water to last a week with careful rationing. At that point, if they needed more, Rarity could take the raft back to their home island and they could resupply before launching another expedition. Simply having a much more efficient means of propulsion under their belt left Rarity feeling much more confident in their ability to cross the sea safely.
With that taken care of, she trotted back to their camp, swatting at a pesky fly or two along the way. A nervous anticipation had settled in her gut shortly after lunch and hadn’t gone away in the time since. If anything, it’d only gotten worse. The simple fear of the unknown almost made her want to hide on their island and not venture forth once more into uncharted territory. At least here they’d be safe… but they wouldn’t be any closer to getting home.
Whether or not her fellow survivors shared her worries, she couldn’t tell. When she got back to the camp, Rainbow Dash was perched on the roof of their shelter like an oversized blue pigeon, watching Gyro exercise in the sand. Rarity innocuously cleared her throat as she approached, catching the prismatic pegasus’ attention. “Oh, hey Rares,” Rainbow said, spreading her wings and dropping off the rooftop. “Everything taken care of?”
Rarity stepped forward and brushed cheeks with Rainbow. “Tied down and secured,” she said. “I just have to drag the raft out into the surf tomorrow and we’ll be ready to go.”
“Awesome.” Rainbow nuzzled the crook of Rarity’s ear where the base met her skull. “We’re gonna have a long day ahead of us.”
“To say the least.” Stepping past Rainbow, Rarity watched as Gyro panted and came to a sweaty stop, the vine hitching her to the sledge falling slack. “You’re still pulling that? I would’ve thought you’d take the day off to rest your muscles for tomorrow. They’re going to be sore from you straining like that!”
Gyro shrugged her way out of her makeshift harness and stepped over the limp vines in the sand. “It was either do that or feel like I’m sitting on coals,” she said. “Exercise clears my mind, and I’m not thrilled about leaving the safety of this place so soon. I’m just… j-just worried that it’ll be like the last island.”
The little stutter in her voice andthe hard bobbing of her throat failed to escape Rarity’s notice. “Oh, Gyro, darling, don’t even worry about that,” she said, wrapping her forelegs around the earth pony’s thickening frame. “You will be with friends, and we’ll keep you safe. Nothing like that will ever happen to you ever again. I swear on my honor and my life, you’ll never be locked up like that ever again.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, trotting up and pitching into the conversation. “I can fly now, G, so nopony will even stand a chance against us. With Rarity’s magic, my speed, and your freakishly strong earth pony strength, we’ll send any minotaurs that come after us packing. They’d need an army to take us out!”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Gyro said. “Do you even know what you’re saying half the time, or do you just love the idea of tempting fate?”
“Fate’s made up,” Rainbow said, waving her hoof. “I’m where I am today because I’m awesome. Fate didn’t make me pull off the sonic rainboom; I did that. Fate didn’t make me join the Wonderbolts; I did that myself, too! Fate’s just made up stuff.”
Gyro and Rarity shared a look that left even Rarity shaking her head back and forth. “To answer your question, that would be a ‘no’ to the former.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Gyro wiped some sweat dripping off of her muzzle with a fetlock and glanced at the sky. “Wanna go catch the sunset? It’s almost time and we’re usually busy doing nothing around camp.”
“It would be a nice change of pace,” Rarity agreed. “If nothing else, the sunsets and sunrises on this island are exquisite.”
Rainbow nodded along. “They’re pretty rad.” Her legs coiled for a split second before she hopped into the air, her wings snapping open. “Race ya to the west ridge!”
A gust of wind sent Rarity’s and Gyro’s manes blowing into their faces, and then Rainbow darted through and above the trees. There was a startled squawk from the camp, and Rarity’s blue eyes flicked to the left to see Chirp taking wing and chasing after Rainbow. Both ponies hesitated for a few seconds before they looked at each other.
“You’re gonna have your hooves full with that mare,” Gyro said, nudging Rarity’s shoulder. “You had her grounded before, but now she’s got her flight back.”
“Tell me about it,” Rarity said, setting off to the southwest corner of the island. “I’m going to have to put up with this from now on. Thankfully I’m patient.”
“But are you that patient?” Gyro asked with a wink.
“Gyro, darling, I run a business. Everypony thinks that everypony below them is incompetent and everypony above them is a jackass. I’m at the very top of the ladder, and as a result I am a paragon of patience.”
“You sure about that?”
“Well, I haven’t killed anypony under me yet, so I would like to believe I am.”
“I guess Rainbow will be your first, then?”
“Oh, you have no idea how much I wish she could hear that implication right now.”
A few minutes of walking took Rarity and Gyro to the other side of the island, where they could see Rainbow’s tail hanging off of some rocks on the ridge. As they approached, Rarity tugged on it with her magic, earning an undignified squawk from the pegasus it was attached to. Rainbow’s head shot up and glared at Rarity while she quickly scooped her colorful tail back against her body. “Hey! Dang it, Rares!”
“Call it punishment for leaving your marefriend behind instead of escorting her to your date like a proper lady,” Rarity said, scarpering up the rocks to join Rainbow on the ridge.
“I was just trying to encourage you two to hurry it up before we missed it,” Rainbow said. “You sure took your time getting here. The sun’s almost down!”
Gyro hauled herself up the edge and sat down next to Rarity. “Looks like we’re just in time, then,” she said. “I prefer not to go running when I can help it.”
“G, you just spent like an hour dragging a sledge back and forth in the sand. I thought you loved exercise!”
“Strength training, yeah.” Gyro cracked her neck and stretched out her sore limbs. “But I hate cardio. Cardio’s the worst.”
“Cardio is not the worst!” Rainbow protested. “Don’t you love the feeling of listening to your heart pound and the rush of air into your lungs and air sacs?”
Rarity shook her head. “Rainbow, earth ponies and unicorns don’t have those, remember? That’s just a pegasus thing.”
“Oh, right, duh.” Rainbow shook her head. “It must suck to run out of breath so quickly. You guys don’t have pneumatic bones either, don’t you?”
“We’re decidedly all pony,” Gyro said. “We aren’t half bird like you.”
“Lame. Birds are neato.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and settled onto her stomach in a more comfortable position. “I won’t disagree with you on that. Their plumage can be absolutely splendid and stunning, especially for birds of paradise. So many colors and designs. They’re like the supermodels of the avian world.”
“I’ve met a lot of griffons before.” Gyro crossed her forelegs and glanced over her shoulder to the east, in the general direction of the Confederacy. “I’ve been there a bunch of times on different airships. They’re really interesting people, though they’re kind of assholes.”
“The way my griffon friend Gilda told it to me, there’s two different groups of griffons,” Rainbow said. “There’s the raptors like her and the doves like… not her. The raptors are the ones with eagle, owl, hawk, falcon, whatever heads, like most griffons we see in Equestria. They’re loners and just go wherever. The doves don’t really go outside of the Confederacy much, so we don’t see them that often, but their bird parts are more like pigeons and doves and sparrows. They’re supposed to be a lot friendlier and a lot more social than the raptor griffons.”
“Huh.” Gyro furrowed her brow in thought. “Neat.”
“I suppose then I’ve seen a fair number of doves while designing my dress line for them,” Rarity said. “Now that you mention it, they did look different and act different than Gilda or some of the others I’ve met before. I never would have thought that other species could have such distinct racial differences like us ponies do.”
“And I bet most of the griffons that would be interested in those dresses are gonna be doves, too,” Rainbow said. “Griffonstone is mostly raptors, and they certainly didn’t seem to care about stuff like that. All they wanted was bits until me and Pinkie came to town.”
“What about hippogriffs?” Gyro asked. “They’re real, aren’t they? They’re what happens when a griffon and a pony love each other very much, right?”
Rarity and Rainbow exchanged looks. “I don’t really know about that one, darling,” Rarity said, “But once upon a time, there was an entire kingdom of them far to the south in a place called Mount Aris. Rainbow and I actually went looking for them with all our friends when the Storm King attacked Canterlot not all that long ago.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that,” Gyro said. “Well I mean, kind of. I was on an airship over the ocean at the time. We didn’t hear about it until we docked again.”
“Yeah, that was some pretty crazy stuff,” Rainbow said. “It was pretty awesome too, apart from the Storm King’s minions trying to foalnap us the whole time. But yeah, the hippogriffs exist, though when we found them, they were hiding under the sea as seaponies.”
“Wait, really?” Gyro blinked. “Seaponies? How?”
“Their queen possesses powerful magic like the princesses,” Rarity said. “We experienced it ourselves while we were there. I dare say I looked dazzling as a seapony; my bejeweled fins were beyond stunning.”
Gyro put her hooves to her head and chuckled. “Okay, this stuff is going waaaaay too fast for me. So you two and your friends went and found the hippogriffs, who were actually seaponies, and they turned you into seaponies as well, albeit however briefly?” She shook her head as she tried to take it all in. “What else did you do? Meet any giant cat people or something?”
Rainbow and Rarity exchanged a look and an amused smile. “Now that you mention it…”
“I give up,” Gyro said with a laugh. “That’s too cool. Think we can get an airship line down there? I’d like to see this stuff before I die.”
“Maybe one day,” Rainbow said. “Twilight’s been super busy with trying to connect Equestria to the hippogriffs and all the other species that we encountered way down south. I bet we’ll be seeing a whole lot more of them in the future!”
“That would be pretty neat,” Gyro said. “I’d love to meet a hippogriff. I’m sure they’re awesome.”
“They were spectacular, I will say that much,” Rarity said. “We got to see one—!” She abruptly stopped and frowned at the west when she realized she wasn’t squinting anymore. “Oh, blast! We missed the sunset, we were so caught up in our conversation!”
“Dang,” Rainbow said, narrowing her eyes at the traitorous western horizon. “I guess we got a little carried away.”
The mechanic at Rarity’s side nodded and lowered her chin to her hooves. “Yeah, that sucks. But I mean, at least we were talking about interesting stuff, right?”
“Yeah, awesome stuff!” Rainbow clopped her hooves together in excitement. “Oh! I should tell you about the parrot pirates we met! They were pretty cool!”
Rarity gently laughed. “I suppose we might as well tell you all about it now. We must find some way to pass the time until it’s bedtime, yes?”
“Sounds good to me,” Rainbow said.
“I’m all ears,” Gyro responded.
“Good.” Rarity straightened her posture and cleared her throat. “If we’re going to tell you all about it, then we might as well start at the beginning…”
The wind tugged on Rainbow’s feathers with a million invisible little fingers, trying to drag her back to the earth. But all it took was a few flaps of her wings to carry her momentum forward and shake off the drag pulling her back, if only for a little while. The sky was her domain, her home, and gravity and the elements couldn’t bring her down if they tried.
Overhead, the morning sun beat down on her, quickly building up a fiery heat in her outstretched wings only counterbalanced by the rush of cool air around and over them. It was a cloudless day with a constant but gentle breeze—a perfect day for flying. Without any clouds, the sun quickly took to heating the land and sea below, and before Rarity and Gyro even left the island on the raft, Rainbow rode a thermal to five thousand feet. Over the ocean, the thermals wouldn’t be as strong, so she was determined to get what height she could before she embarked to the southwest to conserve her energy and not put stress on her healed wing.
And then there was nothing to do but fly and glide, and that was the fun part. Down below, she could see the wake the raft left as Rarity propelled it along with her magic. It was deceptively small for how quickly the raft glided over the surface, likely a side effect from whatever it was Rarity was doing with her magic to make it move that fast. It wasn’t like a motorboat that had big propellers to churn up the water and a draft to push it aside. The raft had almost no draft and used magic to move, so the water was largely still and blue behind it. It would’ve made it difficult to track, had the raft not been a swiftly moving square of wood with a white pony sitting squarely in the middle.
Rainbow grunted and flapped her wings some more, collecting speed with each stroke. She started edging out in front of the raft and scanning her eyes across the sea far below her. For now, the seas were calm with an occasional chop from the waters flowing around the islands and meeting somewhere in the middle, and there wasn’t anything else in sight except for their raft below. To her right, the minotaurs’ island poked out of the morning haze, and she could even make out the rough outlines of buildings sitting on top of the mountain. Even still, the mountain’s peak was higher than she was, and it would’ve taken another few minutes of climbing to rise above it. As much as Rainbow was tempted to do so, she decided against it. Even if she could fly again, she was still wary about putting any unnecessary stress on her wing. If she hurt it again so soon, it’d never be as good as it used to.
But the important thing was that there were no minotaur canoes in the water and no siren fins slicing through the waves. After they’d seen the siren using their lagoon as a rehearsal studio, Rainbow had been nervous about the journey to the next island. If the siren caught them out in the open sea, then there was no telling what might happen. There wasn’t anywhere to run from a creature that big and that dangerous. Rainbow would’ve much preferred Rarity and Gyro to take their chances with a giant shark instead of a siren… even if they’d need a bigger raft.
Even with Rarity’s magic propelling the raft, however, it still wasn’t as fast as Rainbow once she really got up to speed. With a steady tailwind, Rainbow had pushed herself to a decent clip but had thus far been holding herself back to avoid outrunning the raft below. Now, with the southwest island beginning to draw near, she decided to fly on ahead and scout it out before the raft got too close. Pitching down by a few degrees, Rainbow began trading altitude for speed, and soon enough she had to crane her neck over her shoulder to locate the raft in the great blue ocean below.
The closer she got to the southwest island, the more detail she could pick out. What originally had looked like a mass of green and white from far out actually began to shape up into the shattered remains of a volcanic crater. At some point millions of years ago, the cone of the volcano must have exploded and collapsed into the surrounding sea, because Rainbow could spy a definitive circular arrangement to the chunks of stone and tiny islands jutting out of the water. In all, she counted nine islands of various size clustered in the area, with the easternmost being the largest. Though it wasn’t nearly as big as the minotaurs’ island, it was definitely the backbone of the island arrangement and made up the bulk of the land in that area. At about three-quarters of a mile tall and maybe five wide, the remains of the volcano’s eastern wall accounted for something like half of the available land, Rainbow estimated. The other eight islands varied in between from a mile across to barely more than a glorified sandbar, but none matched the size and scope of the eastern island.
Rainbow furrowed her brow. Unlike the minotaurs’ island and its abandoned temple on top of the mountain, Rainbow couldn’t see anything that looked like a shrine or a temple or something interesting that could clue them into where the next figurine was being held. If there was something there, it had to be underneath the trees, and Rainbow couldn’t see through them from this far out. With nine islands to look over, she felt her stomach drop. Who knew which one could possibly be hiding a shrine? If it happened to be anything like the shrine on their home island, it could be nearly impossible to find. And if anything else lived on that island, like more minotaurs, then they’d definitely be in trouble.
But what she could see piqued her interest. Smashed between some rocks outcropping from the shores of the eastern island was the wooden frame of some kind of vessel. Whatever it had once been, it was large and it had ended up there recently. The paint on its hull was still vibrant in some places and the decks seemed mostly intact. From where she flew, Rainbow couldn’t tell how old the wreck was, but it was definitely of Equestrian make. There was no way the minotaurs could ever make something like that.
She rubbed her chin between wing flaps. Could it be a piece of the Concordia? More importantly, did that mean there might be other survivors?
One thing was for certain: she needed to investigate. With that in mind, she started circling down to the raft to give Rarity a heads up before she took off.
Rarity hummed to herself as she sent the raft gliding along the surface of the water. Once she got the shape of the field correct, gravity did the actual propulsion for her. All she had to do was maintain a waterproof barrier under the raft and relax.
Which of course wasn’t as simple as merely relaxing. The field still drew on Rarity’s horn, and occasionally she’d have to redirect her thoughts to strengthen it in one area or another as the waves she sailed over battered her magic. Though it only took a minimal amount of focus to keep her magic going once she’d started it, it was still a test of her mental endurance to keep it going throughout the entirety of the trip.
Gyro sat in the middle of the raft to look over their supplies and keep the weight evenly balanced. Her eyes scanned the horizon, but less so to keep watch and more for her own curiosity. With Rainbow Dash flying high above them, they didn’t need to look out for minotaurs and their rafts, only make sure they stayed on course and nothing got them from the water. After all, the siren could’ve still been around the islands, and the last thing they wanted was for her to catch them and capsize the raft. Then again, maybe the worst they’d see would be a pod of dolphins. Rarity figured that’d be a neat sight to see up close. So far, they hadn’t seen any in the waters around the islands, but maybe they’d turn up eventually.
“How much longer you think it’ll take us?” Gyro asked.
“Maybe another hour or two,” Rarity said. “Even with this means of propulsion, these islands are scattered a fair ways apart. It’d take two hours to go between them with a motorboat, and I can’t get the raft to go nearly that fast.”
“It’s definitely faster than we could’ve gone by rowing.” Gyro lowered her head and sighed, letting her limbs sprawl a bit in the sunlight. “All this gentle rocking and stuff makes me want to take a nap.”
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “When don’t you want to take a nap?”
“Good question,” the mechanic said, fluttering her eyes shut. “I like naps.”
Unfortunately for her, blue hooves crashing down on the bow of the raft startled the mare out of her prospective rest before she could get comfortable. Rarity grimaced as she adjusted her field to compensate and make sure the raft didn’t plow directly into a wave and capsize. When the wobbling finally stabilized, she shot a furious glare at Rainbow, who was standing on the bow with her wings outstretched. “Rainbow Dash, are you trying to get us all killed?!”
Rainbow shrank back a bit. “Uhhh… sorry, Rares, I didn’t mean it.”
Rarity sighed. “I know you didn’t, but can you at least think about what might happen if you do something before you do it? I know I’m asking a lot, but if you could, you would save us all a future headache or ten.”
“Sheesh, sorry, I was just trying to tell you guys what I saw.”
“You saw something?” Gyro asked. “What is it? We can only see the island’s mountain from here.”
“Well, first there’s actually nine islands,” Rainbow said.
Rarity blinked. “Nine islands? Heavens, what do you mean?”
Rainbow pointed to the one in front of them. “That’s the biggest island, and there’s eight others scattered around it in like a ring or something. There might be a bunch of smaller ones that I couldn’t count from this far out, too. I think it was a volcano that blew up eons ago and the crater thing collapsed into the sea. The others aren’t as big as the big island, but we’ll probably have to look them over.”
“Huh.” Gyro nodded her head as she mulled on that thought. “See anything that might help us figure out where to look? Any spooky temples that might have ponies locked up and starving inside of them?”
Rainbow shook her head from side to side. “No,” she said. “I didn’t see a thing. Just trees and rocks and sand. Unless it’s on the other side of the big island, there wasn’t anything visible.”
“I just hope it’s not underwater like our shrine,” Rarity said. “Nine islands is a lot of coastline to search.”
“Hopefully it won’t be,” Rainbow agreed. “But there was something else I saw. A shipwreck.”
“A shipwreck?” Rarity furrowed her brow. “How old?”
“Not old at all,” Rainbow said. “It’s still got paint on it. I’m just guessing here, but I think it might be part of the Concordia.”
Gyro’s ears perked up. “Part of the Concordia?” she asked. “That’s… is that even possible?”
“It’d depend on when and how the ship broke up,” Rainbow said. “The hurricane could have sent big chunks of it flying everywhere. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine that a big piece of the hull ended up here. I mean, Rares and I were dragging driftwood out of the water for days, so there was a lot of debris that could have ended up anywhere.”
Rarity thought it over for a moment. “So if there’s a piece of the Concordia out here and it’s still relatively intact… could there be survivors on these islands ahead of us?”
“Exactly what I was wondering.” Rainbow fluffed her wings, knocking a loose feather or two free in the process. “I wanted to go and scout the wreckage out before you guys get there, maybe get a look of the island so we can figure out what we’re dealing with before you land.”
Gyro raised her head and frowned at Rainbow. “That sounds an awful lot like splitting the party. Never split the party.”
“What party?” Rainbow asked. “Pinkie Pie’s not here.”
The mechanic huffed and rubbed her temple. “Remember when I said I was a nerd in school? It’s an Ogres and Oubliettes reference. It just means ‘don’t split up, or bad shit will happen to you’.”
“Oh. But, hey, come on, have a little faith in me!” Rainbow protested. “Look, I can fly, and I’m fast. Nothing will catch me or even know I’m there. Besides, it’s just a lousy shipwreck, it’s not like it’s infested with sea snakes or anything.”
“You say that now…” Rarity sighed. “I know that you’re going to fly off regardless of what we say, so I’ll simply tell you to please be careful. And if you find something dangerous, please for the love of Celestia just fly back to us. I don’t want to make landfall and find you missing.”
Rainbow smiled and saluted Rarity like she would a captain of the Royal Guard. “Of course, Rares. You don’t have to worry about me at all. I can look after myself.” Then she spread her wings and jumped into the air, immediately twisting her body toward the island and flapping her wings a few times to keep up with the speeding raft. “I’ll be back before you know it!”
Then, winking, she took off, gaining altitude and speed and putting distance between herself and the raft. Rarity watched her colorful body begin to dwindle into the sky, and she pursed her lips in worry as the pegasus sped off toward the island. “Do stay safe,” she murmured as her marefriend disappeared into the sky.
“She’ll be alright,” Gyro said. “She’s a tough girl. She can handle herself in a fight.”
Rainbow regretted losing altitude to inform Rarity and Gyro about what her plans were. Out over the water, the thermals were much weaker, so she couldn’t ride them up as easily. That meant she had to work her wings, and after not flying until just yesterday, it was almost torturous to build up a suitable height over the water. She would also need to rest soon; hopefully she made it to the islands before her wings gave out on her. Every beat of her healed wing sent an ache of pain down the limb. “Grrmmmff… stop it,” she grumbled at the offending limb. “Get over yourself.”
She turned her attention back to the skies in front of her. The island was much closer now, and suddenly seemed much taller from almost sea level. Rainbow hoped that they wouldn’t have to go hiking up that one in search of the next figurine. That would take a full day for Rarity and Gyro to hike up, assuming Rainbow didn’t carry them. Which she’d probably be pressured into by Rarity.
Behind her, the raft was just a blur on the water, guided along by Rarity’s magic. It’d take some time for them to make landfall, and until they did so, it was up to Rainbow to get a lay of the land. So far, from what she could see, the eastern coast of the island chain was relatively shallow, so it would make for a good landing site. On top of that, there were plenty of trees and undergrowth to conceal the raft in, so they wouldn’t have to worry about something finding it later. If only they knew whether or not there was something to hide the raft from to spare them the worry. But the way Rainbow figured it, if there were minotaurs on one island, then why wouldn’t they be on this one as well?
Spires of shattered rock loomed above her, and Rainbow flapped her wings a few more times to climb a little. The spires were crooked and jagged, rising out of the water like teeth. Whatever ledges there were, vegetation found a way to cling onto, topping every flat surface it covered with tufts of grass and weeds. Ancient fissures and layers of sediment and rock gave the spires a wavy, striated appearance, and the lines were angled in different ways, but often aligned vertically. Rainbow wondered if maybe they were just huge chunks of rock blasted away when the volcano blew up and just ended up here. It would certainly explain their orientation.
Nestled between two of those massive spires was the piece of the shipwreck. Once Rainbow located it again from low altitude, she circled a few times as she slowly gained altitude, conserving her energy and keeping unnecessary strain off her wings while she climbed. It gave her a few minutes to observe the wreck and figure out what she was dealing with.
The wreck was still fresh, that much she could easily tell now that she was up close. The paint hadn’t worn away except for some patches near the edges that would be most exposed to the elements. The wood hadn’t begun to splinter, and it was only slightly swollen from the moisture and humidity. Apart from a few holes here and there, all the planks were still held tightly together. The nails between them hadn’t even loosened yet.
Four blue hooves touched down on the wood, and Rainbow immediately spread her closing wings when the wreckage shifted beneath her. Wood groaned and somewhere below her, a pebble rattled down a rocky slope. Whatever the wreck had ended up on, it was only precariously perched between some of the spires. If Rainbow shifted her weight too much, it could come tumbling off of whatever rocky point it was perched on.
Sighing, she spread her sore wings again and once more took flight, not willing to risk upsetting the balance of the wreckage. Carefully hovering over the wreck, Rainbow frowned and began to examine it more. There was an opulent porthole set in the middle of the chunk of wood, maybe ten feet below a polished mahogany railing at the very top of the piece. When she flew further up to examine it, she saw that a bit of the deck was still attached to the interior wall of the piece, extending for about two or three feet before it abruptly ended in a splintered, jagged line. Given the shape of the gutters beneath the railing and how the metal still had a fresh coat of white paint adorning it, Rainbow figured that they were very modern. But there still wasn’t any definitive proof that this piece of the hull belonged to the Concordia.
So she decided to look under the hull. Lowering herself some on the other side of the wreckage, she first saw the knoblike spire of stone that held up the wreck’s weight and saw the markings where it’d smashed and splintered the interior rooms. Of which there were many—the yellowing wallpaper clinging to the inside reminded Rainbow of the design and decorations inside of her own room. Bits of floor jutted out of the walls, and dead wires hung from gaps in the ceilings. But apart from that, there wasn’t anything more. Whatever contents the rooms may have once had were probably lost over the ocean, along with their inhabitants.
Rising once more above the wreck, Rainbow started fluttering along the edges. The section of the hull had obviously been violently ripped off of the rest of the ship, since the wood at the edges poked out in haphazard, random directions. But getting closer to it, Rainbow noticed a sizeable fragment lying off to the side, half obscured by some low-growing plants. Frowning, she fluttered down and dragged the wood out of the brush. After using a wing to dust it off, Rainbow blinked in surprise at what she saw:
ORDI
There were bits of other letters next to that fragment, but Rainbow didn’t need to see them to know what they were. It only confirmed her suspicions; the piece of the hull belonged to the Concordia.
“You ended up pretty far from where we did,” she muttered to herself. “You must’ve been flying for another fifteen, twenty minutes after we jumped ship.”
Extending her wings, she flew straight up until she was above the spires within which the piece of the Concordia was nestled. Sure enough, scattered across the sands of the other fractured islands, bits of wood and metal debris stuck out of the sand at random. Another sizeable chunk of hull sat in the shallow water between the big island and an island in the center of the collapsed crater, nearly as big as the one Rainbow had just investigated. It seemed like a good bulk of the ship had crashed on this island. So if the ship made it here, did any lifeboats?
Just as she thought that, she heard a distant vboomf echo out over the islands. Frowning, she fluttered forward, in the direction of the noise. What was that? It didn’t sound like anything natural, that was for sure. So what could it have been?
…Could it be another survivor?
Rainbow hardly hesitated before she made her move. Curious, perhaps dangerously so, she flapped her wings and drifted forward, deeper into the heart of the island cluster.
The shattered island chain was unlike anything Rainbow had experienced before. The closest comparison she could draw was to a lush jungle valley that she’d seen during one of her many excursions with Daring Do. The islands here were dense with foliage and crooked trees growing at angles out of sloped rocks, with moss-covered boulders precariously perched on rocky outcroppings, a single nudge or strong gust of wind from rolling down the mountain slope. All the vegetation seemed to contribute to the humidity, and a fine layer of mist seemed to cling to the side of the east mountain. Which was impossible, given that the sun should have burned it away and there weren’t any other tall peaks to keep it contained, but there it was. Rainbow Dash, despite being an experienced weathermare, couldn’t think of any explanation for it.
The noise of the birds and the wildlife was nearly deafening compared to the relative calm and stillness of their home island or the empty whistling wind over the open seas. Every which way Rainbow looked, she could see a flock of colorful parrots moving from tree to tree or smaller mammals scurrying through the undergrowth. Something shrieked and called out in the distance, unlike any bird or animal Rainbow had ever heard before. Whatever it was, Rainbow had no doubt it was exotic.
But the deeper into the island fragments she flew, the more she realized she had a problem. The trees grew so vigorously on the rich volcanic ash that made up the soil of the islands that it was hard to pick out the contour of the land apart from the higher slopes of the remaining mountain. Sometimes the islands were separated only by little channels, and sometimes those channels could be completely covered by trees leaning over the water from opposite shores. Unlike the minotaur island, which was more sparse in its vegetation, or their home island, which was simply small and starved for nutrients, the canopy here was too thick for Rainbow to peer through from far above. The only chance she had of getting a lay of the land was to drop lower beneath the leaves. And given that she didn’t know exactly where the strange sound had come from, she was reluctant to trade her mobility for closer inspection of the land.
Yet she eventually realized she had to if she wanted to figure out what was happening behind the trees. With no visible distinctions between one cluster of trees and another to guide her, Rainbow took her best guess as to where the sound had come from, tucked her wings in at her sides, and plunged through the trees.
Moments later, she flared them and came to a stop on damp, muddy ground. Her hooves sank half an inch into the ashy muck, and she grimaced as a cool, moist feeling settled in the frogs. The air was even more oppressive and humid here, trapped beneath the dense and shadowy foliage of the craning palm trees, and she knew she’d be covered in sweat inside of ten minutes. The shadows and shifting spots of light through the swaying palm fronds were deceptive and messed with Rainbow’s depth perception a surprising amount. And the noise, once merely below her, had enveloped her, swallowed her whole.
In short, she felt disoriented and confused. But, with a steady breath, she reminded herself that she could always fly upwards if she got lost and find her way back. Not that she was too keen on flying again after all the strain and exercise she’d put on her wings over the past few hours. Her left wing ached and felt as stiff as a board. She couldn’t even get it to fold properly against her side, so she kept the crest angled out from her shoulders as she walked. It put her slightly off balance, but she managed. She was too stubborn to admit otherwise, anyway.
She kept her head on a swivel as she walked, eyes peeled for anything that might jump out of the shadows of the jungle and attack her. She kept an ear trained on the noise of the wildlife; she knew from experience with Fluttershy that they knew better than ponies did when something bad was about to happen or when something not normal approached. She could hear birds going quiet as she moved near their trees, only for them to start singing again once she passed. They’d be a decent alarm if something was creeping up on her and give her time to take off into the sky.
The ground was rough and uneven here, and much like the spires of stone she’d seen when approaching the island, numerous oblong and shattered fragments of rocks jutted out of the ground seemingly at random. While the trees tried to paint a different story, if Rainbow looked at the ground and at the topography she could tell that she was standing on the ruins of something that cataclysmically destroyed itself unfathomable numbers of years ago. It was a surreal feeling, like she was someplace that she knew she shouldn’t be, simply because it shouldn’t exist.
Despite the shipwreck wedged between two spires at the fringes of the island, it seemed like the big island Rainbow had landed on was uninhabited, untouched by pony hooves. Or minotaur hooves, for that matter. There weren’t any hoofprints in the muck, there weren’t any obviously felled trees or tree stumps sticking out of the ground. At one point, Rainbow gasped in excitement when she saw a pair of old trees lying side by side on the ground, but on closer inspection, she noticed that one had broken near the base and had knocked the other over, leaving their splintered stumps jutting out into the air. Nothing unnatural there, just the work of a particularly violent storm.
Almost through sheer luck, her eyes happened to wander over a thick tree that looked… odd to her. Blinking, she shook her head and trotted closer. A couple of feet off the ground, almost at her eye level, a portion of the bark had been scoured away. She frowned as she lowered her brow and leaned in closer. Something had struck the tree at a near-glancing angle, sending splinters of wood flying and cratering the side of the trunk. Those same splinters rested on the ground by her hooves, and when she lifted one up with her wingtip, the wood was still fresh and the ends were still jagged. It hadn’t had time to weather and begin to rot in the rain and elements that had worn down the fallen trees behind her.
She flicked the wood splinter aside and peered at the wound in the tree. After a moment, she hummed and angled her head to the side. There was something embedded in the tree, and it glinted slightly in the dim light piercing through the canopy. Was that a bit of metal? A bit of… lead?
Her ears twitched and she blinked at the silence around her. The wildlife had gone silent. The birds weren’t singing, and the critters weren’t scurrying. And as her ears pivoted back and forth, it was more of the same up and down the forest.
Swallowing hard, she turned around.
A length of wood aimed at her face was the last thing she saw.
Rarity frowned at the western horizon and the islands towering up in front of her. It’d been an hour since Rainbow had flown off to investigate the shipwreck, yet there still wasn’t hide nor hair of her to be seen. But, knowing Rainbow, she likely got distracted or overly zealous in her exploration of the wreck. The pegasus was certainly a thrill-seeking free spirit, and now that she had her flight back, Rarity knew it was only a matter of time before her sense of adventure got the better of her.
Still, the island was maybe fifteen minutes out now, so Rarity gently manipulated her field to slow the raft down. Gyro noticed the shift in momentum, and her ears perked up. “Why are we slowing down?”
“Rainbow told us she was going to find a place for us to safely make landfall,” Rarity said. “I don’t want to get too close to the island if it isn’t safe.”
Gyro sat up and curled her tail around her hooves like a cat. “Nothing about any of these islands is safe. I doubt there’s gonna be one section of beach that’s any better than the others.”
“Not true,” Rarity said. “The last island we stopped at where we found you had a very clear distinction between the east and west coasts. One side was sheltered from the minotaurs’ natural harbor and their civilization. The other wasn’t. If we’d landed there…”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Sighing, Gyro frowned at the mountain rising in front of them. “So where is she, then?”
Rarity shook her head. “That’s what I was just wondering.” Her blue eyes scanned the islands, bouncing up and down over every spire of rock and knot of trees. A flock of birds rose from some of the trees, and she followed them for a moment before turning her attention a bit more to the north, where she could clearly see something wooden wedged between two rocky spires. “There’s the shipwreck, but I don’t see Rainbow.”
Gyro whistled as her pale blue eyes fell on the wreck. “That’s the Concordia alright,” she said, rolling her shoulders. “Rainbow was right about that.”
“Really?” Rarity squinted at the wreck and its colorful paints along the shattered hull. “How can you tell? It could be any ship. There aren’t any markings on it that I can see from here.”
The mechanic simply shot Rarity a look and raised an eyebrow. “Rarity, I was an engineer on that ship for a year. I know her. That piece of the hull’s part of the port side, close to the bow, from decks three, four, and five.”
“Oh.” Rarity pursed her lips and looked out to the side, watching the seafoam slide across the rolling waves like bubbles in a bathtub. “Then if Rainbow was right about that, maybe she was right about there being survivors.”
“Maybe,” Gyro said. “Or pirates. They were all over the Concordia when she went down, so they could’ve survived as well.”
That was a thought that hadn’t occurred to Rarity. “Oh dear, you’re right,” she said. “I hadn’t considered that. I just supposed that we’d find more passengers or crew like you, darling. But if there are pirates on this island…”
“Honestly, I’d be more worried about the pirates than the minotaurs,” Gyro said. She frowned to the north, where the minotaur island loomed in the distance. “The pirates can actually think, and if any of their gunpowder survived the storm, then they’ve got weapons much more dangerous than spears and nets.”
Rarity nodded in agreement. “Rainbow and I once talked about using the pirates as a way to get back home, but if they’re stranded here like we are, then there’s no chance of that. As it stands, they’d be much more dangerous without the promise of a payout for our safe return to Equestria.”
“And we’re three pretty mares stranded in the middle of nowhere, far away from law and order,” Gyro said. “I don’t think I need to elaborate on that one any further.”
Rarity felt her skin crawl and she shuddered in response. “Oh, heavens, did you have to bring that up? Now I’m terrified of running into them!”
“So we just gotta make sure we don’t. Besides,” Gyro assured her, patting the spears tied to the middle of the raft, “we’ve got weapons. We can defend ourselves if we have to.”
“I hope we won’t have to,” Rarity said. “Minotaurs, I could probably handle. But other ponies? Cunning and dangerous pirates with magic and firearms? I fear I’m horribly outmatched there.”
“Not if we get the drop on them,” Gyro said. Then she groaned and laid back down on her stomach. “Besides, we don’t even know if there are any pirates or not. And if there are, I figure Rainbow will be able to give us a heads up. She’d be able to spot their camp or something from the air.”
“Unless the foliage is particularly dense,” Rarity said. “Then she’d have to get low to look around.”
“And she can just fly straight up if she has to.” But, crossing her forelegs, Gyro frowned at the west. “But where is she, though? She shouldn’t have taken this long to check out the wreckage.”
“Knowing her, she likely saw something else that caught her interest and flew off to take a look at it.” Though Rarity sighed and shook her head, she couldn’t chase away the growing concern in her gut. “Unless something else happened…”
Gyro bit down on her lip. “We should take the raft in and beach it. If she was gonna report back to us, she would’ve done it by now. She’s Loyalty, right? She wouldn’t leave us hanging like this if she could.”
Rarity’s horn flared to life, and once more the raft began picking up speed. “Oh, dear, I hope she’s alright!” she worried aloud. “I really, sincerely hope she’s only fooling around on the island instead of something else!”
“Whatever it is, we’ll figure out what’s going on,” Gyro assured her. “But first, we need to make landfall.”
“Right,” Rarity said, eyes honing in on the white sands not too far away. “Hopefully it’s nothing, and we can all laugh about this later…”
There was still no sign of Rainbow by the time Rarity reached the breaking point of the waves. By now, she could hear the first noises of wildlife over the crashing water, but there wasn’t a cracking voice to be heard over the calls of birds. To Rarity, it felt like her and Gyro were all alone on the island… and that had her worried and nervous.
Gyro hopped off of the raft once it got close enough to the shore that she could stand and grabbed onto one of the corner ropes to help Rarity guide it onto the beach. Rarity stepped off as well and let magic build on her horn. The familiar feeling of carrying hundreds of pounds of wood in her magic settled on Rarity’s horn and neck like so much leaden weight, and she grunted and puffed her cheeks out as she lifted the raft out of the water and levitated it up the beach. At Gyro’s all-clear, she released her magic, panting lightly for a few seconds after the heavy wooden raft slammed onto the sand.
“That definitely won’t catch anypony’s attention,” Gyro said, her eyes flitting to the sky as a dozen or so birds of paradise took wing with alarmed squawks. “You couldn’t have put it down any quieter?”
Rarity glared at the engineer and rubbed her sore horn. “You might be smart, Gyro, but you will never be able to lift something with your mind. Don’t lecture me on it.” She winced as a spark of pang shot into her skull. “Especially not when all this magical exertion is giving me migraines.”
Gyro’s ears fell a bit. “Sorry, Rarity, I was just joking around.” She lifted her head and scanned up and down the beach. “You need a minute? I don’t see anypony or anything right now, so we should be good.”
“Just a few moments to catch my breath,” Rarity said. “If you’d be a dear and start unloading the raft in the meanwhile, I would greatly appreciate it.”
“Sure.” Gyro hopped onto the raft and started gathering their supplies, undoing the knots holding them to the center with her teeth. “Where do you want them?”
Rarity waved her hoof in a vague direction for a few seconds while she squeezed her eyes shut and dealt with her pounding headache. “Somewhere under the trees will be fine. I’ll move the raft later when my horn isn’t burnt out, but for now we should at least unpack and make a camp.”
“On it.” Using her supernatural balance that all earth ponies seemed to be gifted with, Gyro arranged the raft’s supplies on her back and grabbed the spears in her mouth, then waddled over to the trees. Rarity cracked an eye open and watched her go, suppressing an amused snicker when she saw how ridiculous the engineer looked with everything on her back.
Flaring her nostrils, Rarity managed to push away the worst of her headache for the time being. She still wasn’t planning on moving the raft right then, so she just left it at the edge of the swash zone. Trotting over to Gyro, she watched as the gray mare carefully laid out their supplies and reached for one of the jugs of water. When she saw Rarity watching, Gyro pointed to the jug. “You want a drink? You probably need it.”
Rarity licked parched lips and nodded, walking over to the jug and using her hooves to lift it instead of her magic. Once she quenched her thirst, she let Gyro have a turn and wiped her lips on the back of her fetlock. Her eyes fell on the basket of fruit, and she helped herself to a couple star apples to replenish her energy. She felt absolutely drained after powering the raft across all that water, and she needed a few minutes of downtime before she started moving again—and she knew it wouldn’t be too long before they did that.
Gyro must’ve had the same idea, because she started helping herself to the food as well. “So, where do you think our little bluebird flew off to?”
“I don’t know,” Rarity said. “She could’ve gone anywhere after visiting the shipwreck. There’s apparently more islands behind this one, and I have no idea what the rest of the topography looks like on the other side of this mountain. If she disappeared into the jungle, it’d be almost impossible to find her.”
“So what should we do?” Gyro licked some dribbling juices off her chin and tossed an empty rind aside. “Wait for her or go looking?”
Rarity frowned in thought. What would be the best thing to do when it came to Rainbow? If Rainbow was just off exploring, then eventually she would come back this way and see their raft in the sand. That would lead her right to them if they stayed put. But if something bad had happened to the pegasus, then they needed to find her. Waiting by the shore for her when she’d never show up wouldn’t solve any problems.
“We need to go looking for her,” Rarity said. “At least around the shipwreck. Maybe we’ll find out where she went from there.”
“And what if she doubles back this way and finds our raft but no sign of us?” Gyro asked. “Then we could all get lost on this island chain.”
“We’ll leave her a message,” Rarity said. “We’ll only go and investigate the shipwreck today. If we don’t find her there, we’ll go back to the raft and wait. She has to turn up eventually, right?”
Gyro shrugged. “I hope so. I don’t want to do this without our eyes in the sky. We’ll be at a serious disadvantage without her.”
“I just hope the dear’s okay,” Rarity said. But, with all their supplies safely nestled under a tree, Rarity grabbed one of the spears and trotted out onto the sand. Wielding it in her magic, she drew a large arrow in the sand pointing to the north, in the direction of the shipwreck. Gyro trotted out to join her, and Rarity etched a little ‘R + G’ in the sand beneath it. “There. That should do.”
Gyro raised an eyebrow at it. “What, are we dating now?” she asked, pointing to the subscript Rarity had added to the arrow.
Rarity rolled her eyes. “It’s just to let Rainbow know that we’re going that way,” she said, pointing the spear in the direction of the shipwreck. “And that we’re the ones who drew the arrow.”
“Who else could’ve drawn it?” The gray mare looked left and right. “I mean, there’s nopony else around here.”
“Hush,” Rarity said, resting the spear against her shoulder. “Sometimes you have to be… overt with Rainbow. She prides herself on speed, but she’s only fast when she’s using her wings.”
Gyro snickered. “Too many concussions?”
“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she has irreparable brain damage,” Rarity said with a teasing chuckle. Then, sighing, she picked up the spear and set her sights on the shipwreck to the north. “Might as well start looking for her. The longer we wait, the more likely she is to get into trouble.”
Rainbow Dash’s whole world was a dizzying blur of pain and nausea. Her skull felt like an ursa had clawed it open and then tried to climb inside to hibernate. She could feel her limbs, albeit faintly, and whenever she moved, she felt like she was going to throw up.
Slowly, noises started to come back to her. Fuzzy blue ears twitched as Rainbow began to notice sounds apart from the ringing in her skull. They rose and fell with different cadences and pitches. Eventually Rainbow realized that they were voices, and they were not happy.
When she tried to open her eyes, she hissed and winced as the sudden sensational overload sent her reeling. The voices stopped, if only for a moment, and the soft ground vibrated as something approached her. This time, she took much more care on opening her eyes, barely cracking one open until she could see a silhouette standing over her.
“Look who finally woke up,” a mare’s voice purred. Rainbow recognized a horn and a messy mane on a slender figure, but when she tried to raise her head for a better look, she gagged and clutched her muzzle. She was too dizzy to even manage sitting up.
“Mmrrffff… Rares?” Rainbow croaked, fighting the urge to curl up into a ball. “Wha… where?”
“Who—oh, I see.” When the mare spoke again, Rainbow realized it wasn’t Rarity who was standing in front of her. “No, I’m not your friend. I’m… more of an acquaintance. Call me a business partner, if you want.”
With a shuddering breath, Rainbow managed to steel herself enough to actually open her eyes. When they finally adjusted to the light, she saw a salt-streaked red unicorn leering down at her, with pale gray eyes and a streaked gray mane. A salty tricorn hat rested on her head, and a pair of swords crossing her chest complemented a quartet of pistols on her shoulders and flanks. Rainbow shrank back in horror when she recognized who she was looking at.
Captain Squall grinned and leaned in closer when she saw Rainbow’s startled reaction. “Oh, so you do remember me? Glad to see you haven’t forgotten. I would’ve been terribly offended if you did.”
Little by little, Rainbow took in the situation from where she lied on the silt. She was in a small clearing beneath the thick canopy of the jungle, and she counted two shoddy lean-tos across from her that looked like they were just used to keep supplies dry or for shelter from the rain. Next to them was a bigger longhouse made from salvaged wood from the Concordia’s wreckage and filled in with fronds and vines, much like the shelters her and Rarity had built on their home island. Seven or eight pirates stood around the clearing, all looking ragged and worse for wear after the crash, but just as vicious as when they first attacked the Concordia a month and a half ago. And they were all armed in some fashion, most with swords or spears.
Squall took a step back and smiled at Rainbow like a hungry cat toying with a mouse. “I didn’t think you survived the storm. The entire bridge was destroyed long before the ship crashed. There were a few other survivors from the lower decks when the wreckage landed here, but we dealt with them accordingly. Wouldn’t want them getting any ideas once they could organize.”
Rainbow blinked and managed to raise her head off the ground. “You… you killed them?”
“Did you expect me not to?” Squall shook her head. “There were more of them than there were us. Rather than lose ponies once they organized, I did the smart thing and put an end to it before it even started.”
“Yeah, because a smart captain would fly her ship made of money right into a friggin’ hurricane.”
Several of the pirates looked at each other and took a step back. That warning was all Rainbow had before Squall’s red magic grabbed her by the throat and hefted her into the air. Coughing, choking, and with the world spinning around her, Rainbow clawed at Squall’s invisible hand of magic around her neck. “We all make mistakes sometimes, don’t we?” she said in a voice far too honeyed and sweet for her actions. “Sometimes the best thing to do is forgive and forget, especially when it helps us keep our necks.”
She punctuated the last bit by squeezing down on Rainbow’s throat so hard she felt her windpipe on the verge of popping and her eyes bulged out of her head. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the magic vanished, and Rainbow gasped and choked as she hit the ground. Writhing and clutching at her bruised neck, Rainbow’s hind legs and wings uselessly flailed on the ground until she finally slowed her heart and got enough air back into her lungs to feel like she was actually breathing again. The moment she finally felt like she wasn’t being suffocated anymore, she immediately doubled over and vomited on the ground as a fresh spike of dizziness nailed itself into her brain.
Behind her, she heard Squall turn on one of the pirates at her side. “I think you hit her a little too hard,” the pirate captain mused. “She seems to have an awful concussion. Get her some water and some food, and tie her up. I don’t want her going anywhere.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the pirate responded, and Rainbow faintly heard hooves shuffling about the camp. Magic suddenly gripped her mane and pulled her head back, and she kicked out at the air in feeble protest.
Hot breath tickled her ear as Squall leaned in close. “A good friend holds a mare’s mane back when she’s getting sick,” Squall hissed into her ear. “And until we find some way back to Equestria, we’re going to be the best of friends.” Then, releasing Rainbow’s mane, Squall stood up and walked around the pegasus until she stood in front of her doubled-over form. “Now, answer me this,” she said, squatting down. “Who else survived the crash?”
The piece of the wreckage turned out to be much farther away than Rarity had thought it was when she first set out to it. It took her and Gyro nearly half an hour of walking just to get close to it, and then they realized that it stuck out of the water some, across a shallow channel separating the spires of rock from the main island. Both mares had to splash across the channel in water up to their chests to get beneath the spires and the piece of the Concordia between them.
“That’s pretty high up there,” Gyro said, craning her neck back. “We have to climb all the way up, don’t we?”
“My horn certainly isn’t in any condition to levitate us up to it,” Rarity said, rubbing the ivory projection on her skull with a salty hoof. “We’ll have to do it the hard way.”
Gyro sighed and trudged toward the base of the rocky outcropping, searching for a hoofhold to start her ascent. “I hate the hard way,” she grumbled as she began to climb, testing each rock with steady hooves before moving on. “The hard way sucks.”
Rarity followed suit, trying to match Gyro’s hoofsteps and motions—after all, if the rocks could support the larger, slightly heavier mare, then they could support her as well. “You’re so insistent that we call you an engineer, but from what I’ve seen in my experience, engineers thrive on solving hard problems.”
“Different kind of engineer,” Gyro retorted. “Besides, all engineers have one thing in common: they’re always trying to find an easier shortcut to solving a hard problem. That’s why they make engines, or taller buildings, or higher order mathematics and differential equations and thermodynamics and shit.”
“I suppose that makes sense in a way…” Rarity waited while Gyro plotted her next move, the gray mare ultimately settling on a dangerous climb on hoofholds barely more than three inches wide. Rarity watched her ascend, studying the way the mechanic contorted her body to grab at the hoofholds, and swallowed hard when Gyro finally made it to a wider outcropping. “Celestia, it just can’t be easy, can it?”
Gyro looked back over her shoulder since there wasn’t enough room where she stood to turn around. “Don’t worry, Rarity, it only gets worse from here!”
Rarity glowered at Gyro. “You can’t be serious!”
“Nope! One hundred percent serious!” she looked the other way and shuddered. “I need to jump to the next ledge from here, but after that it shouldn’t get too much worse. Maybe.”
“Heavens above,” Rarity muttered. She looked straight up, where she could see a bit of wood jutting out into open air. “Rainbow Dash?! Darling?! Are you up there?! I’d rather not have to climb the whole way up just to see if you’re there or not, so if you’re up there, could you please come down?!”
Silence answered her, silence save for the crashing of the waves against the rocks below her. Pursing her lips, Rarity took a deep breath and tensed her muscles. “It’s never simple with that mare,” she muttered to herself, and with a nervous step, she began to navigate the almost vertical climb up to the next ledge. Her legs began to scream in protest as she reached and stretched, trying to pull her entire bodyweight up to the next hoofhold using only one or two hooves. The rocky grit grinded against the steel covering her hooves, and she feared that they’d slip at any moment, sending her to a terrifying plunge into the stony shoal beneath her. She didn’t dare look down, though. To look down would’ve caused her to panic, and if she panicked, she knew she’d slip and fall. So she forced herself onwards and upwards, twisting and stretching to make it to the last hoofhold.
When she did, she hauled herself up next to Gyro and collapsed, panting and shaking. “This is too much,” she managed between shaky breaths. “I should have stayed on the ground!”
“We’re almost there,” Gyro said, eyeing up the next portion of the climb. “Take a moment to breathe, and get ready to catch me in your magic or something if I fall.”
“My poor horn,” Rarity whined. “I simply won’t be able to give it a rest, will I?”
“So long as you don’t split it, we’ll need all the magic you can afford while we’re up here,” Gyro countered. Then, with pale blue eyes set on a rocky ledge, Gyro moved forward and wiggled her rump from side to side like a cat ready to pounce. “Gonna jump in three, two, one—!”
Her hooves struck out against the stone, propelling her through the air and toward the ledge on the other side. Rarity bit down on her lip and let magic begin to build on her horn just in case, but Gyro managed to make it to the other side—mostly. Her upper body hit the ledge but her hind legs kicked at thin air, scrambling for purchase on a surface that wasn’t there. Grunting and wincing, the mechanic puffed her cheeks out and hauled herself up the rest of the way using only her forelegs, rolling onto her back once she finally was fully on the ledge.
Rarity sighed in relief and let her magic fizzle away. “That was too close, Gyro,” she said. “How in the world am I going to make this jump?”
“I don’t know, use unicorn cheats or something.” Gyro rolled back onto her stomach and raised her head. “Can’t you do things with your magic? I mean, if you could levitate yourself out of the temple and propel a raft across open water, then surely using it to extend a jump shouldn’t be too hard. The only limitation to magic is how you use it, right?”
“That and how much mana I can squeeze out of my horn per second,” Rarity said. She inched closer to the ledge she was standing on and sucked on her lower lip as she looked down. Sharp rocks jutted out of frothy white waves slamming against the base of the rocky spires about eighty feet below her. “This is not how I imagined I’d perish,” she muttered almost to herself, instinctively taking a nervous step back from the edge.
Gyro waved her over. “Come on, just believe in yourself. I’ll catch you if I have to. You’ll be fine!”
“Easy for you to say…” Swallowing hard, Rarity inched backwards until her hind legs were right on the edge of the platform. With as much room to build up speed as she could find, Rarity took a few deep breaths to slow her heart and line up her jump. “Here goes nothing!”
She lowered her head and charged directly for the edge, building up the speed she’d need to clear the jump. Right before she reached the edge, she shifted the placement of her hooves to emulate the stance Rainbow usually took before she launched herself off of something. As soon as all four of her hooves lined up on the edge of the ledge, she kicked off, stretching herself for all it was worth. She even gave herself a boost with her telekinesis as well, pushing her hooves further after they separated from the ground. Below her, the drop to the shoal opened up into an infinite plunge, and for a moment, she felt like she was straddling a line between flying and falling.
Then her hooves made contact with stone, and her momentum carried her forward into a fuzzy gray wall. Gyro wrapped her forelegs around Rarity’s shoulders and held her tight before she could bounce back and fall off the ledge. After a moment for them both to regain their balance, Gyro let go of Rarity and shuffled back a bit, giving her more space on the ledge. “That was a good jump,” she said. “You got more distance than I did.”
“A little magic goes a long way,” Rarity murmured, still somewhat dazed at the adrenaline surge running through her veins. “But I’m here now. So… I guess I did it.”
“Yeah, you did,” Gyro said, patting Rarity’s shoulder. Then her head tilted back, and she frowned at the dozens of feet of rock they still had to scale. “Good thing the fun’s not over yet…”
Rarity eyed the remainder of the ascent with wary blue eyes. The further they climbed, the more sparse the hoofholds and ledges became. Once more, Rarity wished that she had the horn strength to simply fly up to the top of the rocks instead of climbing around the sides.
But at the very least, she had Gyro to do most of the pathfinding work for her. The earth pony was as nimble and sure-hoofed as a mountain goat, her gray hooves never slipping or failing to find traction on tiny rocky outcroppings. Rarity simply did her best to try and follow the mare’s hoofsteps and keep up.
Eventually, however, they reached a ledge with no easy way to progress. In front of them, the rocks dropped away to a dizzying and sheer plunge to the shoals below, and there wasn’t any path to backtrack and navigate behind them. There was only another ledge a couple inches wide about ten feet straight up against a flat face of rock. As far as Rarity could tell, there wasn’t any way to proceed.
“Great, we’ve come all this way only to be stopped by a dead end,” she grumbled. “How are we even going to get down from here? If we have to navigate that rocky ascent again, I may just fling myself off the cliff now and save time.”
“No dead end, only a new challenge,” Gyro said. Rising onto her hind legs, she rested her forehooves against the wall and squinted at the ledge above her. “If I give you a boost, can you pick me up after?”
Rarity blinked. “Well I… I suppose I could, seeing as how you weigh much less than a makeshift ramshackle wooden raft, and it’s easier to lift others instead of myself, but I don’t even think that me standing on your back would give me the height I needed to grab the ledge.”
Gyro rubbed her chin and thought. “Okay, that’s no problem. We can still do it.”
“Excuse me? No problem? How do you mean?” Rarity emphatically gestured to the ledge above them. “I’m not going to be able to make it up there unless you were to throw me or—” Her pupils shrunk to tiny pinpricks. “Oh, no, don’t you even dare—!”
Gray forelegs wrapped around her shoulders and hefted her off the ground. “I promise I won’t miss, I have great aim!” Gyro said, rising onto her hind legs.
“You said you were terrible at horseshoes!”
“That’s different!” Gyro grunted as she took aim at the ledge, her hind hooves sliding and legs trembling as she supported the weight of two ponies on them. “I’ll count to three. You ready?”
“No! Heavens, no, put me down!” Rarity screeched, too frightened to squirm or flail in case the sudden motion made Gyro lose her balance and sent them both tumbling off the side.
“Good! I’ll throw on three.” Licking her lips, Gyro’s shoulders tensed. “One!”
And then she flung Rarity, who screamed in surprise and fear. Her four white legs shot out in different directions as, alarmed, she went flying toward the ledge. One of them made contact with a crook of rock, and Rarity immediately grimaced and wrapped her shaking forelegs around it. Her tail swayed back and forth as her lower body dangled from the ledge, and with strength fueled by sheer terror, the fashionista pulled herself up onto the next ledge.
“Oh, awesome, you made it!” Gyro shouted from below her. Spinning around, Rarity trembled and peered over the edge to see Gyro looking straight up at her. “I was worried for a second I’d actually miss!”
“You are, quite literally, the worst mare to have ever lived!” Rarity spat at her, her voice squeaking and cracking as she shook. “I could have died!”
“But you didn’t, right? It’s all water under the bridge now.”
“You didn’t even count to three!”
“You would’ve started freaking out and flailing if I waited that long.”
The amused smirk on her muzzle reminded Rarity of another mare she knew. “No wonder you and Rainbow get along so well,” she growled. “You both take pleasure out of messing with me!”
“I’ll admit it’s pretty funny sometimes…” Gyro shook her head. “Yeah but like, can you float me up now? I don’t want to be stuck on this little ledge forever.”
Rarity let magic build on her horn, yet she nevertheless scowled at the mechanic. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you forced me into a nonconsensual pony-toss…”
Blue magic wrapped around Gyro’s form, and soon Rarity shifted her focus to picking the mare up. Though holding and lifting a fully grown pony was taxing in itself, it was nothing compared to picking up the raft, so Rarity managed without putting too much strain on her already exhausted horn. Once she finally lifted Gyro up to her level, she made eye contact with the earth pony and grinned.
Gyro’s ears fell. “Oh no.”
Without much more warning than that, Rarity let magic surge through her horn. The field holding Gyro in the air brightened and, moments later, catapulted the mare up the remaining twenty or thirty feet of cliff face still left to climb. The mechanic shrieked and flailed her legs as if that would suddenly grant her the gift of flight. She disappeared over the top of the rocky mesa, and moments later Rarity heard something hit the ground, followed by a few groans from Gyro.
“I’m sorry, I forgot to count to three,” Rarity quipped. Turning in place, she found a mild slope up the side of the cliff that would take her to the top without too much hassle. Thankfully she wouldn’t need Gyro to navigate that. Perhaps a little too late to help, she wondered if she’d thrown Gyro too hard. Hopefully she hadn’t hurt her friend. But earth ponies were tough, so she was probably fine.
Without too much difficulty, Rarity picked her way through the rest of the ascent and finally poked her head over the top. Gyro sat a little ways off to the side, rubbing her ribs, and she shot Rarity a pained wince. “Okay, I probably deserved that. I’ve only got a bruised rib or two, at least.”
Rarity wilted and immediately scampered up the last bit of rock. “Oh, Gyro, darling, I’m so terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to throw you that hard. I just wanted to make sure that I got you to the top safely, so I put a little extra power into the spell.” She knelt down by Gyro’s side and made sure that none of the gray mare’s bones were actually broken. “I didn’t want my petty revenge to actually get you hurt.”
“I’m an earth pony, with my constitution I’ll feel better in like, a few hours.” Almost as if to prove her point, Gyro stood up and stretched her legs out. “I’ll be fine, though, don’t worry. Now, let’s see what we’ve got here…”
Though Rarity still worried about the mechanic, she instead kept her concerns to herself. Following Gyro, she allowed her eyes to wander up to the piece of hull perched between twin rocky spires. Though a few planks of wood edged out behind the spires kept the section of the hull in place, Rarity could tell that the bulk of the weight rested on a rocky finger rising about forty feet out of the ground. How that piece of the hull had landed there without slipping off was beyond Rarity, but the stiff breeze coming in from the sea made it creak and rock ever so slightly.
“We should be careful around here,” Rarity murmured to Gyro, almost as if she was afraid her voice would cause the wreckage to slip and fall like a loud noise triggering an avalanche. “That thing’s tenuously balanced on the rocks. If it falls, it could knock us off the rocks with it.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Gyro said, striding even closer in spite of it. “The wind definitely had to have played a role in this section of the hull landing here. It would’ve have to have come down flat, but shift to an angle a bit before impact. Otherwise, that rocky spire would’ve shattered right through it, but it also needed to come down slow enough from air resistance not to break apart anyways.”
“Yes, but how is this going to help us find Rainbow?” Rarity asked. “She’s obviously not up here, and I don’t see any sign of her.”
“Well, she was here, alright,” Gyro said, pointing to a chunk of wood jutting out of some brush. “There’s a piece of the Concordia’s name plate, and somepony with feathers brushed the dirt off it. Recently, too.”
Rarity trotted closer to get a look and confirm Gyro’s suspicions. “That must’ve been her, then,” she said. “But where did she go from here?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Gyro said. “I doubt we can figure it out from here.”
“So what do we do?” Rarity asked. “Go back to the camp? How are we going to get down from here?”
“Not sure about that one,” Gyro said. “But I bet we can get a lot of useful stuff out of this bit of the hull here. It hasn’t been touched yet, and there’s bound to be good things in the wreckage, like cloth and wire.”
Rarity craned her neck back. “That would mean we’d have to go into the wreckage, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, it would.” Rolling her shoulders, Gyro positioned herself beneath a hole in the wreckage’s underside. “Give me a boost. And don’t throw me this time, ‘kay?”
Gyro’s hooves tingled as Rarity’s magic hoisted her off the ground. For a moment—if only for a moment—her stomach did backflips as she lost contact with the ground, floating in the open air at the behest of an intangible force. Most earth ponies grew uncomfortable when their hooves left the ground, but after a second to breathe, Gyro forced the sensation away. Unlike many of her brethren, she was as perfectly at home in the sky as she was on the ground. Usually, she had something to stand on, though.
“That hole right there,” she said, pointing a gray hoof directly upwards. “There’s at least a little bit of something to stand on through it.”
“There’s not a whole lot of anything to stand on,” Rarity said, watching from down below. “Most of the rooms are ripped wide open.”
“But not all of them,” Gyro insisted, eyeing up the rooms from the lower decks. “Those still are intact. And if any storerooms survived, then there has to be something useful inside of them.”
“I suppose it’s worth a look, then.” Rarity’s horn brightened, and Gyro accelerated toward the hole. “Do be careful, though. If you upset the balance of the wreckage too much…”
“I’m not that fat,” Gyro quipped. “I’m insulted.”
By this point, though, Rarity had grown used to Gyro’s jokes. “I’m sure you are,” she merely muttered. “Whatever you keep telling yourself, there aren’t any scales to judge you here.”
Gyro rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever. Just stay close by so you can get me out of here if I really need to make an escape.”
“Right. I’ll be listening.”
And then Gyro’s head poked through the hole in the wreckage. She immediately wrinkled her nose at the humidity and stench sitting inside. Cracks in the hull let some sunlight filter into the rooms, giving her enough light to see by. She recognized herself in one of the sturdy maintenance corridors at the bottom of the ship, which managed to survive the crash. It gave her a base to navigate the wreckage, and maybe access some other rooms in the lower hull.
“Alright, you can let me go,” Gyro said, reaching out for the edge of the hole. Rarity’s magic gave her a gentle nudge into the interior of the ship, then disappeared entirely. The engineer’s legs flexed as her weight suddenly settled on her hooves, then tensed as the wreckage groaned and shifted. Wood creaked and something shattered against a wall further down the hallway, and Gyro found herself leaning from side to side in time with the rocking of the wreckage.
Rarity’s worried voice followed her through the hole moments later. “Are you okay, darling? The wreckage…”
“It’s not sliding, is it?” Gyro asked, her legs locked and too tense to move. “Is it stable?”
“For the moment, I think…” A beat, and then, “Maybe you should just leave now. If you start moving things inside of it…”
“I’ll be careful,” Gyro said. “There’s nothing heavy enough inside the hull that moving it would set it off balance. I just need to move slow and careful to not disturb it.” Swallowing hard, she turned her attention down the dim hallway. “Well, here goes nothing…”
Her hooves echoed off the floor… which, given the angle of the wreckage, was the interior wall. Even that wasn’t perfectly level; it rose to Gyro’s right, toward the ceiling, at about a fifteen degree angle. It made walking down the hall slightly irritating, which the creaking and groaning of the wreckage only compounded. A few inches of pooled water sat in the crook between the floor and the wall, stagnant and stale. Insects buzzed around the interior, and Gyro just knew that the water inside the wreckage was quickly becoming a mosquito breeding ground.
She stopped at the first door which, given the orientation of the ship, happened to be almost directly above her. Rising up on her hind legs, Gyro gripped the handle in her mouth and turned it. The door wasn’t locked, but she had to jump off the wall to get enough leverage to fling the door open inwards. When she landed on the wall again, the entire wreckage shuddered and swayed. Gyro held still until the hull stopped moving, then managed to rise up and crawl through the door frame.
It was one of the maintenance wings, and Gyro immediately recognized it as the spare engine parts room. Most of the containers were still attached to the walls, though a few had broken free and smashed against the interior wall. Gyro simply considered herself lucky that none of them had fallen against the door, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to open it. So, turning her attention to the first container, she forced it open and looked inside.
When she saw the collection of gears and small parts, she frowned and sighed. “I wish I brought a sack with me,” she muttered to herself. Thankfully, a cardboard box with only a little water damage sat in the corner of the room, so she careful navigated to it and picked it up. Setting it against the wall, she started dumping whatever she thought would be useful into it: gears, nuts and bolts, some zip ties and wire. Though she didn’t know what she’d do with the gears, everything else would be useful in some way. With those random parts in the box, she moved onto the next container.
“Gyro, darling?” Rarity’s faint voice echoed through the wreckage. “How’s it going in there?”
“Good!” Gyro said. “I’ve found some parts and stuff. Gonna go through the rest, see what I can find.”
“Okay…” The worry in Rarity’s voice was unmistakable, but Gyro pressed on regardless. There wasn’t anything she could do about that now. Moving on to the next container, she forced it open and dumped more parts in the box. In that way, she slowly worked her way through the easier containers.
But then there were the containers mounted on the far wall. She remembered that there were tools and metal patches in those larger containers; those would be incredibly useful for her and Rarity and Rainbow. The only problem now was getting to them with them mounted on the wall practically above her. But maybe she could find something that would make it work…
The floor was scarred up and splintered, providing a little bit of traction up to the far wall. Though Gyro wasn’t too keen on doing more climbing, the tools inside of those containers would be worth it. So, cracking her neck, she started on the ascent. Her legs ached and screamed in protest, but with effort and determination, she made it within reach of the hanging containers above her. Now all she had to do was open one.
She immediately set her eyes on the biggest container; that’d have the most scrap metal in it. Precariously balanced on a plank sticking out of the floor, Gyro reached up and used her mouth to tug on the door. Instead of opening, however, she shouted in alarm and surprise when the entire container broke off of the wall, fell through the open door, and slammed against the hallway wall below her.
The wreckage shook, shuddered, and groaned. It swayed back and forth from the force of the blow, and the shift in position was enough to make Gyro lose her grip on the plank of wood and fall down. She screamed in pain as she cracked her back on an open steel container lid behind her, and her hind legs immediately went tingly and numb. Her teeth smashed together and she tasted blood in her mouth as she rolled off the container and through the door frame, slamming chin-first against the container.
Groaning and hissing in pain, Gyro tried to stand up, but her hind legs wouldn’t respond to her. And that’s when she heard the splintering of wood, the shrieking of metal, the crumbling of stone.
Swallowing hard, Gyro put her hooves against the wall and felt the fifteen degree incline swiftly vanishing. “Oh, fuck me…”
Rarity paced beneath the wreckage of the hull. Every so often, the thing would creak, groan, and shift as Gyro moved about inside of it. A few times, Rarity attempted to stabilize the hull with her magic, but it was much too heavy for her to influence in any way, especially with a horn as exhausted as hers. She just hoped Gyro knew what she was doing.
Pacing wasn’t getting her anywhere, so she sighed and turned toward the interior of the island archipelago. Nothing but green trees and white sand greeted her, the palms rising and falling with the contour of the land. She counted eight or nine separate islands, barely divided by little channels of water, with maybe more tiny ones hidden from sight by the thick canopy of the jungle.
But there was no sign of a blue pegasus. Nothing larger than parrots flew between the trees, shrilly shrieking the entire time. The entire shattered island chain was alive with the noise and music of the wildlife, but a raspy, cracking pegasus’ voice wasn’t carried in their song.
Just where was she?
By now, Rarity figured it abundantly clear that Rainbow had gone off to explore more of the island after stopping at the wreckage. What she couldn’t understand was why the pegasus hadn’t returned yet. Or, perhaps, a better way of putting it was that she didn’t understand what was keeping Rainbow from returning.
She just hoped she was wrong…
The wreckage groaned again, and Rarity sent a nervous look over her shoulder. “Gyro, darling?” she shouted, hoping Gyro could hear her from within the splintered wood and steel. “How’s it going in there?”
“Good!” came Gyro’s muffled response. Rarity had to point both her ears in that direction and trot a few steps closer just to hear what the mechanic had to say. “I’ve found some parts and stuff. Gonna go through the rest, see what I can find.”
“Okay…” Rarity chewed on her lip for a few seconds and ultimately went back to pacing. At this rate, she was going to wear her horseshoes down to nubs. They were already rusty and weakening from so much time spent around salty water. Sooner or later, she’d have to discard them entirely.
The minutes dragged on. The clanking and clattering of metal parts from within the hull gave her the only clue she had as to what exactly Gyro was doing, yet even that wasn’t much. She was half tempted to lift herself into the wreckage to supervise the mechanic or something… but she was too exhausted to do it and even if she could, she didn’t want to risk upsetting the wreckage any more. The only thing she could do now was patiently wait for Gyro to return.
That was when she heard the shriek of metal followed by the booming of something heavy hitting the interior wall of the wreckage. Rarity flinched and jumped in place, and with widening eyes beheld the entire splintered and sodden wreckage sway violently, pitching downwards and showering pebbles and stones from the single finger of rock it was perched on. Moments later, a terrified and pained scream wormed its way through the cracks in the hull, shooting ice through Rarity’s veins.
“Gyro?!” Rarity screamed. “Gyro, are you okay?! What happened?!”
A stone the size of a golf ball bounced off the ground and pelted Rarity in the chest, and that was enough to turn her eyes from the sliding wreckage to the finger of stone holding it up. Cracks and fissures opened up in the rough face, and as the wreckage tilted further and further down, shards started to rain across the top of the rocky mesa.
Rarity gulped. “I knew this was a bad idea…”
With a thunderous boom, the stony spire split across the middle, sending fragments of rock flying in every direction. The piece of the Concordia’s hull careened downwards, the rocky spire on its left shearing a sizable chunk of splintered planks off the hull. The piece of the hull cracked under its own weight, nearly splitting in two as it tumbled off the spire.
In that moment, Rarity’s worries over Gyro’s safety evaporated as her own panicked instincts took over. While her mind tried to come up with a plan of action, her legs skipped that entire part and simply acted, sending her galloping away from the cascading tumult of debris advancing on her.
But then she realized there wasn’t anywhere to run to. The moment she saw the sheer cliff in front of her, she skidded to a halt, all four hooves jammed into the ground in front of her. She came to a stop just in front of the edge of the mesa, inches from taking a plunge of a hundred feet or more to the ground below.
Then the first wave of debris fell upon her.
Splintered wood, bands of steel, sharp nuts and bolts washed over Rarity’s body like a tidal wave, sweeping her off her hooves and flinging her off the side of the spire. Screaming, howling, and writhing in adrenaline-deadened pain, Rarity felt her heart fly into her throat as she spun wildly during her descent. The horizon flipped several times, the trees and sky switching places as she spun and flailed. And then the ground came flying up to meet her, so astonishingly fast—
Her horn illuminated, mana forcing its way along the grooves without any guidance from her. She faintly felt the buzz of mana in her skull, and before she knew what she was doing, it loosed itself in one final, desperate act of magic.
She didn’t know what it was—darkness took her before she hit the ground.
Rainbow’s ruby eyes stared straight up at Squall in a mixture of anger, dizziness, and determination.
Squall’s gray eyes stared back down at Rainbow with simmering rage, faux sweetness, and a veiled promise of excruciating pain.
“Do I have to repeat myself?” Squall asked, leaning in a little closer to the dizzy and concussed mare sitting across from her. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
Rainbow gritted her teeth and tried to keep her swimming gaze focused straight on the mare ahead. Her jaw clenched and she matched the pirate’s stare with unyielding stubbornness.
“Who. Else. Survived. The crash,” Squall growled, and her red magic plucked one of the cutlasses from her chest. Rainbow flinched as the sword swung at her neck only to stop a hair’s width short of slicing open her arteries. “I’m going to become very unpleasant if you don’t answer me now.”
When Rainbow swallowed, her bobbing throat kissed the cool steel of Squall’s sword. Ultimately, that terrifying sensation was enough to break her silence. “You’d like to know that, wouldn’t you?”
“Hence why I’m asking.” Squall growled and pushed the sword closer, the cutlass digging into Rainbow’s flesh. A slice of pain seared across her neck, followed moments later by the trickle of warm blood dribbling out of the shallow gash in her flesh. When Rainbow remained obstinate, Squall pulled the sword back. “Do you think I’ll hesitate to kill you because you’re an Element Bearer? That you’re worth something to me?”
“I was certainly worth something to you on the Concordia,” Rainbow muttered.
“The only thing you’re worth to me now is a pardon, assuming anypony even finds us,” Squall spat back. “Six weeks out here on the island, and not a ship in sight. I didn’t even know these islands existed until the hurricane took my ships down, and I’ve flown over these waters for years. We’re so far off the map that nopony will ever find us. So why the fuck should I keep you alive if you’re more trouble than you’re worth?”
Rainbow didn’t particularly want to answer that question. Whatever it happened to be, she knew it was the only reason Squall hadn’t gutted her yet.
Smirking, Squall flipped the blade around in her magic and ran her tongue over the flat, licking off whatever amount of Rainbow’s blood still stuck to the steel. “I’ve murdered dozens of ponies. The brave, the stubborn, and the stupid fall just the same. Those that cooperate… don’t.” Sighing, she twirled the cutlass in the air and placed the blade under Rainbow’s chin. “If I weren’t already going to be hanged for piracy, I’d almost feel bad about this.”
Even Rainbow, ever brave and bold, ultimately decided that wasn’t a bluff she wanted to call. “W-Wait!” she shouted, leaning away from the cutlass. “I’ll tell you! Promise!”
Squall rolled her eyes. “We’re past that, little birdy—”
“Twenty!” Rainbow shuffled backwards a step, putting a few more inches of distance between her and the sword. “There’s twenty of us, on another island. We’ve got tools, weapons, and shelter! We’re surviving out here, and they’re gonna know if I don’t come back!”
“Twenty?” Squall’s curved cutlass drifted away and idly twirled as she thought. “You claim that there are twenty more of you on one of the other islands? That many of you survived the crash?”
Rainbow emphatically nodded. “We got some of the passengers and crew onto a lifeboat before the Concordia went down. We ended up on the island northea—I mean, north of here. That’s where we’re all hanging out.”
“That’s certainly interesting…” Squall looked around the camp at the hoofful of pirates milling about, at their skeptical faces, before leering back down at Rainbow. “…if it were true.”
“It is,” Rainbow insisted. “If they find out that pirates killed me, they’d wipe you out.”
“It’s a good thing they won’t, because they don’t exist.” Squall stomped closer and knocked Rainbow onto her flanks with her indomitable, seething presence. “The only thing on the north island is minotaurs. Their canoes came down here all the time, but if they got too close, it was the last mistake they ever made. Seems like the learned their lesson, because there aren’t any more coming this way. If there really were that many of you, well, I don’t think you’d survive that long against them if you came from their island. So I know you’re full of shit.”
Rainbow blinked, quickly running out of ideas and panicking that her bluffs were being called. “That’s not—!”
Squall put the point of her cutlass on Rainbow’s throat and pressed the slightest pressure on it. “If your next word is going to be ‘true’, then I will kill you now and stain the fucking sand red with your blood, Wonderbolt. Tell me straight or lose your neck: who survived the crash?”
Hopeless and scared, Rainbow felt herself cracking. “J-Just two others that I know!” she stammered. “Rarity and a mechanic! There could be more, but I haven’t seen them!”
The blood red mare smiled and pulled the cutlass away. “That’s more like it,” she purred, and she began to circle Rainbow, her hooves pushing white sand aside with every step. “You can be cooperative, can’t you? Now, where are they?”
Even still, Rainbow wasn’t about to completely betray her friends. “They’re not here,” she said. “I’m the only one with wings, so I flew out here to investigate. Alone. They’re waiting for me to return.” It wasn’t technically a lie, right? She did leave them behind and fly out to the island in advance of them, a decision which she now deeply regretted…
“I see,” Squall said, coming to a stop behind Rainbow. “And what will they do if you don’t make it back to them?”
“They’ll look for me,” Rainbow said. “They’re good friends like that. They wouldn’t give up on me.” Swallowing hard, she dared to look the pirate captain in the eye. “Why are we fighting and threatening each other? We could… could work together to get home.”
“Implying that I want to go back to Equestria. I told you before, it’s only the gallows for me and my crew.”
“Returning us safely could get you pardoned,” Rainbow insisted. “You said so yourself.”
“I don’t trust anypony’s word,” Squall said, resuming her circling. “I won’t sell my crew into custody on a promise we won’t hang. Once we have the resources, and once hurricane season is over, we’re going to build a boat, sail to the Confederacy, and acquire a new ship there. We’ll start all over again. And I don’t trust you to stay safely tucked away in our custody that long.” Raising her sword, she sang, “Thank you for everything, and it was nice knowing you. Put in a nice word to the Big Mare upstairs for me, won’t you?”
Before she could swing, however, a resounding boom echoed throughout the forest, shaking the very trees. A coconut fell from a palm tree and thudded into the ground, and the pirates gave their surroundings a weary look. “What was that?” one of them asked nopony in particular, his sword at the ready.
Squall sneered in the direction it’d come from. “From the north,” she growled. Hateful gray eyes turned to Rainbow. “I thought you said you were alone.”
Rainbow swallowed hard. “I… did…”
“Figures.” Her attention shifted back to her crew. “You three, go figure out what made that noise. Report back to me as soon as you can. If you find anypony, kill them immediately. We have enough problems on our hooves.” While the crew saluted and set about their captain’s orders, Squall wrenched Rainbow’s head around with her magic and forced the mare to stare up at her. “I hate liars…”
Rainbow opened her mouth to respond, but instead ate the hilt of the cutlass as Squall spun it around and slammed it into her muzzle. Pain exploded down her jaw and she ended up on her back, but it wasn’t over yet. Practically spitting and frothing with rage, Squall stood over the pegasus and pummeled and bludgeoned her with the hilt of her sword, over and over and over again.
It took too long before the pain sent Rainbow into the comforting oblivion of unconsciousness.
Rarity came to some time later. All her senses were dulled by pain and vertigo, making her vision blurry, her hearing muffled, and her tongue feeling like cotton in her mouth. The only smells her nose could pick up were dust and blood, and an overwhelming number of aches obscured the rest of her senses.
But in time, everything came back to her, little by little. Her vision sharpened first, revealing thick foliage and vibrant, leafy undergrowth around her. Birds and other creatures sang their songs and cried their cries to the jungle. The ground around her was moist and muddy, and her body was decidedly not impaled on wood or other shrapnel. Sure, everything hurt, but that was better than dying.
Once she made sure she could feel all her hooves, Rarity rolled onto them and stood up with a grimace. Numerous cuts and scrapes decorated her body, many of them still slowly oozing blood. By that, she figured she must’ve only been unconscious for a short period of time. Moving and breathing hurt, so she must’ve cracked a rib or something in the fall. But, speaking of the fall, where was she? Where was the wreckage?
Rarity’s brow furrowed in confusion as she took in her surroundings. This wasn’t a sandy beach near the spires holding the wreck in place. There wasn’t even any wooden debris to be seen. How did she get so far away from the wreckage?
That was when she realized her horn hurt like nothing else. Wincing, she put a hoof to her horn and felt a minor crack running from the tip to about a quarter of the way down her horn. It wasn’t completely split and cracked like after surviving the shipwreck, but it would still put her out of action for a day or two until it mended. And seeing as how it was cracked, not chipped, Rarity knew that only overloading her horn could have caused the injury.
Once more she looked around at her unfamiliar surroundings, at the dense jungle of swaying palm trees. If the wreckage and debris didn’t bring her here, then she must’ve brought herself here. And that hypothesis lined up perfectly with the injury to her horn.
“Did I teleport?” she muttered aloud to herself, her words sluggish and dazed as they rolled off of her doughy tongue. “Did I somehow teleport myself here?”
It was the only explanation she could think of as to how she ended up so far away from the wreckage. And it wasn’t entirely unheard of for unicorns to cast spells they didn’t know in desperate situations. Twilight had once told her that if a unicorn willed something hard enough, sometimes their magic could make it happen. And willing herself not to die in the cascading debris of the wreckage could certainly be a strong enough impetus for her magic to teleport her someplace safe by sheer force of will.
She coughed and immediately doubled over in pain. Apparently, it wasn’t a very good teleport, and she figured she must’ve fallen fifteen or twenty feet to the ground after she managed it. But then a cold feeling settled in her gut. “Gyro,” she murmured, whipping her head back and forth. “Where’s Gyro?” Chewing on her lip, she quickly found the sun and used that to orient herself on the compass rose. “Oh no, oh no, oh no…”
She charged off to the northeast, figuring that eventually she’d have to find the wreckage if she went in that direction; the island was only so big. She didn’t think she could’ve teleported herself to another island entirely. Even Twilight would struggle to do something like that. But the longer she was out in the jungle alone, the more and more she worried that something nasty would find her before she could find Gyro.
But ultimately, she was right, and she recognized the rocky spires from before sticking through the canopy. She hadn’t teleported herself all that far, maybe only a thousand feet, but that was a thousand feet more than she’d ever teleported before. And now that she was out of the trees, she had a clear line of sight to the fate of the wreckage her and Gyro had explored.
The entire thing had been smashed to pieces in the fall. What was once a roughly solid and single piece of hull had been reduced to splinters and shattered fragments scattered across a beach. Steel supports stuck out of the sand, scattered between rocks and stones that the collapsing wreckage had scoured off the side of the mesa.
And there was no sign of life anywhere. Not even a single set of hoofprints in the sand walking away from the wreckage.
Rarity wasted no time galloping up to the wreck, or at least trotting as fast as she could manage with her cracked and bruised ribs. “Gyro?” she shouted to the sea of debris. “Gyro, where are you? Please… please don’t be dead. You’re a hardy earth pony, you surely must have survived the fall!”
She instinctively tried to fling some debris aside with her magic, but a crack of pain to her skull and the oozing of raw, scalding blue mana down her horn put an end to that attempt. After a moment to set the dizziness aside, Rarity wiped the trickle of evaporating mana off her horn and wandered into the debris field herself. “Gyro!” she shouted, trying to make sure the earth pony could hear her even if she was buried under a ton of wood and steel. “Gyro, are you here?!”
A cough and a whimper caught her ear. “Rarity…” a voice croaked. “Is that you?”
Rarity immediately spun in the direction of the voice and bounded over some debris. “Yes, darling, it’s me. Are you alright?” She spotted a rigid section of hallway that had survived the fall and started clearing away the rubble preventing her from accessing it. “Hold tight, I’m going to get you out.”
“I… I…” A grunt and a gasp of pain emanated from the debris. “Help…”
“Almost there,” Rarity assured her, and with a yell and a heave, she yanked aside the last piece of paneling blocking the entrance. A gray, fuzzy body lied crumpled against a steel container not too far away, and Rarity managed to stick her head into the wreckage and bite down on Gyro’s short tail to drag her out. “Yoush your legsh!” she commanded through clenched teeth as she struggled to drag the mechanic out of the wreckage.
Gyro’s forelegs pushed against the wreckage, but Rarity noticed that her hind legs remained splayed out to the sides and didn’t move. “I… I can’t feel my legs,” Gyro said in a worried voice. That took on a scared shift moments later when she wailed it again. “I can’t feel my legs! Celestia, no!”
Rarity momentarily stopped pulling out of shock. Did Gyro break her back in the fall? She immediately redoubled her efforts and managed to drag the mechanic out into the sand. If Gyro had broken her back, if she’d lost the use of her hind legs…
The mechanic immediately contorted her body to the side and grabbed her right rear leg with her hooves. Tears matted the hair around her blue eyes, and innumerous cuts, scrapes, and bruises decorated her hardy earth pony frame. All of that was nothing to her cries of despair as she held onto her leg like she was cradling a dead foal. “I-I can’t f-feel it!” she shouted. “It won’t move!”
Gyro’s fear steeled something inside of Rarity, and she advanced on the gray mare. “Lie on your stomach,” she ordered her. “I need to look at your spine.”
Gyro sniffled and shuddered but did as she was told. “I lost my legs,” she cried. “I-I lost my l-legs! What am I if I can’t walk? I’m an earth pony, I have nothing!”
“You’ll walk,” Rarity promised her. “It might not be that bad. Try to wiggle your hooves. Can you wiggle your hooves, darling?”
The engineer’s face contorted into concentration, but her legs remained still. Rarity thought she saw them twitch once, but she couldn’t be sure. With a gasp, Gyro dropped her head to the sand. “I-I can’t…”
Rarity sucked on her lip and put her hooves on Gyro’s back. “Tell me when you can’t feel my hooves anymore.” When Gyro nodded, she started at the base of her neck, pressing down on each vertebra in turn as she moved along the mare’s spine. She made it about two-thirds of the way down the mare’s back before she felt a bulge in her spine. Pressing down on it, she shot Gyro a worried look. “Can you feel this?”
Gyro shook her head from side to side. “N-No…”
“Then I think we found the problem.” Rarity swallowed hard. “I think one of your vertebral discs ruptured or something. I’m… not a doctor, to say the least, so I don’t know what exactly is wrong.”
“Can it be fixed?” Gyro asked in a tiny, fragile voice.
“I don’t know, darling,” Rarity murmured. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have made us go investigate the wreckage.”
“Well…” Gyro tried to put a smile on her muzzle. She failed. “A-At least Rainbow has to have h-heard that, right?”
“Her and whoever else might be on this island.” Gulping, Rarity looked around. “We need to go someplace hidden and see who investigates that noise. I’m sure the entire island chain could hear it.”
“You’ll have to carry me,” Gyro whimpered, using her forelegs to lift her torso off the ground. “I-I can’t move on my own…”
“I will,” Rarity said, and dipping her head, she managed to heft Gyro onto her aching back. But as she shifted the engineer’s weight and started looking for an easy way out of the debris field, worry and fear gnawed at her from the inside.
It took Rarity almost ten minutes to carry Gyro out of the debris field and drag a tarp behind her to smooth over her hoofprints so they couldn’t be tracked. The earth pony was heavy despite her size, and her limp hind legs bounced and kicked Rarity’s side with every step. At some point, Gyro had broken down into silent tears and sniffles, and Rarity felt the urge to cry with her as well. How did a day that started off with so much promise go so wrong by sundown?
At least the rapidly descending sun had already set behind the mountain, and the island grew darker by the minute. It would provide Rarity and Gyro with plenty of shadowy cover to hide behind and wait to see who came to investigate the wreckage. Hopefully the noise attracted Rainbow, or at least attracted something that would help them figure out what happened to the pegasus.
A pile of rocks and cluster of trees masked by some ferns stood at the base of the mountain, and Rarity gently let Gyro off her back as soon as she stepped inside. Masking the engineer within the shelter of the plants, Rarity crouched down beside her and helped her move her hind legs as she settled into a more comfortable position. She rolled up the tarp as best she could and put it behind Gyro to cushion her back—what parts of it she could still feel. “Still nothing?” she asked in a tender, concerned voice.
Gyro shook her head from side to side. “I can’t feel anything below my belly button. It’s like I’m only half a torso…” She wiped her nose on the back of her fetlock and sniffled. “Are you sure my back is broken? It’s… it’s not going to heal on its own, is it?”
Rarity sat down by Gyro’s side and wrapped her forelegs around the engineer. “I don’t know, darling,” she said. “There’s definitely something wrong with your spine. I don’t know how bad it is.” She lifted one of Gyro’s rear legs and dropped the lifeless limb back to the ground. “Do you feel nothing, or does it tingle?”
Gyro screwed her face and tried to focus on her legs. “It… feels kind of tingly,” she said. “It’s so faint though that I can’t tell. I just… what if I can never walk again? Can’t you use your magic or something to fix this?”
“I would if I knew how,” Rarity said. “Healing magic is complicated. Not even Twilight is very good at it. It’s one of those disciplines you have to have a mark in to be passable at. And I’m hardly anything close to a talented mage myself.”
“But it’s possible, right?” Gyro asked. “I could get this fixed when we get back to Equestria?”
“Assuming your naturally superior earth pony constitution doesn’t fix it for you!” Rarity nudged Gyro’s side. “For all I know, your magic could fix your spine in a matter of days.”
“I don’t think earth pony magic is that strong,” Gyro admitted. “A broken spine would take months to heal, assuming my magic could even do it in the first place.”
Rarity reluctantly nodded. “Well, so long as you get your legs back in the end, that’s the important thing.” She shifted her attention to the debris in front of them, peering out from behind the brush. “What happened in there, darling? What made the wreckage fall like that?”
“I was scavenging what I could, and since the whole thing was sideways, some of the parts containers that were mounted on the walls were basically on the ceiling for me,” Gyro said. “When I tried to open the scrap metal container on the ceiling, the entire unit broke free and disturbed the wreck.”
“And you broke your back in the fall?”
Gyro shook her head. “No, I… I think I managed that before it fell. When the thing started swaying, I lost my grip on the floor and fell across the room. I cracked my back on an open container. That’s when I think I broke it, not during the fall.” She rubbed her shoulder and frowned at the wreckage. “The interior halls of the lower decks are designed to be very sturdy. That’s likely the only reason why I even survived the fall in the first place.”
“I’m just glad that you did,” Rarity said. “The debris knocked me off the rocks, too, but I think I somehow teleported myself to safety before I hit the ground.” She crossed her forelegs and immediately winced when their touch reminded her of her cracked and bruised ribs. “Though I fear I still hurt my rib cage in the process.”
“You can teleport?” Gyro asked. “Not many unicorns know how to do that. I didn’t know you could do that.”
“To be honest, I didn’t know I could either,” Rarity said with a shrug. “It must’ve been something I casted through sheer desperation. I probably couldn’t cast it again even if I tried. Besides, my horn is split from it. I won’t have my magic for a day or two.”
“How wonderful,” Gyro muttered, recovering a little of her sarcastic wit. “Rainbow’s missing, I can’t walk, and you’ve lost your magic. Could this day get any—?”
Rarity covered Gyro’s muzzle with both her hooves. “Don’t even say it,” she hissed at the engineer. “I’ll break your other legs if you do.”
She took her hooves away and brushed them against her coat. Gyro worked her jaw from side to side and coughed. “Alright, sure. Forget I said anything.”
“Good.” Rarity’s eyes widened during her scan of the wreckage, and she immediately ducked a little lower. “Because I believe we have visitors…”
She noticed the movement beneath the trees long before three ragged ponies stepped out of the shadows. Two stallions and a mare, the three ponies each wore ragged, salt-stained clothes covering muscular and scarred bodies. One of the stallions was missing an eye; the other, an ear; and the mare used a bandana to tie her mane back. The two stallions had cutlasses hooked to their clothing, and the mare carried a single flintlock pistol in a shoulder strap, with easy reach of her mouth.
Those three ponies seemed much more gruff and cruel than anypony on the Concordia, even as far as Rarity could tell from a distance. And given that she was fairly certain the Concordia didn’t have any swords or pistols on it, she felt it was pretty clear who they were dealing with.
“Pirates,” she murmured to Gyro, who was having trouble seeing through the foliage without the ability to move her hind legs and maneuver herself into a better position. “I suppose we know what happened to Rainbow now…”
“Oh, shit,” Gyro whispered back, giving up on sitting upright and simply slouching back against a tree. “Do you think she’s okay?”
“I’m not going to dare to think otherwise.” Rarity furrowed her brow and watched the pirates begin to poke at the wreckage. “She’s alright, but she may have simply run into unexpected company.”
The three pirates wandered around the debris and rubble. One of the stallions picked up some wooden planks in his magic and threw them away without much more thought. Though she figured they were looking for survivors, looking for her, she’d at least covered her hoofprints with the tarp, so they wouldn’t have anything to track her by. That, and the three were too busy trading insults and airing grievances to notice her and Gyro hiding in the trees not too far away.
After a few minutes to lazily look around, the pirates began to wander back to the trees, once more stepping into the jungle. Rarity chewed on her lip as she watched them go, only sighing with relief and stopping when they were too far away for her to hear. “They’re gone now,” she told Gyro. “At least for the moment.”
“Good.” Gyro closed her eyes and flung her head back. “We’ve got pirates to deal with, and they’ve likely got Rainbow. I can’t walk, and you don’t have your magic. What in Celestia’s name are we gonna do against that?!”
Rarity thought for a moment. “First, I need to find Rainbow,” she said, “and I have a feeling I know roughly where she is.”
Gyro blinked, then shook her head. “Rarity, you can’t go wandering off into the jungle looking for the pirates’ camp! You’re just gonna get caught, and then I’ll be all alone out here! We’ll all die!”
“I can’t just leave her!” Rarity retorted, careful not to raise her voice too much in case the pirates heard it. “It’s just us three versus who knows how many pirates. I need to get her out of there and at least even the numbers a little bit. They’re probably torturing her right now, trying to figure out who else is on the island with them.”
“Which they definitely know that she’s not alone now.” Gyro crossed her forelegs over her chest. “They’re gonna be looking for you, Rarity. What we should do is look for this next figurine thing at least until you get your magic back. If they haven’t killed Rainbow—”
“Don’t you even dare insinuate such a thing,” Rarity interrupted her, her voice as desperate as it was forceful and angry.
“If they haven’t killed Rainbow,” Gyro repeated, “then they won’t do so over the next few days. If they have, then you’re looking for her for nothing. At least wait until you have your magic back before you start looking for her!”
Gyro’s sound logic made Rarity hesitate and falter. “But if she’s still alive…”
“You won’t be doing her any favors by getting yourself caught, too. You won’t be doing me any favors either!” Gyro put a gray hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “I need you right now, Rarity. I’m fucked up and can’t walk. At least get me back to our camp and leave me there where there’s food and water instead of leaving me here to fend for myself while you follow those pirates back to their camp.”
After a moment of internal debate, Rarity hung her head when she realized Gyro was right. “Okay,” she said, standing up and shaking some of the sand off her coat. “You’re right. I just… feel so helpless, not doing anything.”
“Better to wait and plan instead of rush headlong into danger and get yourself killed,” Gyro said. “Now’s not the time for stupid stunts.”
Rarity nodded along, but guilt gnawed at her conscience the entire time she helped Gyro onto her back and started to hobble back to their camp.
What she wouldn’t have given to turn the clocks back and just stay on their cozy island instead of wandering out here into a deathtrap!
The entire walk back to their camp, Rarity chewed her lip and kept her head on a swivel. Now that she knew the island was infested by pirates, she was afraid that they were hiding behind every tree and beneath every rock. Whether or not it was an irrational, paranoid fear, Rarity couldn’t decide. She knew that if the pirates caught her and Gyro now, they’d both be dead. Their only hope was to move quickly, quietly, and hope they weren’t found.
Of course, they were failing miserably at the first two. Rarity’s cracked ribs slowed her down enough, and then she had to carry Gyro on her back. Those two together left Rarity panting, wheezing, and dragging her hooves through the sand, hobbling along at a crawl.
“Maybe dragging me will work better,” Gyro said. “I’ll deal with the brush burn if that’s better for you.”
“I don’t want to put too much stress on your spine,” Rarity said. “At least, not along its length. I’m not sure, but I think that’s bad for it.”
“Can’t be any worse than this,” Gyro said. “My broken back’s centered right over your spine.”
“Then I suppose it wouldn’t matter anyway. Besides, I don’t have anything to drag you with.”
“My tail,” Gyro said, snorting. “You like mares’ tails, right?”
“Please, Gyro, must you? Now is not the time!”
Gyro hung her head and frowned at the sand slowly passing beneath her. “I was just trying to lighten the mood.”
“I know, darling, I know, just…” Rarity made a frustrated noise that was somewhere between a sigh and a grunt. “It’s just that literally everything that could possibly have gone wrong has gone wrong, and we haven’t even been on this island for an entire day. I don’t even know how I’m keeping my composure! I’m practically bursting at the seams right now!”
“Honestly, you’re doing fine,” Gyro said. “If you broke your back instead of me, I’d be freaking out right now.”
“I’d be freaking out if I broke my back!” Rarity shot Gyro a look. “How are you so calm? After the initial, erm, panic, you’ve been acting like it’s nothing!”
Gyro’s nostrils flared as she drew in a deep breath. “I guess it helps that I’m just a carefree spirit, right?”
Rarity pursed her lips and frowned at the sand ahead of them. “I’m… I’m really sorry, Gyro.”
“It’s not your fault… but thanks.” Then, scoffing, Gyro rolled her eyes. “Think any of these islands have some super sacred hot springs that’ll fix me right up? Fountain of youth and all that?”
“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” Rarity said. “But then again, we’re on an island chain that’s hidden behind some sort of powerful magical wards. Who knows what other kinds of magic we may stumble across?”
Finally, up ahead, Rarity saw the silhouette of the raft and their supplies nestled under the shade of the trees in the low light still clinging to the island. The sight of camp, of safety, was enough to put a little last bit of energy into her legs and propel her onwards to the shelter of the trees. Once there, she once more carefully rolled Gyro off her shoulders and tried to nestle her into a comfortable sitting position against some trees.
Gyro grimaced the entire time and slapped her dead legs. “I can’t feel my flanks, so I feel like I’m floating. Also, I guess I should warn you that I probably don’t have any bowel control, so… yeah…”
Rarity blinked and shuddered. “I suppose I’ll have to clean up after you, won’t I…”
“There’s lots of sand, I can bury it myself. Just don’t be surprised if… well, yeah. Also, just be happy I didn’t have to go while you were carrying me.”
“Can we please talk about something else?” Rarity asked. She immediately went to their supplies and dug out their food and water. “Let’s have a meal at least, especially after everything we’ve been through today.”
“Yeah, I’m starving. I can still feel my stomach, you know.” Gyro happily accepted the fruit Rarity gave her and started working on it, being careful not to upset her balance now that she didn’t have her hind legs to stabilize her if she leaned too far one way or the other. Rarity simply watched the mechanic eat, her own appetite diminished by the day’s events, exhausted both physically and emotionally. Ultimately, she only had a few star apples, a little coconut, and a few gulps of water before deciding she was satisfied with dinner.
“What do we do now?” she wondered aloud as the darkness of night fell around them. “What’s our next step?”
Gyro wiped her lips and steadied herself with a hoof so she didn’t topple over. “Well, we know that there are pirates here. At least three of them, but there’s definitely more than that.”
Rarity shuddered. “I hope their captain, Squall, isn’t with them. She was a nasty, nasty mare.”
“I hate to break it to you, Rarity, but all pirates are nasty regardless of their sex.”
“Well, then she was the nastiest.” Rarity scowled down the length of her muzzle. “But if she’s here, and she has Rainbow… I don’t even want to think about the consequences.”
“Yeah, they probably suck,” Gyro agreed.
“You’re not helping, darling.”
Gyro shrugged. “Okay, so now what? We know there’s pirates and they likely have Rainbow. We have no idea where their camp is or where this statuette thing is on these islands. All we know is this little beach and the wreckage we toppled, and that’s it.”
“So logically the next best thing to do would be to explore and get a basis for our surroundings,” Rarity said. “If we can find where the pirate camp is, we might find Rainbow.”
“Or get yourself captured,” Gyro said. “Please don’t get captured, okay? I’d rather not die alone.”
Rarity shook her head. “I have no intention of letting the ruffians and cretins catch me, darling. Rainbow and I did plenty of sneaking around on the minotaurs’ island without being caught. I know how to be careful.” Her eyes turned toward the sky, where the moon was just beginning to rise. “And if there’s one thing I remember from that adventure, it’s that the best time to scout a potentially dangerous locale is during the night. The shadows will mask my presence and allow me to navigate the jungle with ease.”
“If you say so,” Gyro said. Grimacing, she leaned to the side and fell onto her forehooves, catching herself before her torso hit the ground. “I’ll watch the fort while you’re gone. Bring me back a souvenir or something.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and stood up. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
“You better be,” Gyro said, her eyes drifting to the sand. “Don’t join Rainbow for the pirate party…”
Only pain was there to greet her when lucidity unfortunately returned to her. Every inch of her body ached from head to hoof, and a deeply set pain centered around her muzzle. Her tongue ran over bloody, chipped teeth, and her entire mouth tasted like copper. Little by little, she once more came to, only to take in her different surroundings.
She’d been tied up since last she was conscious, and she’d been moved somewhere else. A quick glance upwards revealed a ceiling of loose palm fronds in a wooden frame, so she figured she must’ve been moved to one of the lean-tos the pirates were using to keep their supplies dry. At least they’d given her that much courtesy after beating her unconscious earlier, especially since she could smell rain in the air. Come morning, the island would be drowning in rain and deafening thunder.
Her hooves had been bound, so she couldn’t move those, and one of her wings had been tied to the knot around her hooves, preventing her from moving it and keeping it at an uncomfortable angle. At the very least, that left her with one wing free to use and manipulate, so she used that to feel over her face and assess the damage. Every touch sent sharp stabs of pain deep into her skull, however. Squall must’ve left more than bruises; she figured from touch alone that her nose had been shattered, and she was pretty sure she’d swallowed a few teeth. There was a sizable gap in the front left corner of her mouth, and she winced as her tongue slid over the shattered root of a tooth. So much for her perfect celebrity smile.
She wondered what Rarity would think. She simply knew that a crooked smile would be a minor sticking point with a mare obsessed with beauty and perfection. Hopefully she could just be more awesome after she got away from these pirates to make up for it.
Which was going to prove exceptionally difficult, she just knew. Even if she wasn’t bound and tied up like a prize, the flickering and dancing ethereal lights at her periphery reminded her that she was heavily concussed and dizzy. Simply moving without falling over or getting sick was going to be a challenge in itself. And that would be after she somehow managed to undo her bindings when she found it difficult to see straight.
Squinting through the dizziness and mental fog obscuring her vision, Rainbow spied the pirates sitting around a hearty fire in the clearing, roasting coconuts and some kind of shellfish they must’ve hunted in the channels between the islands. Her stomach growled and howled in desperation, but the movement in her gut only made her feel nauseas. Even worse was the dehydration; considering how much blood she’d lost and how much flying she’d done today, her throat felt like sand and her lips were beginning to crack—at least, what parts hadn’t already been split open from Squall’s fury.
But she didn’t want to make a sound while she could still see the red mare sitting around the campfire. The pummeling she’d received from the cruel pirate captain had stricken a fear of being beaten into her core, and she knew that Squall would happily give her more pain without any rhyme or reason. The unicorn was unstable and sick at best; Rainbow didn’t want to think of words to describe her at her worst. Her head hurt too much for it, anyway.
But from where she’d been tossed aside, she started taking observations and getting a feel for the pirate camp. There were six pirates sitting around the fire, and she knew that three had run off earlier to investigate the noise, so there were nine in total, including their captain. Each one of them was armed, though it only looked like Squall and her officers had firearms, and Rainbow didn’t know if their powder was good anyway. The rest had cutlasses or crude spears fashioned from sticks and stones, much like her and Rarity and Gyro. And even though they looked more ragged and thin since she’d seen them on the Concordia, they were far from starving, and the meal they prepared over the fire clued her in that they had plenty of food on the islands to keep their strength up.
So how was she going to get away from all of them?
Hooves trampled some undergrowth off to her right, and Rainbow saw the three pirates Squall had sent out earlier return with irritated looks on their faces. Squall raised her head when she saw them, her salty tricorn hat shifting on her head a little as her ears perked alongside it. “There you are. Took you long enough.”
The mare of the returning group let the corner of her mouth twitch into a disgusted sneer as she sat down by the fire. “Something knocked a big piece of the wreckage off those rocks it was perched on to the northeast.”
“Somepony was nosing around up there?” Squall asked.
“It could’ve been the wind,” one of the returning stallions said. “Just a strong enough gust and bam!”
“There weren’t no fucking wind you fucking dumbass,” the mare of the three scouts said. “And we’ve had bad storms since we ended up here and it hasn’t come down. Somepony has to been up at the wreck to make it fall.”
Rainbow immediately squeezed her eyes shut and tried to look like she was still out cold before Squall’s eyes shifted to her. “I figured as much. I beat that little bitch senseless when she tried to lie to me. Somepony’s gotta teach her some respect. She’s so cocky she thinks she has leverage where she has none.” The mare spat in disgust and Rainbow heard her horn light up. “Somepony go leave her a thing of water and some food to munch on when she wakes up. I don’t want her going rotten on us before we get our money’s worth of fun out of her.”
That sounded foreboding enough that Rainbow shivered. On the one hoof, it meant the pirates weren’t planning on killing her immediately, so there was a chance she could escape. On the other, it meant she only had pain to look forward to for the near future. The many terrifying prospects of what they could do to her almost made her wish that they would just kill her quickly instead of dragging out the pain and misery.
She instinctively shrank back a little when she heard hoofsteps approach her. Cracking open a blackened eye, she saw one of the other pirate mares standing over her. The bedraggled earth pony spat at her as she dropped a coconut and a bottle of water at Rainbow’s hooves, then made Rainbow flinch by quickly raising a hoof into the air. Instead of striking her, however, the pirate just laughed and started walking away. “Little bitch,” she muttered over her shoulder, rejoining her companions.
Squall watched the entire scene with amusement, and Rainbow tried very hard to avoid making eye contact with the pirate captain. Eventually, the blood red mare scoffed and turned to her crew. “In the morning, we’re going to find those other ponies. Our guest said there were only two, though who knows if either died or were injured when they knocked the wreckage over. It should be a fun hunt at least.”
The other pirates murmured their agreement, and Squall stood up. “Powder, Matchlock, Coals, you’ve got watch tonight. We know we’ve got company out there, and I don’t want another raid. They’re getting cocky now, I can just tell.”
The pirates nodded in acknowledgement, and Squall shot Rainbow one more piercing glare before vanishing into her hut. But Rainbow’s mind was wandering down a different train of thought, watching the ash-gray stallion with tinges of yellow and red in his mane.
Rarity waited until the night settled squarely over the islands before she decided to make her move. A fresh barrage of clouds had blocked out the moon and the stars, leaving very little light for her to navigate by. But it was both a blessing and a curse, as she knew that if she could hardly see in front of her, then the pirates would have to suffer the same. And if they were anywhere near a light source, like a fire or something, then their eyes wouldn’t be accustomed to the darkness enough to notice her flitting between the shadows of the island.
But the lack of light still made Rarity’s life difficult. Crossing the beach had been a breeze, but once she reached the debris field and the forest, she had to slow down to not trip over wood sticking out of the ground or small rocks nestled in the mud. She found herself looking at her surroundings out of the corners of her eyes more than straight ahead, since they seemed to give her a better idea of the shape of the land. Even still, that didn’t mean that she was safe from stumbling over little bumps in the ground. Of those, there were many, and more than once she had to catch herself after tripping while moving too fast.
And then she was deep in the forested canopy of the island, where the tall and dense palm trees blocked out almost whatever light was left. At some points, Rarity couldn’t even tell if her eyes were open, everything was so dark. The wind whistled through the trees in waves, and occasionally Rarity had to squint just to not be blinded by the intensity of some gusts—for all the good that did. The strange way the noise of the wind reached her before the wind itself did put an eerie, worrying feeling in the air, and certainly not for the first time Rarity wondered if she’d made a mistake wandering out into the middle of nowhere on a night as dark as this. But there was no turning back now; she’d made it this far, and even if she wanted to, she probably couldn’t find her way back to her camp without a little something more to see by. The only thing to do now was to press on and follow her eyes and ears.
Which was easier said than done. Rarity certainly hadn’t expected to simply stumble across the pirate camp without any hassle, but it was turning out to be harder than she anticipated. Where she hoped to use her eyes to spot any stray flickering lights, the density of the jungle made the already difficult task of seeing more than twenty feet ahead of her almost impossible. Where she hoped to use her ears to listen for signs of laughter and other raucous noises from the pirates, the rustling of fronds in the wind, the crashing of waves on the surf, and the distant rumbling of thunder joined the efforts of the nighttime wildlife to drown out any other noises. If it wasn’t for the smell of sea and salt and the feel of mud on her hooves, Rarity would’ve felt like she was in a sensory deprivation tank or something of a similar vein.
“I can’t believe this,” she muttered, but in the stillness and solitude of the night, she felt like she’d shouted it. “You’d think it wouldn’t be this hard to find a collection of pirates in the middle of a jungle. What, did they all retire to bed early?”
Almost as if to provide her a blatant counterpoint, the ghostly echo of haggard, gruff laughter drifted through the trees. Rarity froze in place at the noise, her ears pointing left and right to try and pinpoint it, before they tentatively angled to the right. After a few moments, another bout of laughter confirmed the direction, and Rarity adjusted her course accordingly. “Speak of the hooligan and he shall appear. If only that worked for Rainbow…”
Though the pirate’s laughter disappeared into the noises of the night, Rarity at least had a direction to go in. It only took her a little bit of walking, but she finally started to see the flickering lights of a fire on the bark of some of the trees. She started to slow down the more light she noticed until she could start to make out structures through the thick island jungle. The last thing she needed to do was get caught by any pirates who happened to be on lookout or something. Carefully picking her way across the shadowy and dark floor of the jungle, Rarity managed to find a cluster of mossy rocks to use for cover and observe the pirate camp.
She immediately picked out four structures centered around a fire: the two closest to her were lean-to’s, with the open ends facing the fire, while opposite them stood a shoddy longhouse constructed out of wood and palm fronds much like her own house back on their home island. Next to that, a smaller, separate house stood, with little windows in the sides. It was obviously important enough to be separated from the longhouse, but Rarity couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be for. A jail, perhaps? Was that where they were keeping Rainbow?
Unfortunately, she couldn’t risk it to find out. She saw five pirates sitting around the campfire, talking and laughing as the flames danced between them all. If there were others, she couldn’t tell, but she assumed at least one or two had to be in the shoddy longhouse they’d constructed. That already put her down six or seven to one, and there could still be even more she didn’t know about. And what was she going to do without her magic, especially when some of the pirates were unicorns as well and weren’t similarly handicapped?
But now she knew where the pirate camp was. Standing up, she started to back away from her hiding spot. She’d be able to retreat for the time being and plan, or at least move to a different angle to survey the camp while it was still dark out.
Then her hoof wedged in some rocks and she tripped with a startled yelp. She took the fall on her cracked ribs, and the pain immediately stole her breath away with a pained yell. Almost too late she realized what she’d done.
Her ears turned around, back toward the camp, just in time to register shouts of alarm. Scrambling to her hooves, Rarity swallowed her pain, bottled it up, and immediately broke out into a gallop in the other direction.
Rainbow stirred from her fitful sleep to commotion around the pirates’ fire. Where before, the pirates had simply told each other raucous jokes and traded insults to pass the time, now they’d fallen to muttering and hasty looks to something behind Rainbow’s lean-to. Whatever had happened to stir them in such a manner, Rainbow suddenly wanted to know.
“You heard that, right?” one of the pirates said to the stallion sitting next to him, rising to his hooves as he did so. “That wasn’t Matchlock, was it?”
“Too feminine,” the other pirate grunted back. “That ain’t her.”
“Matchlock’s a mare, though.”
“Yeah, but not a girly mare, and she smokes. That wasn’t her.” A blue mare grabbed a cutlass and a dagger. “We need to catch that cunt, whoever she is.”
Some of the other pirates shot the small hut next to the longhouse a worried look. “Should we wake the captain?”
“I’m not doing it, I like my head firmly attached to my neck. You know she’s a fucking diva when it comes to getting her sleep.”
“Yeah, a fucking diva with too many swords and guns for her own good.”
“Then we’ll take care of it ourselves.” One of the pirates, who Rainbow gathered was an officer or a first mate or something, picked out three other ponies. “Scabbard, Jolly, Float, with me. Hayseed, bring the lookouts in and let them know what’s happening. And don’t wake our crazy bitch of a captain.”
With little more than that, the four pirates hastily armed themselves and took off in the direction they’d been watching earlier. Rainbow gulped as they tore out of camp, their hooves muted by the soft ground beneath them. She only knew of two ponies that could’ve possibly made an effeminate yell that would’ve riled up the pirates, and one seemed much more likely and proficient in those noises than the other. She immediately felt her gut sink at the revelation of the only possible explanation.
Her absence had gotten Rarity looking for her. And now Rarity had stumbled onto the pirate camp and had somehow given herself away. If the night ended with Rarity’s capture, then Rainbow knew that they were as good as dead. And here she was, tied up in the middle of the pirate camp, unable to do anything to help.
The mare who remained when her comrades scattered, Hayseed, lingered by the fire for a few seconds longer before she too reluctantly climbed to her hooves. Rainbow watched her stretch each one out in turn, adjust the blouse she wore with a pinch of magic, even though the thing had nearly been reduced to rags, and tuck a pair of knives under her belt. The pirate shot Rainbow a look and sneered. “If those bindings are loose when I get back, you’re gonna be sorry.”
“Like I’m not already sorry,” Rainbow muttered as the pirate left, noticing a slight slur to her words. Her missing teeth made her mouth feel strange when she talked, and every time she ran her tongue over a broken tooth she winced in pain. It was like somepony had buried a tiny knife in her gums. She’d have to have the roots taken out before they got infected, but she certainly wasn’t willing to trust the pirates with her dentistry. Squall had already proven herself to be quite the unqualified practitioner.
Squall… Rainbow shivered. Come morning, she knew she was going to have another unpleasant conversation with the pirate captain. It was the absolute last thing she was looking forward to, and the fear of once more finding herself at the mercy of the erratic mare’s hooves overwhelmed her fear of retaliation if she tried to escape while the pirates were all gone. As far as she could tell, it was now or never.
But how? She leered at the bindings around her limbs. She couldn’t do more than wiggle her hooves, and her wing was incredibly stiff, sore, and pained after being twisted around and tied to the bindings around her legs. She could only reasonably move one wing, and though she could try dragging herself around by digging the crest into the ground, she knew that wasn’t going to get her safely out of the camp before the pirates returned in a few minutes. So what could she do?
Perhaps her best bet was to look around the supplies the pirates had thrown her among. She figured if she found something useful now, she might be able to use it to escape later. So, throwing her weight around and using her wing to reposition herself, Rainbow dragged herself closer to the supplies the pirates had gathered and started looking.
At first, she had eyes only for a knife, or a sword, or something sharp to help her cut her bindings and escape. But unfortunately for her, it looked like the pirates kept any salvaged tools and weapons in the other lean-to. All she could find was scrap wood, vines, rope, and metal panels that had come from the Concordia’s hull. But there were no tools and no conveniently sharp pieces of steel to use; even the metal plates had been stacked flat and were too cumbersome for Rainbow to really use against her bindings, given how immobile they had rendered her.
But then she saw a splintered plank with nails sticking out of it. They were thick, sturdy nails, only beginning to develop a layer of rust from the elements. Though screws would have worked better, given that the threads would have worked as makeshift saw teeth, the points of the nails were still sharp. With a little work, she could probably cut her bindings on the nails. The only question now was how? The bindings around her legs meant she couldn’t move them very easily, and her wing was stretched and twisted taut, so she couldn’t move that. Maybe if she positioned herself on her side…
But she didn’t have the time for that now, and wisely returned to her original position, doing her best to conceal the plank and its exposed nails in the shadows of the other supplies. That plank would be her ticket out of this camp, she could tell. Now, it came down to her to determine the best time to use it. Though she couldn’t hear any pirates around the camp for the moment, she knew that moment wouldn’t last long enough for her to escape.
So she huddled down in the sand and nervously waited for the pirates to return, hoping and praying that they didn’t drag a white unicorn back with them.
She hated the clouds, which didn’t leave her any light to see by as she ran for her life through the jungle. She hated the tropical plants and their razorlike leaves, which slashed and whipped at her eyes as she tore through the undergrowth. She hated the mud and silt beneath her hooves, trying to suck them down and hold her back with each step she took, weighing her limbs down with gunk and grime that clung to the hair around her fetlocks. She hated her ribs, her injuries to them making it difficult to run and breathe as she fled for her life. She hated the pirates that were scrambling after her, shouting to each other in the night, and yelling promises of pain and death into the air as they closed in on her. Most importantly, though, she hated herself for being such a clumsy imbecile that she’d given herself away and gotten herself into this mess in the first place.
Her legs drummed out an unsteady rhythm as she ran through the island, simply trying to get away from the pirate camp. Her cracked ribs stoked a fire inside her chest, a blisteringly painful, searing fire that made her want to double over and scream with each breath. And to top it all off, she was tiring quickly with the buildup of mud around her hooves. All that together led to the pirates closing the distance on her, likely tracking her by her panting, ragged breaths more than their sight. But even then, they’d brought torches with them, and the forest was brightening up around Rarity by the second.
And then she saw her shadow dance in front of her as a light source emerged behind her. She flung a look over her shoulder to see an earth pony with a torch sticking out the side of his mouth glaring at her. They made eye contact, and she saw him grin around the torch.
She wasted no time redoubling her efforts after that, fear temporarily pushing away the pain in her chest as she poured on a new burst of speed. The pirate shouted to his companions, and Rarity counted four different hoof cadences closing in on her from behind. She had to lose them in the jungle somehow if she had any hope of getting out of this alive. But how could she lose them when her hooves left and obvious trail in the muddy ground for them to follow?
There was a break in the trees up ahead, and though Rarity was hesitant to take it since it’d steal her cover, she took a gamble that it might be a shallow channel to cross, something that would hide her hoofprints and throw the pirates off her trail. So when she burst through the ferns and felt water almost up to her knees, she had to fight down the urge to cry out in glee.
But she only had seconds to work with before the pirates arrived after her, so she galloped twenty feet through the water before immediately doubling back to the island she’d come from instead of crossing the channel. No sooner did she slide back into the plants and undergrowth did she hear the pirates arriving on the scene, waving their torches around and cursing her.
“Fuck, where did that cunt go?!”
“The other island, dipshit! Come on!”
“There’s no hoofprints there! Maybe she doubled back?”
“She was a unicorn, she could do anything with her magic. Spread out, find her!”
Though Rarity didn’t linger near the pirates, that last one clued her in to something important: the pirates knew she was a unicorn but didn’t realize her horn was busted. If they thought she could still cast spells, then she had an advantage. She wasn’t sure what that advantage was, but it was certainly better than them knowing she couldn’t cast spells. At the very least, it meant they were likely to be more wary of approaching her directly or one on one.
But for the moment, she’d bought herself some time, so she needed to use it before they regrouped and found her trail again. This time, she decided to double back along the way she’d come, hoping to lose her fresh hoofprints in the five sets so freshly beat into the muck. The plants were still dense enough to hide her from the channel, and only a little reflected, flickering light illuminated the foliage around her. But now, pain was overpowering her adrenaline, and she knew she couldn’t run much farther. She needed to stop and rest, or she feared she simply would die wherever she fell.
So she immediately adjusted her course for the thickest cluster of plants she could find and burst through them, collapsing onto the ground. She immediately regretted the stress it put on her ribs, but she put both hooves on her muzzle and bit down on her tongue until it began to bleed to stifle her scream. And then, trusting that she’d be safe for a little while, having lost the pirates for the time being, she sat still and waited.
Her actions bought her five minutes of quiet and relief from her pursuers; five precious minutes she used wisely, getting oxygen back to her muscles and stretching her limbs for more running. But soon enough those hooves returned to her corner of the island, accompanied by familiar, angry voices.
“I told you she didn’t cross the channel!”
“She could’ve! I didn’t think this bitch would be smart enough to double back on us!”
“Well, fuck, we’ll never find her in this mess! There’s too many hoofprints! She could’ve stopped anywhere along the trail!”
“Fuck, damn it.”
“Shit!”
There was a moment of silence where Rarity dared not breathe out of fear that the tiniest sound would give her away. She was almost certain the pirates could hear her heart thundering in her chest, but she was too frightened to move. Thankfully, the pirates began to shuffle along without too much further delay, grumbling to themselves as they retreated.
“Fuck, Squall’s not gonna be happy about this.”
“Don’t tell her about it, okay? Nopony say a word. The last thing we need is that crazy bitch finding an excuse to go psycho on any of us.”
“At least she has that rainbow bitch to take it out on. You wanna take bets on how long she lasts?”
“I give her a week.”
“A week? Ha! Four days at the most. She already did a number on her face, she’s only a tantrum away from caving in her skull…”
And then their conversation faded into the noises of the night, leaving Rarity all alone in the thicket of plants. Still, their words worried her about Rainbow’s fate even more than she’d been before. On the one hoof, she knew Rainbow was alive, but on the other hoof, it didn’t sound like she’d last much longer. If she didn’t get Rainbow out of that camp quickly, she might not ever get her out at all.
Chewing on her lip, Rarity stood up—and walked away from the camp. “Oh, forgive me, Rainbow,” she worriedly muttered to herself, “But I can’t help you right now. But I promise you, hang in there, and I’ll have you out as soon as I can.”
Gyro was too nervous to go to sleep. Ever since Rarity had left, there’d been nothing but the sounds of the water and the calls of distant insects to keep her company. The beach was desolate and empty, and it wasn’t too hard to believe that nopony else lived on this island.
But she knew that was a lie, and it was a dangerous one. There were pirates on the island here, though how many, she couldn’t tell. Pirates that wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if they got the chance. And there was nothing she could do to defend herself. Everything below her bellybutton was tingly and numb, and no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get her legs to respond to her. And, like she’d predicted, she’d lost control of her bowels. It wasn’t pleasant, to say the least, but at least she could clean up after herself.
The waiting, however, was killing her. It would’ve been one thing if she could walk and pace, but now she just felt helpless, utterly useless and helpless. If something happened to Rarity, she’d never know, and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it even if she did. If the pirates came from her, there wasn’t any way she could fight them off if her hind legs didn’t work. An earth pony’s first line of defense was their hooves, and Gyro couldn’t even use hers. She wouldn’t even be able to flee if she was found.
So her heart skipped a beat or several when she heard hooves striking through the sand somewhere nearby. Grimacing, she tried to sit up straighter to peer through the foliage around her, but it wasn’t like she could even see anything to begin with given how dark the night was. A cold wind sliced through the plants and her coat, and Gyro shivered as her hair began to stand on end. She wrapped her fetlock around a nearby spear and drew it in close in case she needed it—whatever good it would do from a sitting position.
“Gyro? Are you there?” a voice hissed through the darkness, and Gyro immediately lowered her guard. A moment later, an alabaster horn poked through the foliage, followed by Rarity’s face. Her tense and dirt-streaked features relaxed when she saw Gyro still sitting against the tree, and she emerged all the way from the brush. “Oh, thank Celestia, I had half a worry that you wouldn’t be here for some reason when I returned.”
Gyro chuckled and repositioned herself with her front hooves. “Why? Worried I’d wander off somewhere? I don’t blame you, I can never sit still.”
Rarity’s eyes flitted to Gyro’s legs and she chewed on her lip. “I… well, I don’t suppose I have to keep too tight of a leash on you now, don’t I?”
“So long as you let me out every so often so I don’t pee on the sofa.” Gyro shook her head, then looked Rarity over. “Celestia, Rarity, you look like you’ve been through Tartarus!”
“I certainly feel that way,” Rarity said. “I found the pirate camp, but the pirates found me. Thankfully I got away, though.”
Gyro craned her head a little to the side to try and see over Rarity’s shoulders. “And you’re sure they didn’t follow you? Because this has all the setup to us getting shafted by something like that.”
Rarity shook her head. “No, I made sure. I was able to lose them in the undergrowth, and then I waited a long time before I came back here. They all went back to their camp, but they know that Rainbow wasn’t alone now.”
“So they do have her?” Gyro asked. She screwed her face and struck at the ground. “I knew it. Damn it!”
“At least we know where she is,” Rarity said. “We can free her now.”
“Did you see her? How’s she doing?” Gyro shuddered. “I doubt those pirates have been good hosts to their guest.”
“I didn’t get to see her,” Rarity said with a sigh. “I couldn’t see where they were holding her. But it didn’t sound like they were treating her all that well.”
Gyro grimaced. “Eeesh. How bad?”
Again, Rarity could only shrug and dejectedly hang her head. “She’s alive, but I think she’s hurt. It sounded like they were beating the poor mare for sport. One of the pirates didn’t think she’d last more than four days before that dreadful Captain Squall snapped and forced Rainbow to suffer the brunt of her ire.”
“Oh, fuck me. That crazy bitch survived the crash, too?” Gyro glowered at her hooves and mashed them together several times. “Well, at least that means her barge went down in the storm, too. A little karmic justice or something like that. Do you know how many of her crew survived?”
“Not for certain, but I counted five around the fire. I didn’t see Squall among them, though, so that’s six. Who knows how many more they had around the camp or elsewhere in the jungle, but there’s at least six. I’d guess ten or twelve.”
“Well, that’s twelve of them to three of us,” Gyro said. “Or two and a half. My ass doesn’t count for anything anymore. Not like I can move it.”
“Yes, unless your back makes some sort of miraculous recovery, I suppose I’m the only one actually able to move about the island and do things.” Rarity frowned and rubbed her muzzle with a muddy hoof, too tired to care about the muck she pressed into her coat. “I think in the near-term, we’re going to have to think about changing islands. We have the raft, so we can use it to go somewhere else, preferably away from the pirates. We might as well utilize whatever advantages we have if we’re going to beat them.”
“But your horn is messed up so we can’t even use the raft,” Gyro said. “At least not for another day or two. We’re stuck on this island for the time being.”
Rarity nodded. “Right, so obviously our first plan of action needs to be rescuing Rainbow and preparing to flee as soon as we do. Ideally, as soon as I have my magic back, we can spring Rainbow free and then escape to another one of the islands in this cluster and start our hunt for the figurine in earnest. The sooner we can find it, the sooner we can go back to our home base, where hopefully the pirates won’t be able to follow us.”
“At least it’s a plan,” Gyro said. “But you’re still one mare against a dozen pirates. How are you going to even get Rainbow out of there?”
Rarity frowned and let her eyes wander around her campgrounds. After a moment, she raised an eyebrow at Gyro. “Tell me, darling, did you come across any wire and rope in the wreckage before it collapsed?”
Gyro nodded. “I found a lot of things in there. Whatever survived the fall will still be there waiting for us. Why? It’s not like metal panels and wooden planks are going to help us out now.”
But Rarity just grinned back at her. “That’s where you’re wrong, my dear,” she said. “They’re the only reason my plan is going to work.”
Even though Rainbow was tired, hungry, and felt like crap, she couldn’t bring herself to sleep and escape from the world for a little while. For one things, sleep would just seemingly shorten the time she had until Squall beat her again, and for another, she needed to know what happened to Rarity. She didn’t want to be asleep if they brought Rarity back with them. She needed to know as soon as possible what happened out there in the jungle.
In the meanwhile, the one pirate mare the group had left behind returned in short order with the other three pirates Squall had put on watch earlier that evening. Now all gathered back around the fire, they talked to each other and occasionally shot Rainbow dirty looks. Rainbow, for her part, just kept her head down and tried to give them as few excuses as possible to stroll over to her corner of the camp. Now that she’d found the plank of wood with nails in it, her means of escape, she’d become paranoid that the pirates would notice and would take it away from her. If they did that, she had no hope of escape left.
Soon, her ears twitched at the sound of returning hoofsteps. She cautiously raised her head and looked off to the side, where sure enough, the four pirates from earlier returned to their camp and congregated around the fire with the rest of their crew. She immediately tensed when she didn’t see Rarity with them; she didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
The one pirate mare, Hayseed, raised an eyebrow at the returning party. “Find the bitch?”
“We found her,” the stallion who led the group out said. “Tracked her across the entire island. We were nearly on top of her before she doubled back across a channel. We lost her after that.”
Rainbow let out an audible sigh of relief. So they didn’t catch Rarity; that made her feel so much better. So long as Rarity and Gyro were both out there, she knew the pirates hadn’t won yet. With a little ingenuity and daredevil foolishness, she knew they’d find a way to best the pirates and find what they were looking for. All they need now was time—time for Rainbow to escape, time to regroup and reorganize, time to find the statuette, time to escape from the island. So much time, but at the moment, they had none of it.
Hayseed spat into the fire and frowned at the other party. “So what the fuck do we tell the captain?”
“Nothing,” the officer replied. “If she asks, we tell her we chased off a scout and killed her in the jungle. The last thing we need is for her to make our lives worse by admitting that we didn’t catch whoever was spying on us.”
“Fuck it, works for me.” Hayseed shrugged, yawned, and stood up. “Fuck, too much excitement for one night. I’m gonna get my sleep before we go hunting more of those fucks in the morning.”
“Yeah, fuck it,” another one of the pirates said. “You know the head bitch is going to be up bright and early to start screaming shit at us. Even without a ship to run, she’s still a huge pain in my flank…”
“At least she’s keeping charge,” another said. “Got us all together and cleaned out a bunch of the competition before they could really set their roots in and band together. It’s the only reason we’re not dead right now.”
“Hopefully it stays that way. You know they’re starting to get bolder now that they’re organized. We’ll have a fight on our hooves soon enough.”
Rainbow furrowed her brow as she eavesdropped on the conversation. There was no way they were talking about her and Rarity and Gyro. Did that mean there were other ponies from the Concordia somewhere on this island cluster? And if there were, where were they hiding? Finding them would be the key to surviving and locating the statuette despite Squall’s ragtag band of armed and dangerous pirates dominating this end of the cluster. And if Rainbow had to take a guess, she figured they’d be camped out on the opposite side of the island cluster, where the numerous channels and small bodies of water would make tracking their movements nearly impossible from the ground.
But of course, getting there would be another problem entirely. While the pirates slowly began retiring for the night, Rainbow knew she’d never be able to get away for the immediate future. Cutting her bindings with the nails in the plank would take time, and she didn’t have that time when there were still several pirates staying awake to keep watch. Plus, she didn’t know how effectively she could move or fly yet. Though most of her dizziness had subsided by now, she still felt nauseous whenever she moved her head too quickly.
It was a plan she’d have to think on and wait for the perfect opportunity. If she rushed her escape, it could cost her her life. For the time being, however, Squall had seen fit to keep her around instead of just killing her immediately like she’d threatened. That was something Rainbow needed to use to her advantage, not squander—however painful it might be.
As for Squall… Rainbow gathered the feeling that the ponies under her command weren’t exactly enthusiastic about their leader. After all, it’d been on her orders that the Concordia and her barge had tried to skirt the edge of the hurricane, and she’d lost them both, along with who knew how many of her crew. She ran them hard, and even they seemed to think she was insane. She had a feeling that their fear of the mare and the retribution she could bring upon her crew if wronged were the only things keeping them in check. Perhaps there was room to take advantage of that somewhere. If she could turn the pirates against their captain… but how? And how could she make sure that didn’t end with them immediately killing her once their captain wasn’t around to keep her alive for her amusement?
All that was too complicated for Rainbow to think about, and she was exhausted. She needed to catch what sleep she could, while she could. So with that, she closed her eyes, and within minutes had slid off into a fitful, troubled rest.
Rainbow Dash slept soundly, if not necessarily peacefully. Wraiths of pain and fear haunted her dreams, and she stirred several times throughout the night in cold sweats and rubbing her injured muzzle. She had a pretty big goose egg on the back of her head from where she’d been struck originally, and between the two of them, she found it difficult to put her head in a good sleeping position. She couldn’t rest on her chin or cheeks because of the injuries to her muzzle, and she couldn’t lie on her back because of the lump on her head. The best she could do was lie on one foreleg and try to balance her head around where her throat met her head, the only part she could feel that wasn’t bruised or sore at Squall’s hooves.
But when she finally did manage to sleep, it didn’t last too long. It only felt like minutes before a literal kick in the crotch sent her crashing out of her dreamless rest. Wheezing, shaking, and with tears streaming out of her eyes, Rainbow looked up at the red mare standing over her even as she fought for breath and tried to suppress the unimaginable pain between her hind legs through sheer willpower alone.
“Wakey wakey, little rainbow birdie,” Squall sang, pacing back in forth in front of the lean-to while Rainbow just tried to catch her breath. “Getting a good night’s rest is essential for keeping one’s mind sharp and quick, so I figured I should wake you up before you got one. I prefer it when my prisoners are dumb and slow, they’re less troublesome that way.” She stopped and smirked at Rainbow, her tricorn hat slightly askew atop her sandy mane. “Of course, it’s not like I wasn’t already dealing with the dumbest of the Element Bearers.”
Rainbow managed to find her voice and the strength to sit up, even though her marehood ached like nothing else. “H-Hey,” she wheezed, “I am not the dumbest of my friends!”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Squall’s horn flared to life, and Rainbow yelped as a red magical aura dragged her out from under the lean-to and into the cool morning sand. There, Squall leered down at Rainbow, nose to nose. “Everything about you tells me you’re a moron, an idiot, a fool who thinks only by what her wings tell her to do. You’re impulsive and don’t stop to consider your actions before you do them. It disgusts me. And that’s why I know you’ll never be a competent leader, either among your friends or with the Wonderbolts one day.”
Rainbow winced and rubbed at her flanks where the sand had dug into her skin. “Yeah, you’re not doing so hot yourself, either.”
Squall’s eyes narrowed, and Rainbow knew she was going to immediately regret what she just said. “You think you have me that figured out, do you?” Squall asked. Once more, her horn flared to life, and once more, Rainbow felt an intangible hand of magic clamp down on her throat. Squall leaned in, and her voice carried venom in its malevolent hiss. “I can rip you in half with a thought, you gay punk, and you know I’ve got the horn to prove it. Unless you’ve got a death wish, I whole-heartedly recommend you watch your tongue around me.” There was a spark in her eyes, and Rainbow squeaked in terror of what that meant. Suddenly, Squall’s magic shifted from Rainbow’s throat to her mouth, and Rainbow began to mewl and shout as the red aura dragged her tongue out between her teeth. “On second thought, maybe I should just cut this out,” she said, and a knife floated out of her arsenal and flitted along the edge of Rainbow’s lips. “How does that sound?”
Rainbow’s eyes shrank to pinpricks, yet she scooted closer to Squall nonetheless because of the magic stretching out her tongue. Though she weakly struggled and protested in incomprehensible noises, she didn’t dare try anything risky or act too out of line, nothing that would give Squall an excuse to cut out her tongue.
Ultimately, Squall winked at Rainbow and twisted the knife down, scoring a painful cut across Rainbow’s lower lip that immediately began to bleed. In the same instant, she let go of Rainbow’s tongue, and the pegasus fell back to the ground and whimpered as crimson vitality started to stain her chin. The blade of the knife buried itself into the sand at Squall’s behest, and the pirate captain knelt down in front of Rainbow and once more venomously smiled at her. “Why did you come to this island?” Squall asked. “Why would you of all ponies fly here instead of staying wherever you’d been hiding out this entire time? Was it simple curiosity, or something more?”
When Rainbow refused to answer, Squall twisted the blade in the sand for further dramatic effect. “Don’t try my patience, filly,” Squall warned her. “You know exactly what will happen if you do.”
The steel of the blade peeked out of the sand just a little bit, and Rainbow’s ruby eyes immediately honed in on it. At a loss for what to do and with no options presented to her that would provide her with a quick escape, Rainbow swallowed, parted her lips…
Rainbow Dash talked, and Squall listened. A few other pirates stood around and watched as well, but for the most part, they hung back from the conversation taking place. None of them wanted to intrude on the discussion and accidentally throw themselves in front of Squall’s ire, simmering just below the surface of the mare’s nearly expressionless face.
“Shortly after we crashed, we started to wonder why help wasn’t coming for us,” Rainbow said. “We’re friends with Princess Luna, so we figured she’d come looking for us in our dreams. But she hasn’t, so we figured that there had to be something that’s blocking her from finding us. Some magic or something.”
“And is there?” Squall simply asked, keeping her voice level and her tone neutral.
Rainbow swallowed and shrugged. “Rarity said that there was. She could feel it in her horn. Can’t you?”
“It takes very powerful magic for a unicorn to feel it in her horn if she’s not the one casting it,” the pirate captain said. Red magic built along her red horn, and Rainbow shrank back in worry before Squall simply released it and let it dissipate. “I’ve felt the barest tingle of feedback whenever I use my horn in my time here. So perhaps what you’re saying is true.”
Rainbow nodded. Though some part of her wanted to tell Squall everything, motivated as she was through terror and the pirate captain’s threats, she wisely held back on some of the key details. Even though she didn’t want to give up on the peaceful solution, true Equestrian as she was, it would be smarter and safer to carefully guard whatever key advantages she could hold onto. Maybe if she fed Squall and her crew enough of the story, she could gauge later if there’d been any change of heart in her or the other pirates. She needed allies if she was going to get out of this, and for the time being, at least, she couldn’t count on Rarity and Gyro to bust her out.
“We started traveling to different islands to see if there was some way to lift it,” Rainbow said, weaving in little omissions of truth to fashion her careful lies. “I’ve been to the other islands but haven’t found anything that could help us get rid of the magic that’s stopping Luna from finding our dreams. But I have found a bunch of temples and stuff for an ancient pony civilization’s gods. I think they’re the key to getting out of this.” After a second, she shrugged. “I flew here to see if I could find one on this island chain. You haven’t found anything like that, have you?”
Squall thought for a moment, but Rainbow couldn’t tell if she was trying to remember something or was debating whether to tell Rainbow what she knew. But, given what she knew about Squall, she was surprised that the pirate even began to answer her at all. “There are old ruins in the very center of this island cluster,” Squall said. “But we haven’t been able to get in. I would’ve set up camp on them, but they’re cursed. It’s too dangerous out there.”
Rainbow blinked and frowned. “What do you mean, cursed?”
“They’re cursed, damn it,” Squall growled, the hair on her neck rising some. “If we stayed there, we’d die. And I won’t throw away what crew I have left needlessly.”
“But those ruins are the key to getting off these islands,” Rainbow protested. “If we could get to them, look around…”
“We?” Squall said, raising an eyebrow. “There is no ‘we.’ You are my prisoner. You are nothing. You’re only useful alive until I’m bored with you. You may know things about these islands from your time spent on them, too, but that’s less important to me. I know how to survive, and I will keep my crew together. We can suffer any amount of time on these islands before we make it back someplace civilized.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to help you with!” Rainbow protested. “If we just worked together instead of fighting each other, We could be rescued in weeks!”
“I told you, I’m not interested in becoming a prisoner to leave these islands!” Squall barked, forcing Rainbow shrink back. “Given the choice, I’d rather stay out here in the middle of the ocean, where the weather’s pleasant and there’s plenty of food, than go back to miserable Equestria and run from the gallows. So no, we will not help you, I will not help you get back home. I have half a mind to kill you right now and be done with it…” Squall tore the dagger out of the sand, and Rainbow’s eyes homed in on it. She sucked on the blood still dripping from the deep cut in her lip, but other than that found herself unable to move. But eventually, with a twirl and a flourish, Squall jammed it back into a sheathe on her belt. “But then I wouldn’t get my entertainment value out of you. If I can’t hold you for a ransom from a position of power, then I might as well make you suffer until even that becomes boring.”
“You’re insane,” Rainbow muttered. “I’m surprised your crew hasn’t mutinied on you yet.”
“I’m not,” Squall said with a predatory smile. “Power commands respect. And I am powerful.” Her horn sparked and flared as she forced mana through it, and everypony else in the pirate camp winced and flattened their ears as a booming crack of thunder echoed from the captain herself. Her eyes briefly flared with magical power before the gray of her irises returned a few seconds later. The sand around her had been scorched, and random streaks turned to glass from the intense heat. “I could have been a student at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns had I the pedigree and money to attend. But when you grow up on the streets with smugglers for parents, that’s not where you end up.”
Tossing her head back, Squall turned away from Rainbow and started to march back to her separate hut. “Enjoy the reprieve while you have it. I have more important things to worry about this morning than beating you around. That’s more of an after dinner kind of activity anyway.”
Rainbow and the other pirates watched her go until she disappeared inside of her shelter. As soon as she did that, her officer started giving out orders to the other pirates, slowly causing them to disperse. Somepony dragged Rainbow back under her lean-to, throwing her into the sand with a grunt. Rainbow winced as the world briefly spun around her and planted her hooves into the sand to steady herself. Hopefully the concussion wouldn’t have her out of commission too much longer…
But as she finally settled down, her eyes wandered over the pirates in the camp. Yes, she knew that there was no way she could get Squall to work with her, but that wasn’t the point of trying. If she was going to have any sort of hope at escaping the pirate camp, she’d need help from within. And though most of the pirates didn’t seem fazed by her words, she caught one watching her from the other side of the camp as he prepared meals for the crew. The difference from before was that it wasn’t malevolent or hateful, but instead more… curious.
Rainbow made eye contact with him, ruby to red. The coal black pirate shifted uncomfortably and looked away, but Rainbow still held the gaze a few seconds longer. He would be the one she’d focus her efforts on. She could tell just by looking at him that he wasn’t as willing to spend the rest of his days on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. She knew that if she could get through to him, she’d have a chance at turning him against Squall.
Rarity found the wreckage in the same condition she’d left it the previous day. Not that she’d expected anything to happen to it, but considering how things had gone for her over the past twenty-four hours, she was wary for anything bad happening. The tide could have come in during the night and swept all the wood and debris away, but thankfully, that didn’t happen.
It was an odd feeling, returning to the scene of so much calamity in such a short time. She didn’t truly appreciate how far the debris had spread when the Concordia’s hull slammed into the sand below. Random bits of wood and steel stuck out of the sand like little trees almost five hundred feet away from the epicenter of the wreckage. Rarity kept a careful eye out for glass or other sharp bits of debris hiding in the surface of the sand as she approached the thick of it; the last thing she needed was to slice her hoof open and slow herself down even more.
But soon she was up in the thick of the wreckage, so Rarity turned her eyes to searching for what she needed: planks, panels, rope, and wire. With those, she knew she’d have what she needed to pull off her plan, but whether it would actually work was another thing entirely. If things didn’t play out exactly how she wanted…
There wasn’t any point in worrying about that now, though. If she didn’t find what she needed, whether or not her plan would work was irrelevant. So with that in mind, she started lifting up rubble and sizing things out that she would need. While most of the wood was too big or too splintered for her needs, she did find a loop of rope almost immediately. Tossing that around her neck and grabbing a large metal panel in her teeth, she started accruing a pile in the same undergrowth where she’d hid Gyro the previous day. After all, if that spot had worked for her once, then hopefully it would work again and keep her supplies safe from anypony who might stumble across them until she was ready to move.
As she started ferrying supplies back and forth, however, she took note of the sand higher up along the beach. Numerous sets of hoofprints pockmarked the surface, crisscrossing in many meandering different ways and paths. Though she knew a few sets belonged to her, there were still many more than she expected to see out here. While the pirates could have accounted for some, she still figured there were too many, unless they’d spent time exploring the wreck when she wasn’t around. Did they? Would they even bother? She didn’t know the answers to that.
Frowning, Rarity allowed herself a little break from scavenging to investigate. She knew the general direction of the pirate camp, and some certainly led off in that direction, but others didn’t. She counted three sets emerging from the jungle further to the west instead of the southwest where the pirate camp was, and when she followed them out of curiosity for a little bit, she realized that they didn’t turn to the left at all. Instead, they carefully followed the curve of the shore, making sure to stay just inside of the trees where they couldn’t be seen from the water and the foliage was too dense to see much further inland.
“Who are you?” Rarity murmured to herself. “You’re not pirates, I don’t think…”
She continued to follow the hoofprints across the sand and muck. The ground around them was still moist and raised, so she knew they had to be recent, within the past day at the most. Otherwise, the raised mud would have dried out and settled down. But after following them across the island, she emerged from the trees and found herself at another sandy channel between two island fragments, surrounded by very shallow water. The hoofprints led right into the water, where they disappeared entirely. She couldn’t even see them on the next island fragment over; it was like the ponies had emerged from the ocean for a brief excursion onto the land before returning once more.
No, that wasn’t right, she realized. The more logical explanation was that these ponies were using the shallow channels to mask their movement. Who knew where exactly they slipped into the water? It could’ve been on the other side of this island, or it could be another one entirely. The shallow channels certainly meant that a pony could walk between one island or several without having to step onto land. But why would these ponies need to hide where they were coming from in such a manner?
Rarity thought for a moment. The pirates certainly wouldn’t need to do that, but ponies trying to hide from them would. And if they were trying to hide from the pirates, then that meant they had to be friendly, or at the very least, potential allies. Hopefully they wouldn’t turn out to be similarly hostile, though Rarity didn’t know why they would be. Perhaps another clan of pirates, maybe? But the only pirates in the immediate area were Squall’s, unless there was another pirate ship that had gone down earlier…
But none of that made any more sense than the other ponies being fellow survivors from the Concordia. And if there were more survivors from the Concordia out there, then Rarity needed to meet with them. If they could band together, pool their knowledge and resources, then maybe they’d have a chance at overcoming the heavily armed pirates in the center of the island.
Yet even as much as Rarity wanted to find and meet with those ponies right now, there simply was no way to. Unless she spent a long time trying to track down more hoofprints in the sands of the islands around the channel, then she wasn’t going to find them. For all she knew, they were hiding at the opposite end of this cluster of islands, as far away from the pirates as possible. They could even be underground in a hidden temple or something. Though that was an interesting thought; if the survivors already controlled a temple or religious site or whatever, then that would save them a significant amount of time trying to find the statuette. They might even have it already but have no idea of its importance and significance to get them all home.
Rarity could feel her plan shifting, changing. Not only did she need to free Rainbow, now she needed to attract the attention of the other survivors. Knocking the wreckage of the Concordia’s hull off of the rocky spires had certainly caught their interest, but she hadn’t been around to meet them. Maybe if she did something with all the scrap she was collecting…
An idea took root in Rarity’s mind, and she smiled as she turned away. Though she may have lacked a good way to find the other survivors, she had tools and materials. And with tools and materials, she could create a way to arrange a meeting. She could create art, and though it was dangerous, she knew it’d be the best way to find them.
She just hoped the pirates wouldn’t find it first.
As the day beat on, Rainbow watched the pirate camp slowly empty out. Squall and her officer, who she’d figured out was named Black Flag, dispatched orders as necessary. Patrols were planned, scout parties organized, and camp guards drawn. By the time the afternoon rolled in, the camp was empty except for Rainbow and one other pony. And it just so happened that the other pony was the stallion Rainbow wanted to talk to.
Currently, Rainbow lied on her side, her lip swollen and chin covered in dried blood now that the cut Squall inflicted on it had finally stopped bleeding. Her body ached, and even if she wasn’t so tightly bound, she figured she could hardly move given how stiff her muscles were. The few inches of wiggle room she could secure for her legs through their bindings were a godsend, but even that wasn’t enough to stop them from turning into wooden planks. Once more, she eyed the nailed plank tucked away in the corner of the lean-to, and once more, she had to resist the urge to reach for it. Now wasn’t the time to try and escape, even despite how antsy she was swiftly becoming. Now was the time for talk.
Raising her head, she spotted the other stallion, who the pirates only referred to as Coals, tending to a smoldering fire in the middle of the camp. Why the pirates felt the need to keep a fire going at all times, Rainbow could only guess, but at the very least the smoke had kept the worst of the flies and mosquitos away from her while she lied helpless on the ground. But more importantly, it kept Coals occupied at the moment, and now that she had a captive audience, Rainbow wanted to take advantage of their privacy.
“H-Hey,” she squeaked, voice cracking on the first syllable she’d uttered in hours. “You, uh, got a minute?”
The pirate raised his eyes from the flames and scowled at Rainbow. “No.”
“Coulda fooled me.” A few seconds beat by, during which the pirate returned his gaze to the fire, before Rainbow spoke again. “So you all think Squall’s a bitch, right?”
Coals sighed and glowered at Rainbow. “I don’t want to talk to you. If it was up to me, I’d be out in the island right now, doing… not foalsitter duty for you.”
“Yeah, but like, you don’t really have a choice, because if Squall finds out you left me alone for even a minute, she’s gonna beat your flank or something.” Rainbow grinned at the irritated frown the pirate shot her, knowing that she’d won. “So yeah, Squall’s just the worst, right?”
“Only from your perspective,” Coals growled at her. “You’re her prisoner.”
“Which sucks, yeah, but at least it’s better than being a tool wielded by a crazy pony who obviously doesn’t care about anypony but herself.”
“That’s not true.”
“I’m no Applejack, but I know for a fact you’re lying to yourself.” She managed to slide across the sand a few inches with the help of her wing. “You want to go home, don’t you?”
“I want to get off this island and back into the sky,” Coals said. “I don’t want to go back to Equestria and get hanged.”
“Squall isn’t gonna get you there, you know,” Rainbow said. “And you heard her earlier. She’s content to stay on this island for the rest of her days if she wants to.”
“And I suppose you know how to get off this place?” Coals retorted.
“Actually, yeah, I do.”
He blinked. “Like shit you do.”
“Do you really think I was gonna tell Squall everything?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “So long as she knows I’m holding something back from her, she’ll at least keep me alive a little longer. It’s the only thing I’ve got going for me.”
“Or you’ll just piss her off like yesterday and almost get killed again.” Coals shook his head and looked away, but eventually he angled his gaze back toward Rainbow. “You really think Equestria would pardon us if we helped you get back home?”
That was the moment of doubt Rainbow had been waiting for. She enthusiastically nodded her head. “You know we’re super important, right? Just because there aren’t any more Elements of Harmony and stuff, doesn’t mean that we’re not still famous and important for saving it from bad stuff. Plus, we’re friends with the princesses—all of them. They’d definitely pardon you if you helped get us back home.”
Doubt and distrust fought with hope in Coals’ face. “Why should I even trust you?” he asked. “I’ve been a pirate for years. I’ve helped Squall plunder and kill for a long time. Somethings seem like too much for even Celestia to forgive.”
Rainbow didn’t really have a good answer for that, so she instead decided to press a different angle to get the stallion to trust her. “Coals… what’s your full name?”
The stallion drew back in suspicion. “Why is that important?”
“Is it Hot Coals?”
He froze for a few seconds. “How do you know?” he asked in a low voice. “Lucky guess?”
But Rainbow shook her head. “No,” she said. “A friend told me. A pony I think you know very well.”
Coals glowered and scoffed. “I doubt that very much. You and I don’t have anypony—”
“Her name is Gyro.”
Hot Coals’ mouth hung agape as his words suddenly died in his throat. He closed his mouth and tried to speak a few times, but didn’t get anywhere. Ultimately, he simply murmured, “…Gyro? She’s… she’s here?”
Rainbow cheered a little inwardly. So her suspicions had been right the whole time. “She was on the Concordia,” she said. “She was an engineer for it. We found her on the minotaur island and saved her life. She… she told us all about you, once.”
Coals seemed to deflate a bit and looked at his charcoal hooves. “I haven’t spoken to her in so long,” he said. “I haven’t had the chance. None of this was my choice.”
“What do you mean?” Rainbow cocked her head to the side. “Couldn’t you have said something? Find some way to leave her a message?”
“I never wanted to be a pirate,” Coals said. “The airship I was on, the Luxury, was attacked by Squall’s crew years ago. They gave me a choice: either serve as their engineer, or die.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t interested in dying if I could help it. So I became a pirate, and I helped Squall become captain when the crew mutinied and got rid of the last one three years ago.”
Rainbow blinked. “Squall’s only been captain for three years? I thought she’d been doing this forever.”
“She’d been with the crew longer as a mate, but she only recently decided she should be the one in charge.” He shuddered. “I thought she’d be better than the stallion who was captain then. I’d only been on the ship for three or four months. But no. She was worse.
“When she and the old captain dueled, it wasn’t much of a contest,” Coals continued. “He was a pegasus, but she was a unicorn. She doesn’t know many spells, but she doesn’t need to to do what she does. She picked the captain up and slammed him through the deck, then hopped down the hole and ripped his wings off with her magic alone. She cut off his muzzle with a sword, shot him in the flank, and then threw the screaming, crying bastard off her ship. She could’ve killed him easily, but she showed just how cruel she was that day.”
Rainbow shuddered. “Celestia, that’s horrible.”
“It was. And ever since I saw that, I’ve been too afraid to try to escape or find a way out. So here I’ve been.” He shook his head. “If Gyro mentioned that I stopped writing her seemingly out of the blue, then that’s why. It’s because I couldn’t. And I’ve missed that more than anything.”
Smiling, Rainbow lazily rubbed her muzzle with her free wing. “Well, how would you feel if I told you she was on this island right now?”
Coals blinked. “She… she is?”
“Yup. Her and Rarity came over after me so we could all find what we needed together. Only thing is, you guys made me your prisoner before I could meet up with them again.”
“Do you know where she is?” Coals asked.
“I don’t know,” Rainbow admitted. “They could’ve gone anywhere since I got captured. But they’re here. I know it.” Winking at him, she grinned. “If you let me go, I might be able to show you where…”
But before Coals could respond, Rainbow’s ears twitched at the sound of returning pirates. Instead of saying anything more, Coals quickly withdrew to the fire, turning his back to Rainbow and pretending to ignore her. Sighing, Rainbow lowered her head and retreated into the shelter of the lean-to as the pirates returned from foraging.
There wasn’t a chance to escape yet, but she felt like she’d solidly turned Coals to her side. And now that she had an ally, it was only a matter of time before she was free.
Assuming, that was, that Squall didn’t kill her first.
Gyro’s ears perked as approaching noises took her out of her daydreams. Groaning and shifting, she managed to raise her upper body enough to peer through the brush and spot Rarity returning along the beach. A minute later, the plants shifted, and Rarity made her way into their little sheltered campsite with a sack clutched between her teeth.
“Good haul?” Gyro asked, watching as Rarity spat the sack out and wiped some sweat off her face. “Looks like you’ve got a ton of crap in that sack.”
“There was a lot of debris and detritus to pick from, and I still left most of it in a hiding spot near the wreckage,” Rarity said. Sitting down across from Gyro, she opened the sack and dumped out some of the things she’d collected. “I found plenty of wood, metal, and wire. I was worried about the wire, but I found a spool in a box.”
“Yeah, that’s the stuff that we use to patch tears in the balloon,” Gyro said. “You can’t use rope or thread because it’s too weak. Steel wire is flexible and strong.” She blinked. “What are you gonna use it for?”
But Rarity just smiled at Gyro. “I have a few ideas. I still need to do a little testing before I find what works the best. But it will help us free Rainbow from her captors. Hopefully.”
Gyro narrowed her eyes. “You do know what you’re doing, right?”
Rarity sighed and pawed at some of the scrap on the ground. “An idea of sorts, but I don’t know how well it will work.”
“Well, what’s the plan?”
Rarity picked up the spool of wire in her hoof and spun it around. “The pirates have their camp, yes? And Rainbow’s there. But it’s not like I can just fight my way through all of them to get to her. I need to clear them out before I can rescue her.”
Gyro lifted one of the metal panels with a forehoof, only to let it fall to the ground seconds later. “So, what? You’re gonna draw them out with a bunch of noise?”
“That was the idea,” Rarity said. “Last night, I slipped on a rock and had four pirates after me. Imagine what I could do with a lot more noise.”
“I mean, maybe.” Gyro shrugged. “But how are you gonna do that?”
“With lots of metal and wooden panels connected by wire and rope,” Rarity said. “That way I can set them off at a distance and move in close once they’re gone. Apart from trying to fight my way through who knows how many of them, that’s the only way I feasibly have a chance at getting Rainbow out of there safely.”
Gyro’s teeth tugged at her lip. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “How are you gonna rig it up, though?”
“My best guess was to try and get the rope up in the trees and hang it, that way the pirates wouldn’t notice it late at night.” Rarity turned her eyes up along the length of her horn, where a feeble blue glow built up for a few seconds before it vanished with a wince from the fashionista. “My magic is recovering. I should have my telekinesis back tonight so long as I rest my horn. I just have to be careful with it.”
Then Rarity opened up the bag some more and pulled out a few thin pieces of wood and some gears. “I got something else, though. Something for you. There’s just a little assembly required.”
Rarity started lying out the pieces in the sand with her hooves. “Your legs might not work now, but that shouldn’t mean you’re stuck in one place. Especially not somewhere as dangerous as this.”
Gyro blinked and her mouth hung agape for a few seconds. “You’re making a crutch? For me?”
“I’m not sure how well it will perform in the sand with nothing but gears for wheels, but it should at least provide your back end with enough support that you can pull yourself along with your forehooves.” Rarity picked up some pieces with her hooves and stuck her tongue out to the side as she eyeballed measurements. “We need to get you to move again, Gyro. I want to see you move again. I won’t be able to forgive myself if my mistake forces you to live like this for the rest of your life.”
“Rarity, it’s not your fault.” With some effort, Gyro managed to sit up and reach a hoof across the sand to touch Rarity’s shoulder. “Stop blaming yourself, okay? None of this is your fault. I knew what I was doing when I got into the wreck. Rainbow knew what she was doing when she flew off on her own to explore the island some more or something.” A beat, and then she added with a bitter laugh, “Though I don’t think Rainbow ever really knows what she’s doing at any given moment, so who am I to say?”
“That’s not funny,” Rarity said. The unicorn’s eyes fell and Rarity pawed at the sand. “Regardless of whether or not this calamity is my fault, I still feel like I owe you. So please let me build this for you so you can walk again.”
Gyro laughed and held up her hooves. “Hey, I wasn’t turning down your gift. I like being able to walk and go places too, you know. And I know you like, get off to generosity or something like that.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t quite use that sort of language to describe it…”
“Draining the swamp, then?”
“…I can’t say I’ve heard that one before,” Rarity said, looking more confused than anything else.
Gyro chuckled. “I’m from Baltimare, remember? It’s kinda swampy outside the city limits. And teenagers are the worst thing ponies ever invented.”
“My younger sister is beginning to enter her adolescent years. I’m starting to agree.” Sighing, Rarity shook her head. “More importantly, I got the material to build you a walker or whatever it is you call it because I need your help to pull this plan off.”
“My help? What could the crippled mare possible do to help?” Gyro raised an eyebrow. “Be bait? I’m really good at not moving and being helpless. It’s a hobby I picked up recently.”
Rarity shook her head. “Not that, and it wouldn’t put you in any danger.” Then, smiling, she dropped a loop or rope in front of the engineer. “Somepony has to work the distraction while I slip into the camp and save Rainbow.”
Assembling Gyro’s walker had taken Rarity much longer than she expected, if only because her hooves and teeth weren’t as fine manipulators as her horn. Even though she felt the temptation to let her magic take over now that the small split in her horn had mostly fused back together, she had to remind herself that she didn’t have any magic to spare until later that night. It wouldn’t do to set her healing back another day by stressing her horn too early when she needed her magic once the sun went down.
But at least she wasn’t working on it alone. Gyro happily helped with the project, her excitement to get her mobility back clearly showing with the effort and thought she put into the work. What had originally been conceived as a nice gesture from Rarity turned into an engineering project with Gyro redesigning and changing some of Rarity’s plans to make the walker function better. Together, they were making something much better than Rarity knew she could’ve put together on her own.
Rarity clipped off another stretch of steel wire with the wire cutters she’d salvaged from the wreck and started wrapping them around a joint to lock it in place. “I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but I’m amazed at how knowledgeable about this you are,” she said, watching Gyro use a careful combination of her hooves and mouth to tightly tie together another joint on the other side of the frame. “I thought you only knew how to run steam engines, not design something like this from scratch.”
“Statics was a required course for me,” Gyro said. “Knowing at least basic physics about how parts and materials interact with each other is much more important to my job than you’d think. The guts of an airship are really complicated machines, and knowing a little bit about loads and the moduli of parts really helps when you’ve gotta make a patchwork repair out of whatever scrap metal you have lying around. I’m actually pretty good at math, I just don’t really like to do it.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Rarity said. “You’re much better at this than Rainbow or myself. I never learned much about complicated mathematics in my schooling. After high school, I attended a technical school for three years where I learned everything I would need to know to become a successful fashion designer, along with the other things a unicorn in high society needs to function and fit in, like history, legislature, the pedigrees of the nobility and royalty, and etiquette. Though I strive to maintain an air of sophistication and intelligence, my formal schooling ends far earlier than one would otherwise think.”
“I’ll say. I figured you went to college for… something. Not just a technical school.” Smirking, she added, “And I certainly never learned any of that high society etiquette and stuff. Grease and coal dust were my perfumes of choice.”
Rarity couldn’t help but grimace at that. “Though my tolerance for filth and grime on my person has risen considerably since ending up here, even I cannot stomach that level of… uncleanliness.”
Gyro snickered and started fastening gears to the bottom of the frame to make the wheels. “My coat used to be white as snow. Then I decided I wanted to be an engineer on an airship.”
“I don’t believe that in the slightest.” Rarity stood up and put her hooves on the top of the walker frame, then rocked it backwards a bit so Gyro could place the wheels on it easier. “It would’ve come off when I flung you into the ocean.”
“Nah, it’s just too stained in. I’m a being of thirty percent coal dust now.”
“So you’re extra flammable, then?” Rarity allowed herself a teasing smile. “I guess we can use your mane in a pinch if we ever need a torch.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t, but whatever helps the team, I guess.” Gyro finished fastening the gears to the walker and looked it over with an approving nod. “Flip it around, I gotta do the other side.”
Rarity obliged, pivoting the walker around with her hooves and leaning it back once more to allow Gyro to fasten the gears to it. “I suppose now would be a good time to mention that I don’t believe we’re alone on this island.”
Gyro blinked. “Uh, Rarity, weren’t you chased by pirates halfway across the island literally last night?”
“No, no, I didn’t mean in that sense.” Rarity shook her head and pointed off to the southwest. “I meant that we may have allies on these islands. It’s not just us and the pirates.”
“Really? You think other ponies from the Concordia survived?” Gyro’s eyes momentarily drifted to the sand as she thought. “But how do you know?”
“I don’t, and that’s the thing,” Rarity said. “But I have a good suspicion. I found hoofprints coming from a direction that didn’t lead to the pirate camp. And whoever they were, they had been using the shallow channels to move between the islands without being tracked. Why would the pirates do that? They would have no reason to if they were the only ones on the island.”
“Yeah, but like, that doesn’t prove anything. It could have just been a patrol returning from scouting some other islands or something.” Gyro waved her hoof, and Rarity lowered the walker once more. “Anyways, I think this thing is done. Help me get into it so I can try it out.”
Rarity lowered the walker onto its side and stretched out the loose rope harness she’d tied to the end. The walker, now that it was finished, was barely more than a couple of planks tied together with steel wire in lieu of nails with gears affixed to shafts jammed into notches at the bottom. Though they were large gears, Rarity feared they’d be too narrow to work effectively in the sand, and Gyro would have to more or less drag herself across the sand as the walker tried to bury itself behind her. If she could’ve found actual wheels, then she knew the walker would’ve worked much better, but there was only so much she could do with what she’d been given.
Once she managed to get Gyro strapped into the walker, Rarity lent a shoulder to help the earth pony stand. With a little bit of work, she managed to prop Gyro up, and she grimaced as she wiped at some of the sweat on her face. “Celestia, I didn’t realize you’d put back on that much weight since we rescued you. You used to be light as a feather!”
Gyro teasingly rolled her eyes. “Great, I lost my legs, and now you’re calling me fat. I feel so loved here, Rarity.”
Rarity merely responded to the banter in kind. “I wouldn’t go that far, darling. I’m sorry, but my heart yearns for Rainbow alone.”
“I’d say I’d be your stand in, but I can’t feel my marehood anyway anymore.”
“Oh, don’t fret, I much rather prefer to be on the receiving end than the giving end, anyway.”
Gyro snickered. “Generosity, my flank.”
“Not at all, sometimes the most generous thing you can do is to receive something. If it’s a tongue into my nethers, I don’t quite mind.” Blushing a bit, Rarity shook her head and took a step back. “Oh, I think that’s enough raunchy talk for one day. How does it feel?”
Gyro frowned. “You’re asking the mare who hasn’t gotten laid in years.”
“The walker, darling, not your sexual encounters.”
“Oh, yeah, that.” Gyro flexed her forelegs a little bit, raising and lowering her front half while the walker supported her rear. “I mean, I can stand and everything, so that’s a good start. My legs aren’t too low though, right?”
“They’re about four or five inches off the ground,” Rarity said. “That should hopefully be enough clearance for the worst of obstacles.”
“I’m sure if I could feel my ass right about now, it’d feel like it was behind my head.” Swallowing, Gyro stared out at the sand ahead of her. “Well, here goes nothing…”
Her first few steps were small, tentative, nervous even. Gyro bit her lip as she began to pull herself across the ground, one step at a time. Rarity even noticed her stopping to adjust her gait a few times now that she didn’t have her rear legs to propel her forward anymore. But as she built up momentum, Rarity let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding as the makeshift wheels turned and the whole thing didn’t just immediately fall apart.
“Hey, yeah, this kinda works,” Gyro said, smiling as she moved across the sand. “It feels weird, and it’s not as fast as actually trotting, but I can move.” A bigger grin broke out across her muzzle. “I can move! Ha, that’s awesome! Fuck you, stupid spine, I have technology!”
Rarity merely grinned as she watched Gyro prance across the sand, now finally able to move again after more than a full day. Now that Gyro could move again, she knew that things would start looking up for them. They overcame one challenge; now they just had to face the next one.
Hopefully it wouldn’t beat them back down to square one.
Rarity watched Gyro put the walker through its paces for the next fifteen or twenty minutes. The mechanic pulled herself up and down the beach as she figured out how to move more efficiently within the frame, and soon enough she’d developed a steady rhythm that at least let her half trot across the sand. Though Rarity knew the gray mare would never be able to go anywhere in a hurry, at least she could move around under her own power. She’d even figured out how to lie down and stand back up by herself. Though the twisting motions she had to contort her body through weren’t exactly easy, she could usually force herself back up to a standing position in a minute or so.
Eventually satisfied with her progress, Gyro returned to Rarity and rolled her shoulders. “Well, this is pretty awesome. I can move now and stuff. You don’t know how much this means to me.”
Rarity leaned in for a hug with the engineer. “I believe I have a pretty good idea. I couldn’t bear to see you suffer like that.”
“Not sure what you mean by that. I certainly didn’t complain.”
“Oh, hush,” Rarity said, pulling away from the embrace. “You were complaining inwardly. Reading ponies is an important skill to have in elite society, and you’re not that difficult to read.”
Gyro rolled her eyes. “Are you saying I’m a foal’s book?”
“You’re certainly not a coloring book with all that gray and white,” Rarity teased her. “Have you ever considered accents? A few different shades of blue to streak the ends of your mane would look stunning with your blue eyes.”
“I have, but then again it’ll just get covered in soot and muck before too long.” Gyro touched the end of her short white mane with a hoof. “Most of the time when I’m below decks, my mane looks about half white, half black. Kind of like zebra stripes, except not at all.”
“Then I suppose what you mean is that it’s nothing like zebra stripes apart from the color.” Shaking her head, Rarity returned to their campgrounds and started throwing their remaining supplies back into the sack. “Well, now that we’ve solved your mobility issue, I believe it’s time we tackle the remaining challenge for today. We need to get this noise machine rigged up before nightfall if we’re going to rescue Rainbow.”
Gyro nodded. “That’d be a good idea, yeah. Got an idea for how you want to do it?”
“Not really, so anything goes.” Once Rarity collected all the remaining scrap she’d brought back, she threw some food into the bag as well and took a long drink of water. Wiping her lips, she trotted back out of the undergrowth. “We have wire to fasten panels and planks together with, and lots of rope to rig them up from a distance. I figured we can find pieces that have holes in them that we can attach the wire to so that they rattle and make noise when the rope is pulled, then string it up in the palm trees.”
“I hope we have enough rope for that,” Gyro said. “How much did you find?”
“A few hundred feet, but there’s likely more somewhere.” Rarity shrugged. “It is an airship, after all. There was bound to be miles of rope on it.”
Gyro chuckled. “Oh, believe me, I know.”
With everything finally gathered, Rarity started across the beach at an easy pace, walking slow enough for Gyro to comfortably keep pace at her side. “I just hope there won’t be any pirates at the wreckage today.”
“Well, knowing our luck, I’m sure there will be. Got any ideas for that?”
Rarity shrugged. “Hide and keep quiet? That’s about all we can do.”
“Yeah. Keep quiet. While we’re making noisemakers.” Gyro raised an eyebrow. “See a problem with that?”
“Yes, but there’s not much that we can do about that. Like everything we’ve suffered through since ending up here, we have to straddle a dangerous line between doing what we need to to survive and not getting caught by things that would kill us.”
“I would figure that last one would fit under the first category.”
“You know what I mean.”
The walk to the wreckage took longer than Rarity was used to, given how slowly Gyro moved, but at the very least, there wasn’t any sign of the pirates that lived further inland. Still, that didn’t mean Rarity let her guard down; she knew that they could emerge from the jungle at any moment, and if they caught her and Gyro unprepared, it’d be the end of them. Yet, despite the intangible fear gnawing on her gut, they made it to the shelter of the wreckage without incident.
Gyro let her eyes wander over the massive pile of scrap and salvage Rarity had accumulated throughout the morning. “Somepony’s been busy, holy crap.”
“And I had to move all of it by mouth,” Rarity said. She stuck her tongue out for emphasis as she added, “I don’t know how you do it without magic.”
“Don’t use your tongue. Easy. Every earth pony knows that.” With a little bit of a grimace, Gyro forced herself back down into a sitting position, her walker kicked out into the sand beside her. “Also, always keep water close by. That or a stiff drink. Something to wash the taste out of your mouth.”
“I’m glad I don’t usually have to deal with that,” Rarity mused. Sitting down across from Gyro, she started pulling panels and planks out of the pile, along with a loop of rope. “Let’s get started, shall we, darling? If we need any more material, I should be able to find some more in the wreckage.”
“Sounds good.” Gyro leaned forward and pulled some of the supplies close to her. “This is gonna be a pain in the flank. Might as well get it over with now.”
“Oh, hush,” Rarity said. “It’ll be done before you know it.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t have another chance to talk to Hot Coals for the remainder of the day, despite how much she tried to or would have liked to. After the morning patrols came back, at least one other pirate was always hanging around the camp doing something. Though Coals did his best to stay within Rainbow’s eyesight as sort of a symbolic gesture of comfort and support, there wasn’t much he could do except keep an eye on her and glower or spit at her with the rest of his crew. But now that Rainbow knew it was all simply show, she didn’t mind it so much.
Thankfully, she didn’t see much of Squall that day. The blood red pirate had set off into the jungle early that morning and spent most of the daylight hours away. Once, Rainbow’s ears twitched at a distant bang, and she realized it must have been Squall discharging one of her pistols at something. She didn’t know what it might have been, but it at least confirmed to her that the pirate captain had working firearms. She didn’t know how much powder the mare had, per se, but it must’ve been enough for her to discharge rounds both that day and the day before when she’d first heard it without caring.
Rainbow regretted that decision more than anything right now. If she’d simply waited for Rarity and Gyro instead of wandering off into the island like an idiot…
But all good things had to come to an end eventually. Squall returned shortly before dinner with a wild boar of some kind towed behind her in her magic, obviously something she’d hunted during her excursion into the island. She set the thing down in front of the fire, and with effortless precision, pulled out a series of knives and quickly cleaned the kill and sliced it into different cuts of meat. Rainbow watched the whole thing with a horrified fascination; though eating seafood meant nothing to her and most pegasi, a pig was still another hooved creature. And Squall had shot it, killed it, and chopped it up without a second thought.
Even worse, Squall grinned at Rainbow and held up a cut of the boar’s ribs. “Nothing juicier,” she sang, wringing some blood and grease from the meat and letting it fall onto the sand. “We eat like royalty tonight.”
Rainbow shivered. She wasn’t sure she wanted to eat at all now.
It wasn’t long before the golden and orange clouds started smothering the island in darkness. Rainbow was surprised the entire day had been mostly sunny and dry when she thought it was going to rain just the day before. She’d been so certain she’d smelled rain on the horizon, but there hadn’t been a drop all day. She figured her concussion must have been messing with her usually very accurate forecasting senses. But now she was certain it’d start raining that night. She could see the thick sheet of clouds crawling across the sky. By the time it was midnight, she figured the heavens would open up and let it rip.
Groaning, she rolled over and buried her eyes under a canvas tarp to block out the light. She couldn’t focus on anything for too long or she’d start seeing spots of light flitting across her vision. She already knew she’d gotten a severe concussion from one of the pirates; she just had hoped it would’ve started clearing up by now. She could hardly move without feeling dizzy, or at least, as much as she could move, hogtied as she was.
That irony wasn’t lost on her. Here she was hogtied, and the pirates were serving pig for dinner. Hopefully she wouldn’t meet a similar fate as the boar—figuratively or otherwise. The pirates certainly didn’t look like cannibals, but Squall was so dangerously unhinged that Rainbow didn’t put it past her doing it just to make a point. Whatever that would actually mean to Rainbow once she was dead, the Wonderbolt didn’t know.
The camp suddenly quieting down caught Rainbow’s attention in a hurry. Swallowing hard, she took her head out from under the tarp and spotted her torturer watching her with a predatory smile. A raw piece of pork floated in the air, and as soon as she had Rainbow’s attention, she skewered the meat on a knife and advanced on her.
“It’s dinner time,” Squall warbled as she approached Rainbow’s lean-to. Swallowing hard, Rainbow tried to back away, but there wasn’t anywhere to back away to. Once more, her coat tingled as Squall’s magic seized hold of her shoulders, and suddenly Rainbow found herself seated in front of the pirate captain. Twirling the knife about, Squall aimed the point at Rainbow’s face. “Be a good doggy and eat your dinner.”
Rainbow grimaced and angled her head away, but refused to say anything. She knew the moment she parted her lips, Squall would try to jam the knife into her mouth. She also knew the pirate wouldn’t care if she cut something in the process.
Squall pouted, and the knife drifted a few inches to the side. “Aww, you’re no fun.” Sitting down directly across from Rainbow, Squall’s eyes brightened and her voice took on a demeaning tone. “Here comes the choo-choo train!” she sang, moving the knife at Rainbow’s mouth. “Open wide! Open wide!”
Rainbow gasped and hissed as the end of the knife dug into the side of her muzzle as Squall held the meat there like she would a spoon to coax a foal to eat. Still, through it all, Rainbow kept her teeth clenched and her lips as sealed as she could.
“Eat your fucking food or I’ll jam it between your ribs myself,” Squall hissed. The knife started to twist in her grasp ever so slowly, so painfully slowly. “Do it, dog. Do it, you worthless bitch.”
But Rainbow didn’t yield. Instead, she just hissed two words out of the opposite side of her muzzle. “Fuck. You.”
Squall’s nostrils flared, and she viciously slashed the knife away from Rainbow’s face. The pegasus cried out in pain and fell over as her cheek began to bleed from the deep cut running along her muzzle to just below her left eye. She saw Squall’s hooves shift in the sand, and she instinctively pulled her head back before the knife buried itself up to and beyond the handle in the sand. When Squall’s red magic disappeared from within the sediment, it was like the knife wasn’t even there anymore. She’d driven it so forcefully into the ground that it’d vanished.
“I’ll fucking choke the life out of you, you stupid little cunt,” Squall growled, raising her hoof. Bet before she could, yellow magic stayed her foreleg, and she whipped her head around. “Who the fuck did that?!”
Rainbow managed to raise her head to see the other pirates singling Coals out from their number. The unicorn swallowed hard but stood his ground. “We don’t need to kill her so soon. Wouldn’t that just be wasting her life?”
“Oh, so you want a turn?” Rainbow’s heart practically seized up when the mare pulled a plank out of a woodpile and threw it at Coals, who caught it in his own magic. “Go ahead. Beat her up. Let it out. Just don’t kill her. Her life belongs to me.”
Coals momentarily froze, the plank floating alongside his head. “Captain…”
“You’re a pirate,” Squall spat at him, dangerously circling around him, just within easy striking distance of a knife. If she wanted to, she could kill him with a thought before he could react. “You’ve been on my crew for three years. You’ve helped me kill, rape, and plunder the skies. And you’re getting cold hooves now?” She shook her head. “I thought you were the real deal, not a faker.”
Rainbow made eye contact with Coals. Steeling herself, she gave him the barest of nods. “Do it,” she mouthed. She didn’t need to lose her only ally for her own sake. She could take a little pain if it kept Coals out of suspicion.
There was a moment of hesitation, but Coals swallowed his qualms and lunged at Rainbow. The first bite of the stick surprised her with its ferocity, and though Rainbow had been planning to exaggerate her pain, expecting Coals to hold back a bit, her bloody muzzle let loose a genuine scream of hurt. Again and again, Coals whaled on her, covering her body in bruises and cuts and bloody marks. It barely lasted a minute, but when the sympathetic pirate finally stopped, everything on Rainbow’s body hurt.
A singular pair of hooves clapped from the center of the camp. When Rainbow could open an eye again, she saw Squall grinning and borderline giggling like an idiot. “Oh, you two are so cute when you play together!” She laughed and stood up, taking the stick away from Coals. Shaking her head, she wiped a tear from her eye and circled wide of the stallion while the rest of her crew watched. “That was the sweetest thing. You two might have had acting careers ahead of you with a little work. Might have.”
Rainbow’s eyes widened, but before her or Coals could react, Squall whipped out one of her pistols and fired. The stallion spun around and collapsed like a sack of meat, and Rainbow screamed. Again, Squall laughed and giggled, even as she holstered the smoking firearm. “I know my crew, Rainbow Dash,” she said, walking over to Rainbow. “I always knew Coals was weak. Weak and scared. And I had my suspicions all but confirmed after watching how he interacted with you today. Do you really think I spent the entire day hunting that pitiful boar?”
“You killed him!” Rainbow screamed. It was the only thing her mind could process. “Your own shipmate!”
“He was never a shipmate,” Squall said with a laugh. “He was pressed into service on my ship. He never had that true fiery blood that makes a real reaver. And today, he showed it.”
Coals groaned from the ground, and Squall lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “Though I may have spoken too soon. Tough son of a bitch.” Her magic rolled him over, and Rainbow saw the wound in his side, oozing blood into his coat. Satisfied, Squall dragged him across the camp and over to Rainbow’s side. “Though it doesn’t look like he’ll last long. Why don’t you take care of him for me? He’s your friend after all.”
Then Squall fixed her eyes on the remainder of her crew. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to repeat this lesson, but it never hurts to have a refresher. Don’t fuck with me. Or you’ll end up like him.” She nodded her horn in Coals’ direction, and then simply walked right through the middle of her crew, which parted for her as if by some unseen magic. “Flag, figure out the patrols for the evening. I can’t be assed after all this excitement.”
As the pirates went back to their work, Rainbow managed to twist and crawl her pained, aching body to Coals’ side. The stallion breathed weakly, but without any hooves free, Rainbow couldn’t stop the bleeding in his side. Out of desperation, she jammed her free wing into the wound, earning a moan from Coals but hopefully stemming the bleeding. “Just hang in there, Coals,” she said to him, her voice cracking. “Hang in there. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”
The crimson soaking into her feathers told a different story.
Rarity froze in place as a strange noise faintly echoed through the trees. She let the magic on her horn die away, silencing the gentle yet crackly humming it produced through its split tip, and immediately letting loose a small sigh of relief as her headache momentarily subsided. Birds cried out through the jungle, and she saw a few feathery shapes flitting through the trees away from the direction of the pirate camp. But after a few seconds, the noises of the island returned to their normal hush and chatter, leaving Rarity unsure if she’d heard anything in the first place.
The creaking of Gyro’s walker came to a stop behind Rarity. “What is it?” the gray mare asked. “Pirates?”
“Did you hear that?” Rarity asked her without looking, her head still on a swivel, eyes cutting through the trees and undergrowth.
“Hear what?” Gyro shifted in place, suddenly on edge. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“I thought I heard a gunshot.” Swallowing hard, Rarity cautiously took a few wary steps forward. “A gunshot from the pirate camp.”
Gyro breathed a big sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s good, then. If they’re killing each other, then that makes our job easier. Screw whoever ate that bullet, right?”
“Unless it was Rainbow,” Rarity darkly muttered.
Gyro’s ears fell. “Oh. Yeah, right. I guess there’s that too.” Tittering nervously, she rubbed one hoof against a fetlock. “Would it help if I, uh, said it probably wasn’t Rainbow?”
Rarity turned around and raised an eyebrow at her. “How would you know that?”
“I don’t,” Gyro said. “But I’ll bullshit to you all you want if that’ll help you calm down.”
Rarity frowned and continued marching through the forest. “I am calm,” she flatly stated. “Just… worried.”
Gyro tried to offer her a comforting smile, though to Rarity, it came across more as a grimace than anything. “There’s no reason in getting worried about shit. It’s not like we can do anything about it, right?”
“You don’t sound much better off than I am,” Rarity observed. Still, swallowing the lump in her throat, she lit up her aching horn once more and continued stringing rope and wire between the palm trees, as high up and out of sight as she could place them. “But at least you’re right. Even if that… if that was Rainbow, then we owe it to her to get her body out of the c-camp.”
After a moment, Gyro simply nodded. “Yeah…”
They continued to push on. Thanks to her walker and earth pony strength, Gyro carried the bulk of the noisemakers, which were just metal and wooden panels tied into lengths of rope about fifty feet long. Though Rarity had carried her share earlier, she’d quickly shed them first before taking from Gyro’s stack. After all, the earth pony was more than capable of hauling everything along with only her front two hooves for mobility. Even the weight on her walker pressing the gears deeper into the ground didn’t seem to bother her too much. But then again, Rarity knew Gyro only complained when she was being sarcastic. Otherwise, the engineer quietly sucked it up and dealt with it.
Sometimes Rarity wished she could be as strong as Gyro, both mentally and physically.
Little by little, Rarity added to the growing line of noise makers. Her and Gyro had taken a twisting, turning path through the jungle, trying to construct something that would keep the pirates in pursuit once they heard the noises. Every so often, Rarity tied one end of a noise maker rope off to a tree and moved somewhere else before starting up another one. Thankfully she had so much rope to work with; she even had to venture back to the beach twice to fetch fresh coils of rope, she needed so much. A part of her wondered if maybe there would’ve been a better use for all this rope, but another part reminded her that this was all going toward getting Rainbow back. There wasn’t any better use of the rope compared to that.
As night began to fall and clouds drifted across the sky, the island grew darker and darker. The wind also began to pick up, and some of the chimes and noisemakers Rarity strung along started rattling and clinking on their own. For a moment, Rarity felt dismayed, knowing that a storm was approaching. Rain and wind would make the rescue much more painful and complicated, and if the noise makers started rattling constantly on their own, the pirates might figure out the ruse early. If they did that, Rarity worried she might not have time to raid the pirate camp and get Rainbow out of there before they returned.
But like Gyro said, she shouldn’t worry about what she couldn’t change…
As soon as Rarity heard the sounds of talking and noise through the trees up ahead, she motioned for Gyro to stop. “We don’t want to go much closer,” she said in a low, quiet voice. “There’s a chance the pirates might hear us.”
“But is this close enough?” Gyro asked. “Will they be able to hear it from here?”
“If you pull on it like a madmare then I think they will,” Rarity said. Tying off the last rope, she took several lengths of clean rope and began knotting them to different lines. “These will be the pull ropes. Do keep them organized and remember which ones are attached to which; we want to keep leading the pirates away from the camp, so if they aren’t constantly chasing some noise then it won’t work.”
“Right. Easier said than done.” Gyro eyed the lengths of rope and shook her head. “Celestia, this is the most complicated prank I’ve ever seen.”
“I would’ve figured you’d have seen more going to a trade school filled with stallions,” Rarity mused.
“Yeah, but none with a chance to get us killed if it doesn’t work.” The engineer shook her head. “And I’m gonna be pulling these things blind. How am I going to know when they’re chasing something or not?”
“Hopefully you’ll be able to hear them,” Rarity said. “The jungle is almost dead quiet at night. A troop of angry pirates gallivanting through the undergrowth shouldn’t be that difficult to hear no matter where you are.”
“I guess.” Gyro peered off into the darkness. “I guess we should find a place to hide and get me set up in the meanwhile.”
Rarity nodded. “Agreed. We have to wait until it’s very dark anyway. Otherwise they might see the noise makers, and we can’t have that happen.”
“This plan is so janky,” Gyro muttered. “At least it’ll be a funny story if we survive this whole thing, right?”
“Right,” Rarity agreed. “Hopefully not for the pirates, though.”
She hadn’t left Coals’ side in hours. Her wing and shoulder shook from the constant pressure she exuded on his side in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. Her blue feathers were dark red and brown, soaked to the point of saturation with the stallion’s blood. Her entire limb felt sticky and heavy, but she didn’t dare take it off of the hole in Coals’ side. She feared that the bleeding would start again if she did.
The other pirates had taken on a darker tone ever since Squall’s display. For the most part, they refused to even acknowledge Rainbow’s desperate struggle to keep their former shipmate alive. They kept their backs to them and heads turned away, pretending that they weren’t even there.
Coals’ breathing eventually slowed to small, shallow breaths, and the blood pouring from the wound in his side had slowed to a trickle. Rainbow didn’t know if the latter was a good thing or not. Had she stemmed the bleeding, or had the stallion finally approached the verge of bleeding out? Rainbow cautiously removed her sodden wing from the hole in Coals’ side, where the black hairs glistened in the light of the fire, clumped together and plastered flat to his skin with blood. She didn’t let her eyes linger on the puckered wound in his side; the mere sight of it made her queasy and sick. But from what she could see, she considered it a miracle he wasn’t killed outright.
Of course, that wouldn’t matter if he still died anyway…
Rainbow used her blood-soaked wing to shuffle backwards a bit to see Coals’ face. The stallion had fallen unconscious long ago, and Rainbow feared he’d been declining ever since. She wished she had cloth or something to help bandage him with and stop the bleeding other than her own wing. Even though they were only a largely ceremonial part of Equestria’s small military, Wonderbolts still received basic training in survival and first aid. Rainbow knew what she needed to do to help Coals, but she didn’t have the resources to do it. And even if she did, she couldn’t move because of her bindings. With every passing minute, she worried more and more that Coals would draw his last breath.
Swallowing hard, Rainbow laid her head down on the sand directly in front of Coals’ muzzle. “Just hang in there,” she whispered to him. “You’re not gonna die yet, okay? You still haven’t seen Gyro yet. You can’t die before you see her again. She’s been so worried about you for so long, and I know that she’ll be super jazzed and stuff to see you again. And… and you two can talk and laugh and stuff and just be happy that you’re back together, right? It’ll be great… it’ll be great, just… just don’t die, okay?” She grimaced and wriggled a little in the sand. “Don’t die.”
Of course, Coals remained impassive, not like Rainbow expected him to respond to her words in any way. But she merely hoped that hearing them would help him fight through the gunshot wound. He had to survive, he just had to. Rainbow couldn’t bear to lose a pony so important to a friend. She couldn’t bear to see Squall win again. The psychopathic pirate’s cruelty couldn’t be allowed to take any more lives.
A tiny, damp gasp of air drifted across the camp. It instinctively sent a shiver down Rainbow’s spine. Rain. The first drops would fall within five minutes. Though her senses told her it’d be little more than a misting or a few sprinkles for a little while after that, she expected the skies to tear open within the half hour. And she did not want to be caught out in the open when that happened. That was also the last thing Coals needed, too.
Wiggling her limbs some more, Rainbow managed to bite down on Coals’ sandy, torn shirt and started dragging him backwards to the lean-to. She knew it wouldn’t provide the greatest cover from the rain, especially if the wind blew from the wrong direction, but it was still better than nothing. But after a full day of being tied up, beaten, and given very little food and water, Rainbow felt weak. Her usual boundless energy was sapped and spent, and dragging a stallion larger than she was across the sand with only a single wing to move herself with was incredibly difficult. For all her heaving and grunting, she could only manage to drag him back by an inch or two at a time. She had an agonizingly long way to go before the rain began to fall, and a part of her doubted that she’d make it in time.
And then there was a loud crash and bang from somewhere out in the jungle.
She froze in place, ears pointing in that direction. The other pirates around the fire stuck their heads up as well. Even Squall emerged from her shelter, small pieces of branches and sticks tied into her mane to curl it. “What the fuck was that?” she barked at her crew.
“I don’t know,” Black Flag answered. “It… came from the jungle.”
As soon as he said that, the noise repeated itself. It sounded like metal slamming against metal somewhere in the darkness of the forest. Not even Rainbow could place what exactly it was supposed to be.
Squall frowned at it and carefully removed the branches from the curls in her mane; even when stranded on an island and torturing ponies for sport, the pirate mare’s vanity astounded Rainbow. For a moment, Rainbow likened her to an evil sister of Rarity or something of the sort. That in itself was a scary thought.
“Find out what’s making that noise,” Squall growled. “If it’s other ponies, I want you to deal with them. Take as many as you need.”
Black Flag saluted her and started picking ponies out from around the campfire. “You four, let’s go. We’re going to find whoever’s making that noise and cut them open from ear to ear.”
When the pirates stood up and left with Flag, Rainbow realized that it was just her, Coals, Squall, and two others in the camp. But instead of returning to her hut like Rainbow expected her to, Squall sat down in front of the fire, took out her two cutlasses, and started sharpening them with a stone. “Matchlock, Scabbard, patrol the perimeter. This could just be a distraction. If you find anything, yell first and fight second. I need to know if there’s somepony out there.”
Matchlock stood up and checked the pistol in her shoulder brace. “What about you, captain?” she asked. “You’ll be alone in the camp.”
“You think I can’t handle myself?” Squall spat back, making Matchlock flinch. Then, humming to herself, Squall sheathed her swords and began loading her pistols with powder from a horn by her side. “If they see me alone, they’ll be stupid and think they can jump me. I’m the mare that killed so many of their friends and family. They’ll be angry and come at me stupid. And since they don’t have firearms, they’ll have to get in close. And then they die.”
Her horn flared to life, and the air surrounding her briefly shimmered before it died away. The sand around her stirred, shifted, and then fell still. Matchlock and Scabbard both took a wary step back, but after saluting once, they vanished into the undergrowth as well. Rainbow swallowed as the first raindrop thudded onto the sand. Whatever was going on now, she knew that it would decide whether she escaped or died a prisoner.
Her eyes drifted to the plank in the back of the lean-to. She realized that the tarp would give her a little bit of cover from where Squall sat, humming to herself. If she was careful, she could hide herself back there and make it look like she was only seeking shelter from the rain.
Hooves galloped through the jungle. Twenty hooves, five sets in all, thrummed across the soft ground in pursuit of phantom noises clattering through the trees. The glow of torches illuminated tree trunks on that moonless night, but there was nothing to be seen. There was only noise, noise, noise.
Black Flag stopped his hunting party after about a minute of galloping away from camp. Just when the pirates had thought they’d arrived at the scene of the noise and clatter, it started up from somewhere else. The metallic ringing and clanging echoed through the jungle, the source difficult to pinpoint through the dense foliage surrounding them. To make matters worse, the birds started squawking and the little monkeys began howling, creating a cacophony of noise and chaos that was positively painful to even listen to.
“What the fuck is this shit?” one of the pirate mares shouted into the darkness, but even her gruff and hoarse voice couldn’t mask the edge of worry seeping into it. “What the fuck is going on?”
The metal banged and banged and banged. To top it all off, the wind began to pick up. Suddenly, the entire jungle came alive with a faint ringing and tinkling from all directions. Try as they might, the pirates couldn’t pinpoint the noise. Whatever it was, it was everywhere.
Black Flag swallowed hard. “Keep your weapons ready,” he ordered his crew. “It could be those other survivors.”
“It’s a curse!” one of his stallions wailed. “We shouldn’t have tried to open that tomb!”
“A curse!”
“We’re doomed!”
“Celestia, forgive me!”
Irritation and frustration swiftly overrode Black Flag’s fears. Unholstering his pistol, he fired it into the air, the bang swiftly silencing the other pirates. “Calm your fucking selves down!” he growled at them, “or the next one’s going through a skull!”
Little by little, the pirates slowly gathered their wits about them, but the discomforting air of the jungle prevented them from truly settling down. Still, once Flag had their focus again, he turned back to the jungle. Once more, metallic clanging rang out from somewhere ahead of them, and with a determined frown on his face, he began to march toward the noise. “Eyes peeled. We’ll find whoever’s making all this racket and gut them like a fish…”
-----
Rarity’s mane stood on end as a cold wind blew through it. With the onset of night and the arrival of storm clouds, the temperature had dropped to uncharacteristically cool levels. She’d become so used to the perpetual heat and warmth that she found herself nearly shivering now. But whether or not it was merely just the cold making her uncomfortable or her racing heart, she couldn’t really be sure.
Before she approached the camp, however, she made a quick detour to the channels between the islands. There, she found what she was looking for: a large, soggy stretch of mud and silt. She hesitated on the edge for several seconds, unwilling to take the next step, until she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “It’s nothing, Rarity, darling,” she assured herself. “This is for Rainbow’s sake. It’s just like sand. You’ve been covered in sand and salt for weeks now and you haven’t complained. Too much.”
With a resigned sigh, Rarity simply leaned forward until she fell into the mud. She immediately had to stifle a disgusted shriek as she felt it work its cool fingers into her coat, sucking up to her skin. Whimpering and whining, she started to roll herself back and forth, back and forth, until the brown and gray mud covered every inch of her nearly luminous white coat. Sniffling and suppressing a sob of revulsion, Rarity slowly climbed her way out of the muck and back onto dry land, where she shook some of the excess off her body so it wouldn’t slow her down too much.
“Thank heavens there isn’t a mirror anywhere around here,” Rarity moaned. “I’d have nightmares about this for a week otherwise!”
But the mud clinging to her mane weighed it down so much it started plastering it over her eyes. Grumbling, Rarity liberated a palm tree of one of its fronds, stripped off the vanes, and weaved them together into a makeshift bandana. She wrapped it around her head just beneath her horn, and the stiffness of the fronds kept her heavy mane propped up and out of her eyes. Smiling, she wiped a little excess muck off of the hair around her lips. “On second thought, perhaps a mirror wouldn’t be too bad. If there’s anypony who could completely own a palm bandana, it would be moi.” Moments later, she groaned and slapped a hoof to her head. “What am I saying, earthy colors were last season. Or are they back in vogue again? Oh, curses, I’ve been so removed from the fashion scene on these stupid islands that I won’t even know what’s trendy when I return! I’ll be behind for seasons!”’
The clattering and clanging of the noisemakers ringing through the darkness of the island snapped Rarity out of her fashion designer woes. “Right, I have a job to do, don’t I?” she murmured to herself. Using the sounds of the noisemakers to orient herself, Rarity began to creep back through the jungle toward the pirate camp, almost perfectly backtracking the maddened dash for her life she’d made the night prior. “Luna, please keep me safe under the darkness of your night. I could really use a favor right now…”
-----
Rainbow Dash frantically tried to maneuver her legs and the nailed board into useful positions to cut her bindings. With only one blood-soaked wing free to help maneuver herself around, she struggled to even get the leverage she needed to start working on her bindings.
The rain slowly started to patter down onto the camp. Rainbow heard every drop smack against the top of the lean-to with frightening clarity. The palm trees rustled, moaned, and waved as the wind continued to pick up at a steady rate. For the moment, it was directed away from the opening of her lean-to, keeping her and Coals safe from the rain. But Rainbow knew winds like this could change in an instant, and in an instant she could be soaked to the bone.
She couldn’t see Squall anymore from the position she’d worked herself into, and that worried her. Her heart pounded harder and harder with each passing second, knowing that she only had a short window of time to free herself before the pirate captain decided to see what she was up to. And even then, Rainbow didn’t know what she was going to do once she broke free. Could she fight Squall off and escape the camp with Coals? She didn’t know if she could. If Squall saw her coming, she’d merely grab the pegasus with her magic and stop her before she could get in close, like she’d already done once before on the airship. And even still, Squall was armed and Rainbow wasn’t. The pirates certainly hadn’t left much in the way of weapons inside of her lean-to. And she simply knew that she wasn’t going to have the time to search through the other when she escaped.
But for the moment, her first priority was severing the ropes tying her hooves and wing together. If she could just slice through one of the coils, the rest would come apart. So she worked and worked, chipping away at the hemp fibers with the tips of the rusty nails, praying that she could finish her work before she was discovered.
And around the edges of the campsite, the sand stirred and shifted….
Gyro bit down on a length of rope and pulled her head back, fighting against the friction and weight of the rope to force it to move. Somewhere out in front of her, hidden in the darkness of the night, metal plates rattled on the rope, adding another burst of noise to the already noisy night. She released the rope and held her breath, her ears straining to pick up the sounds of pirates moving and shouting to each other through the foliage of the jungle.
After counting to fifteen, Gyro looked over the ropes arranged in front of her. There were six in all, and each one had its end tied to a log so they wouldn’t get away from her. Selecting the fifth rope, she pulled back on it, and another clanging clatter erupted even further into the jungle. The pirates shouted in frustration, and once more she heard them moving to somewhere else. Giggling, she shifted slightly where she laid and set her hooves on the sixth rope down the line. She knew she was having too much fun with it, but she didn’t really care. It felt great to be getting back at the pirates in little ways.
But she still had to be careful. Rarity had scavenged a lot of rope from the wreckage, but it wasn’t infinite. As best as Gyro could tell, she was barely more than a hundred and fifty feet away from the pirates. If they found the ropes leading back to her position, she wouldn’t be able to stand up and flee to safety before they got to her. For now, she was the one in control, but there was the very real danger that she’d be discovered and killed if the pirates happened to look up.
Which was why she needed to be careful with the ropes she pulled. They needed to be close enough to lure the pirates onwards, but not too close that they’d pinpoint the noise as coming from above them. Though Rarity had done a good job hiding the panels in the palm trees, and the darkness of the night further masked them, they weren’t entirely concealed. And once the ruse was discovered, it was all over.
Gyro took a deep breath and cycled through the next rope. There wasn’t much she could do except keep at it, so keep at it she did.
-----
Rarity moved low and slow toward the pirate camp. She could see the glow of the campfire up ahead, and even though she couldn’t hear any voices coming from it, she remained slow and steady. She kept the knife they’d brought over from their home island in her teeth, unwilling to hold it in her magic and give her position away. She was unwilling to hold it at all, hoping that she wouldn’t have to use it, but it was better to be prepared in case she found herself backed into a corner. After all, it was unlikely her distraction had lured all of the pirates out of their camp. There still had to be one or two close by.
Perhaps it was coincidence, or maybe her hooves simply retraced their steps from the night prior, but Rarity once more found herself approaching the group of rocks she’d used to scout the pirate camp out before. This time, however, she was more careful in her approach, and made sure her hooves were on solid ground before she tried to advance. She really didn’t need to give herself away before entering the camp tonight.
Almost as soon as she got into position, however, she heard the plants rustling around her. Sucking in a sharp breath, Rarity pressed herself as low and flat against the rocks as possible, hoping her camouflage and low profile would hide her in the middle of the night. Moments later, she saw two pirates moving out of some ferns, the steel of their weapons glistening in the reflected light of the campfire.
“What do you think this is all about?” one of them grumbled to the other. “Do you really think the other ponies are behind this?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” the other responded. “They might have been hoping to pick us off a little at a time. But Flag took four with him, so they’ve bit off more than they can chew. They’ll get cut to ribbons if they try to jump his group.”
“Good. If only we’d caught that dumb bitch last night. Then there would’ve been one less to worry about.”
“Give it time. We’ll outlast them. We’ve got all the weapons and a murder machine for a captain. What have they got?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing. Exactly. They’ve got a bunch of rocks and that’s it. We’ll see how far that gets them.”
“Rocks or not, they’re pissing me off. It’s starting to rain harder now. I’d rather be inside, not walking around out here doing nothing…”
Their voices faded away as they passed by Rarity’s rocks. The unicorn let out a sigh of relief. Thank Celestia her camouflage had been good enough. Or should she thank Luna instead? One was certainly helping her much more than the other right now…
Sliding forward on the rock, Rarity looked the pirate camp over. Everything there was quiet and still, or as still as it could be with the rain and wind shaking the trees and sand around it. The fire crackled in defiance of the steady rain, and its warm light reminded Rarity of just how chilly she was. Though the mud had provided an excellent insulating layer protecting her body from the rain, it was still cool and uncomfortable. A fire sounded nice about now, but the pony sitting next to the fire chased those thoughts out of Rarity’s mind.
She immediately recognized the blood red coat and gray mane of the mare sitting in the sand. Despite the cacophonous roaring and banging of metal through the jungle, despite the wind and the rain, the pirate seemed perfectly content to sit in the open by the fire. She didn’t even seem fazed at all.
Rarity quietly cursed to herself. Squall’s mere presence jeopardized the entire rescue operation. So long as she sat in the camp, Rarity doubted she’d be able to sneak in and out to rescue Rainbow. And to top it all off, she still didn’t know where Rainbow was being held. But these were pirates, and she doubted they would have given her the luxury of shelter. Which meant the most likely place had to be inside one of the lean-tos she couldn’t see into.
That was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hoof, the lean-tos were closer to Rarity than the other buildings. On the other, they were entirely exposed to the center of the camp, and to Squall herself. If Rarity had any hope of getting Rainbow out of the camp, she’d need to deal with the pirate captain first.
She suddenly became very aware of the taste of wood on her tongue. The blade of the knife glinted in the light of the fire like a beacon begging to be used.
“I’m not a murderer,” she whispered to herself. “I’m not a murderer…”
Visions of the minotaur calf she’d spared flitted across her mind. She’d done the right thing then, she was sure of it, but it’d nearly cost her and Rainbow and even Gyro their lives. Could she do the same thing again, knowing that Squall wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if she got the chance?
She could almost taste the blood in her mouth. One thrust from behind and it’d be over. She could probably kill the mare from here if she threw the knife accurately. A clean hit to the throat would end it all instantly.
“I’m not a murderer,” Rarity repeated to herself. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t another way.
Sliding off the rocks, Rarity used the cover of the shadows to advance on the pirate camp, while around her, the wind shifted and changed, throwing rain onto the sands of the pirate camp.
Rarity crept toward the pirate camp as stealthily as she could, forcing herself to make the agonizing trade of speed for stealth so as not to give away her position. Though she wanted to go straight to the lean-tos and check them out, she forced herself to detour around the perimeter of the camp. First, she had to incapacitate Squall in some way. Only then could she actually move on Rainbow and free her before the other pirates returned.
But navigating around the edge of the pirate camp was taking much longer than Rarity had originally anticipated given how slow her progress was. She could still hear the patrol out in front of her, and they were already taking their sweet time in walking around the camp, probably trying to linger beneath the canopies of the trees as much as possible to shield themselves from the rain. If Rarity went any faster, she’d end up too close to them for comfort. At the very least, she could still hear Gyro’s distraction clattering through the trees, so the other pirates wouldn’t be back at the camp for a while yet.
When she was about halfway to the other side of the pirate camp, Rarity stopped and surveyed the situation. The rain and wind provided a slight haze over the camp, doing their best to kill the fire, and causing the sand to stir in strange little patterns around the camp’s perimeter. Squall still sat in front of the fire, nearly unmoving, her weapons laid out in the sand in front of her, apparently unfazed by the rain and wind. But Rarity’s eyes immediately locked on the figures huddled under a lean-to at the other side of the camp. She caught the barest glimpse of blue coat and colorful hair behind a tarp, wiggling slightly, while next to it, a black figure lied crumpled on the sand. Rarity felt her heart skip a beat, and she leaned a little closer as if that would help her make out more detail. Rainbow she recognized easily enough, but who was the other pony next to her? Another survivor? Were they even still alive?
At the very least, the tiny motions Rainbow made did wonders to calm Rarity down. Her marefriend was still alive, though what she was doing behind that tarp, Rarity didn’t know. But she wouldn’t be moving at all if she was gravely injured, right?
The wind howled in a sudden gust. The rain began to pick up. It fell in steady sheets now, and soon tiny rivulets began to run off the roofs of some of the structures the pirates had built. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled, soft and very far away.
Rarity didn’t expect the pirates on patrol to stay out there too long, even if they were ordered out into the jungle by their captain; sooner or later, their misery at being wet and cold would override their fear of reprisal and they’d come crawling back to the warmth of the fire. She needed to act now, and thankfully for her, the storm would cover up the sounds of her hooves marching across the sand.
Her horn lit up, the hum hushed by the rain pattering through the trees, and she grabbed a sizable stone in her magic. Biting down on her lip and holding her breath, Rarity carefully advanced into the pirate camp, using the buildings for shelter as much as she could. When she was about fifteen feet behind Squall, she raised the stone into the air, ready to drive it into the back of the pirate’s skull and knock her out.
“You get one chance.” Squall’s voice made Rarity jump, nearly dropping the stone. The pirate calmly looked over her shoulder, water dripping from the corners of her tricorn hat, her wet mane plastered against her neck and back. She looked Rarity in the eyes and smiled. “Go on. One chance to knock me out cold. Kill me, if you want. But if you don’t, it’ll be your head on my sword.”
Rarity swallowed hard. “I just want Rainbow Dash,” she said. “I just want her back.”
Squall’s eyebrow rose. “You do, don’t you?” She turned her eyes forward again, and her ears slowly swiveled across the campsite. “Then that racket out there is your doing, somehow.”
“So what if it is?” Rarity took a hesitant step closer, but the slightest twitch of Squall’s ears made her flinch back two. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“Depends on who you ask.” Squall nonchalantly cracked her neck from side to side. “I think it worked perfectly. After all, it brought you to me, stupid, alone, and about to die.”
Rarity let her eyes drift to the lean-to, but all she could see was Rainbow’s tail, twitching back and forth. She was surprised Rainbow hadn’t said anything yet. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“Hit me,” Squall insisted. She even touched the back of her head with a hoof. “Right there. Hit me as hard as you can. I won’t even move.”
Numerous red flags went up in Rarity’s mind. There had to be something more to this. Something she wasn’t seeing. Squall wouldn’t just surrender like that, not when she had all those weapons… right?
It didn’t add up, and that worried Rarity. She took another wary step or two backwards, looking for something she missed. But there was nothing, save for the rain and the wind shifting the sand around the pirate captain’s hooves, and the smoke of the fire twirling and dissipating as the wind carried it away from the camp.
Squall’s magic appeared around one of her pistols, and a little gem on the side glowed. Rarity recognized it as a ruby from her years of hunting for gemstones, and from Twilight she knew they were particularly strong at catalyzing fire magic. She realized that even in the rain, so long as Squall’s pistols were preloaded before the powder could get wet, the gemstone would allow them to fire with ease.
Instinct overrode reason in that instant. Rarity didn’t want to wait and see what Squall was going to do with that pistol, even if it was something as simple as holstering it. Her horn surged with blue magic, and the stone in her grasp flew toward the back of Squall’s head.
That’s when the sands around her suddenly lunged out of the ground, engulfing the rock before it could connect. Rarity flinched backwards as it fell back to the ground, carrying the rock with it, burying it beneath the earth. Grinning and giggling, Squall stood up, and the sand swirled around her hooves as she did so. “You should have paid more attention,” she said, turning to face Rarity. “I’m surprised an eye for detail such as yours missed the obvious. Did you stop to wonder how I knew you were here without even seeing or hearing you? Surely you knew that the rain was too loud for me to hear, and you approached me from my blindside. Doesn’t that seem odd?”
Rarity backpedaled, suddenly fearful of the very ground she stood on. The sand rippled and coiled out from Squall like vipers of sediment, occasionally rising into the air as pale tendrils before collapsing back to the ground again. Squall laughed as she marched relentlessly on Rarity, pure malice burning in her eyes like the flames of Tartarus. “Never underestimate your opponent, Rarity. I didn’t become a captain of a band of pirates by being the most liked. I got here by being the most vicious. I can kill ponies with my mind. I won’t even need a weapon to kill you.” She stopped, and the sand rose up above her head at the beckoning of her horn. “Can you say the same?”
Swallowing hard, Rarity readied her knife. Adrenaline shot through her veins preparing her for what would come next.
And across from the camp, a scratchy voice cried out:
Rarity’s heart raced. It pounded in her chest so hard she feared it’d try and escape between her ribs. Her muddy coat stood on end, and her hooves tingled under her adrenaline-sharpened senses. This had all gone so wrong, and now here she was, staring certain death in the face.
The sands waved and shifted around Squall, animated by her horn, tendrils coiling and unfurling like serpents ready to strike. Rarity had little doubt in her mind that the pirate captain’s magic made them exceptionally lethal. A quick count led her to conclude that Squall could only easily control four at a time, judging by the number she held around her head. But what about the sand around her hooves? Rarity didn’t know what to expect, other than she was hopelessly outmatched.
Outmatched, but maybe not outsmarted…
The first tendril of sand lashed out at her, and Rarity scrambled to the side, barely managing to slide out of the way. The sand slammed into the ground, where it dissipated into its surroundings, only for Squall to raise another one by her side. Rarity staggered back onto her hooves, never losing her grip on the knife, knowing that she’d probably need it sooner or later. In the meanwhile, she continued to buy time, pacing backwards and trying to figure out some way to neutralize Squall. To do that, she’d have to get past the animated sand—somehow.
Squall giggled and laughed. “I’ll admit, beating and torturing your friend has been fun, but nothing gets the adrenaline moving better than a fight.” Her hooves paced forward one at a time, each one deliberately placed to feel intimidating. “It’s been a little while. I almost wish the other survivors hiding on these islands would come at me just so I can fight again. I’ll admit, that’s who I thought originally set this up. I was expecting three or four ponies to attack my camp, not one.”
She was talking instead of fighting; Rarity decided that was a good thing. It gave her time to maneuver around to the lean-tos and look for something to attack Squall with. “I didn’t even know there were other ponies on these islands apart from your crew until today,” she admitted. “I thought it was just you pirates when I found your camp last night. Your crew couldn’t catch me.”
The pirate captain paused and cocked her head. “You were at my camp last night and my crew didn’t tell me?” She shook her head. “Disappointing. I might have to discipline them when I’m done with you.” Her horn surged, and two vipers of sand lashed out at Rarity. The fashionista yelped and scurried away, dodging one, but not the other. It blasted across her back, scouring mud and coat from her now incredibly raw skin. Rarity tripped and fell onto her side, but immediately rolled back onto her hooves when the sand around her began to shift. Spikes appeared from where she’d lied moments before, missing her soft white body by little more than inches. But again, Rarity found her hoofing and readied her knife, for all the good that would do her.
She’d managed to maneuver herself around the campsite so that she was near the lean-tos, if not yet within distance to do anything with them. Swallowing hard, she spared a moment to glance into the nearest one, spotting a bundle of swords wrapped in fabric. A desperate thought quickly tore them out of the cloth, and soon Rarity had four cutlasses and a knife in her magic to match Squall’s sand serpents.
“Do you even know how to use those?” Squall taunted with a laugh. “They’re tools for big mares, not dainty fillies like yourself.”
“Fencing is a common sport among the nobility,” Rarity answered. “I may not be among the nobility, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn how.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it wasn’t quite a lie either. While Rarity had taken a few fencing lessons, they were so few and long ago that she’d nearly forgotten all of them. But maybe some muscle memory would come back to her, or at the very least, whatever Rainbow had taught her about sword fighting the few times they’d practiced on their home island would help her out here.
Squall immediately tested her with another two sand tendrils. They lashed out at Rarity, one high and one low, and she moved her swords in response. Thankfully for her, she had one advantage she hadn’t expected; years of dressmaking had left her horn so precise and finely tuned that she had complete control over where she moved the weapons in her grasp, and she was able to intercept the sand before it struck her. The simple cutlasses split the sand apart, and whatever magic Squall used to animate them dissipated as it mingled with steel and Rarity’s own magic. Though Rarity took a nervous step back during the attack, her success at blocking it instilled a little confidence into her.
Rarity capitalized on her mote of newfound bravado by advancing two steps, her weapons circling around herself as she readjusted her stance. “I’ve fought off a changeling swarm during the invasion of Canterlot years ago. A single, cocky pirate shouldn’t be that much different.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Squall said, her grin widening along with the positioning of her legs. “I haven’t even gotten started.”
Rarity swallowed hard, but nevertheless readied herself for the next attack. “Shall we dance, then?”
-----
Rainbow watched the scene unfolding before her with an icy fist of fear squeezing around her gut. Not fear for herself, but fear for Rarity. She knew Squall was just toying with her right now, but it’d only last so long before the pirate captain decided she was bored of the game. Rainbow had to get out there and help Rarity before it was too late.
Growling in frustration, she returned to working on her own bindings. She’d managed to saw halfway through the ropes around her legs, but she still had a ways to go. Thankfully for her, the ropes began to fray and split apart on their own now that she’d reached their core, so it wouldn’t be too much longer before she was free.
A finger of dizziness and nausea probed her mind, but Rainbow shook her head and forced it out. She could hear the sounds of sand and steel meeting just outside her lean-to as Rarity tried to parry Squall’s onslaught. She didn’t dare look for too long, otherwise she knew that her worry for Rarity would end up distracting her from her own task. She just had to cut through the ropes and make herself useful as fast as possible. If she waited too long, either Squall would kill Rarity, or the other two pirates still nearby would return to camp and help Squall kill Rarity. There wasn’t any time to lose.
A snap suddenly issued forth from between Rainbow’s legs, and the ropes binding everything together loosened. Grinning, Rainbow pulled her stiff legs apart, pure ecstasy flowing down her limbs as she finally moved and stretched them for the first time in a day and a half. Her legs trembled as she flexed and relaxed them, and with shaky hooves, she managed to crawl to a standing position.
Out in the center of the camp, Squall continued to pursue Rarity across the sands, but Rarity had maneuvered herself to a position where Squall’s back was turned to Rainbow, intentionally or not. Rainbow wasted no time springing into action now that she had the element of surprise. Snatching the length of rope she’d just broken free from in her teeth, she spread her wings and charged across the sand at the pirate captain, the rain and wind immediately drenching her to the bone. She managed to close the gap to about fifteen feet before Squall suddenly turned in place and sent a tendril of sand lashing out at Rainbow.
Eyes widening in alarm, Rainbow immediately used her wings to hurl herself to the side, barely skirting past the sand snake before it could connect with her chest. She struck the wet sand once and carried her momentum back onto her hooves, using her wings to balance her landing, and slid about three or four inches across the ground. Rarity immediately rushed to her side, and though both ponies wanted nothing more than to hug and hold each other after their time spent apart, they still had a rabid pirate queen to deal with. They only spared each other a nod and a smile before shifting their attention back to Squall.
Squall’s grin simultaneously widened and took on a furious edge. “Two against one? That hardly seems like a fair fight,” she spat, rain beginning to waterfall off her tricorn hat as the storm redoubled in intensity and the thunder began to boom louder over the islands. Wet sand clung to her legs and her thin silk blouse, the water making it nearly see through against her blood-red coat. The sand had spattered up into her face, staining her cheeks and the hair around her muzzle in thick, grayish globules.
Rainbow’s eyes shifted to the sand Squall animated at her sides. Blinking, she realized that they didn’t seem as light or agile as they were before. In fact, they looked muddy and heavy, and realization dawned on her. “Can’t work the sand that easily in the rain, can you?” she taunted Squall. “Pretty soon it’s gonna be too wet for you to do anything with.”
“You underestimate my power,” the pirate hissed, and she attacked in a frenzy, whipping sand tendrils at Rarity and Rainbow both. Rarity held her ground and cut through the tendrils flung at her, while Rainbow used her wings and her mobility to evade the two thrownin her direction. But almost as soon as Squall’s attacks failed, she raised more sand and continued to press the onslaught, keeping Rainbow on the move and forcing Rarity to yield ground to compensate. Rather than stay out in the open, Rainbow immediately sought the nearest structure and landed behind it, sheltering herself from the sand as Squall railed against the hut in a series of attacks. That all but confirmed to Rainbow that the rain had made the sand too heavy for Squall to animate and lift into the air higher than her horn.
Thankfully for her, Rainbow still had her rope. Taking a moment to sit on her flanks, Rainbow quickly tied the loose ends around her forelegs and made sure it was taut at a shoulder width apart. Then, spreading her wings, she flew straight up into the night sky, using the low clouds and the darkness of the night to shield herself from the camp. Now effectively out of range of the sand and Squall’s senses, Rainbow hovered and chose her moment carefully.
Which infuriated Squall. “Running away, are we?” she spat, though she doubled her efforts on Rarity, who’d given up on trying to parry and block the attacks and was now fleeing for her life between the buildings. “Come back and fight me, mare to mare! You don’t have the ovaries to fight me face to face, do you?”
Rainbow stopped herself from responding to Squall’s taunts; so long as Squall didn’t know where she was, she had an advantage that she couldn’t afford to squander. Repositioning to the other end of the camp, Rainbow set her sights on the pirate below, folded her wings, and let gravity do its work.
The pirate didn’t hear her coming until the last moment, but by then, Rainbow already had the rope aimed at Squall’s neck. Twisting her body as she passed, Rainbow managed to loop it around the pirate’s neck, just below her jaw, and used her momentum to drag them both to the ground. Squall hissed, spat, and sputtered as Rainbow tried to tighten the makeshift garrote around her neck, but the larger and stronger pirate never stopped bucking and flailing and kicking. Her horn burned red and magic started clawing at Rainbow’s back, searching for something to grab onto before it locked around her wing and started to pull. The sucking pain in her shoulders built up more and more and more until it was almost unbearable, and Rainbow screamed in pain and exertion as she tried to withstand Squall’s magic while keeping the garrote tight around the pirate’s neck. “Rarity!” she wailed, “Do something!”
Rarity galloped out from behind the lean-to she’d been using as shelter and launched herself at Squall, knife at the ready. Before she could get in close and drive the knife into Squall’s ribs, however, the pirate flopped to the ground and rolled, taking Rainbow with her and putting the pegasus between her body and the knife. Rarity immediately pulled the knife away and halted her charge so as not to hurt Rainbow, yielding her initiative and allowing Squall more time to act. The pirate’s horn surged again, and Rainbow cried out in agony before surrendering her chokehold on Squall’s neck. Now no longer locked to the pirate’s body, Squall’s magic merely flung Rainbow across the camp instead of tearing her wing from her socket. The pegasus instead impacted the side of Squall’s hut and crashed straight through it, the palm frond walls and roof no match for her sudden weight.
Squall coughed and clambered to her hooves, where she immediately used the wet sand to deflect stabs from Rarity’s swords and knife. Frothing at the mouth, she slammed her hooves onto the ground, causing a showering cascade of sand spikes to erupt out of it in Rarity’s direction. Rarity staggered backwards, narrowly escaping the attack, but not before two or three could shallowly pierce her skin and send fingers of salty pain into her chest.
Whatever amusement the pirate captain might have had toward the fight was gone. She practically frothed and foamed at the mouth as the sand spikes receded into the ground. “Playtime’s over, you cunts! I’ll rip you to pieces and shit on your corpses! You’ve overstayed your welcome, so die!”
The sand around her practically erupted as she channeled a new surge of energy into it. Rarity squealed and rolled for cover behind one of the lean-tos, while Rainbow darted out of Squall’s hut before the sand swallowed it whole. Once more taking wing, she managed to avoid the worst of the blast, instead only ending up showered with debris and sand that burned her skin and rubbed it raw.
She swallowed hard and gained altitude, working out the soreness in her wing. “Here goes round two…"
Rarity panted and groaned, dragging herself out of the wet sand and back onto her hooves. Her body ached from numerous cuts and wounds from Squall’s last attack, many of which were gently oozing blood through the mud covering her coat. Grimacing, she collected her weapons from the ground and readied them, her attention falling on the lone figure standing in the middle of the camp.
Squall hardly looked like a pony anymore. If anything, Rarity would’ve called her a rabid animal. Though she had four hooves and a horn she looked like a wild dog, panting through clenched teeth, her eyes burning with fury, her wild mane plastered to her face. She’d lost her signature tricorn hat when Rainbow had tried to strangle her, and it only added to the effect. With the rain falling in thick sheets now and thunder and lightning dancing across the sky, Squall looked downright terrifying—even more so than usual.
The pirate spat out a red glob of spittle, and Rarity noticed that her teeth were nearly as red as her coat; she must’ve bitten her tongue or cheek when Rainbow tried to strangle her. “Some ponies don’t know when to call it quits,” Squall growled, once more advancing on Rarity. “Some ponies just don’t know when they should die. Allow me to help you!”
Once more, the animated sand shifted and rose, but Rarity noticed that it was heavy and sluggish. The pouring rain had weighed it down so much that Squall could hardly animate it into something lethal anymore. When the pirate loosed two vipers at her with a howl, it took Rarity hardly any effort to parry them and attack with her own swords. Squall still managed to raise a sand shield to protect herself from the attacks, but with a howl of frustration, she dropped the sand to the ground as soon as the immediate danger passed. The red mare brushed gray locks of mane out of her face with a fetlock, and her magic reached for her weapons.
Rarity withdrew to a safer distance as Squall armed herself with her twin cutlasses and holstered her four pistols to shield them from the rain. “I’ve been trying too hard to get fancy with you.” Squall methodically advanced on Rarity, her twin swords spinning at her sides like rotor blades. “I should’ve switched to the basics long ago. Let’s keep this simple, shall we?”
A twitch in her haunches gave Rarity a split second warning before Squall pounced on her, brandished swords ready to cut through her defenses. They moved like lightning, almost too fast for Rarity to track and predict. Her only saving grace came from the fact that she had twice as many swords as her opponent, and she almost needed the second sword to block each swing. Steel rang out into the rainy night sky as the cutlasses clashed in a cascade of sparks, briefly shedding flickering illumination across the two unicorns’ faces as they battled back and forth across the sand.
Squall was almost like a ballerina as she fought, albeit a deadly one. She didn’t keep her hooves rigidly planted in the sand and let her magic manipulate her swords like Rarity, but moved back and forth with her blades, darting first to one side, then the other, forcing Rarity to surrender ground and try to keep her front facing her opponent. Every so often, she’d dart in and slap Rarity in the face with a hoof or deliver a punch to her chest, staggering the seamstress and trying to capitalize on an opening. More through sheer luck than skill, Rarity kept Squall’s swords away from her body, but she knew she couldn’t keep it up forever.
Rainbow Dash chose that moment to come careening into the pirate from above, divebombing her and using her hooves to bowl the pirate over. Squall’s limbs flailed as Rainbow sent her flying across the campsite, but the pirate righted herself after only a few seconds of rolling across the wet sand. Her red body launched sprays of sediment into the air, and she barely managed to ready her cutlasses before Rarity took the opportunity to press her own attack. The fashionista tried to turn Squall’s techniques against her, relentlessly swinging her swords from different sides while putting physical pressure on the pirate and forcing her back. It worked at first, and Rarity thought Squall’s teeth were going to crack with how hard she clenched them while she defended herself from Rarity’s four swords with only two of her own. But Rarity was careful not to overextend herself and give Squall an opening; she knew she just had to wait for Rainbow to come back and divebomb the pirate again to give her the opening she needed.
That changed when Squall backed near the fire. Her horn momentarily surged brighter, and her magic flung hot ash and coals into Rarity’s face. Squealing, Rarity fell back, the pain disrupting her focus, and Squall quickly reversed the situation on her, attacking with renewed vigor now that Rarity was half-blinded. Hissing through the pain, Rarity nevertheless had to focus her attention on Squall’s attacks, even if the hot ashes in her left eye kept it squeezed shut and her right eye was open barely more than a squint.
There was another yell from above, and Rainbow Dash attacked Squall again. This time, Squall jumped backwards, narrowly dodging Rainbow’s hooves, and drove one of her swords into the sand. Her red magic grabbed Rainbow’s leg before she could fly back up to safety, and snarling, she whipped the pegasus back into the ground. Rainbow groaned on the sand, dazed from the blow, but kipped up with a sloppy flourish of her wings when she heard Squall galloping at her. A sword slashed through the ground where she’d lain moments before, whipping sand past Rainbow’s body. With no weapons of her own to parry and deflect Squall’s attacks, Rainbow quickly turned tail and fled, trying to gain altitude before Squall’s magic dragged her back.
Thankfully for her, Rarity managed to wipe the ash out of her eyes and charge back into the fray. Though they still hurt from the dirty trick, and though Rarity was sure they were horribly bloodshot, she could at least see clearly again. The return of her swords to the combat forced Squall to focus her magic back on Rarity, though now she only had one sword to deflect Rarity’s four with. The pirate kept up a steady retreat, parrying and deflecting what she could, sidestepping what she couldn’t, but still somehow remaining just out of reach of Rarity’s attacks.
“Rarity!” Rainbow suddenly screeched from above, and Rarity immediately jumped backwards and to the side, trusting Rainbow’s warning. Moments later, Squall’s second sword flew in from the other side of the camp, narrowly missing her as it returned to the pirate’s grasp. Rarity’s heart skipped a beat; without Rainbow’s warning, it would have gone straight through her.
“It’s better to be good than lucky,” Squall hissed at Rarity, returning with a barrage of attacks of her own. Her hooves blurred across the sand as she changed stances and positions almost constantly, and Rarity knew it was only a matter of time before she got through her wall of blades. Even as she thought that, Squall brought two of her blades together like scissors, shattering one of Rarity’s cutlasses into fragments of steel. “Eventually, luck runs out!”
She feinted an attack to Rarity’s left, then withdrew two steps back and to the right. Before Rarity could reverse and press an attack of her own, Squall pulled out one of her pistols and fired it at point blank range. The boom of the gun blended into the rumble of the thunder, and Rarity fell to the ground with a startled cry.
Squall tossed her spent pistol aside and advanced on the downed mare, and meanwhile her eyes turned skyward. “I’ve got three more shots for you, little bird, so why don’t you join your friend down here and save me the powder?” She raised one of her swords over Rarity’s head, who was still struggling to get up, her panting muzzle stretched open and half-filled with sand as she gasped for air. “You two can build a nest together in Tartarus!”
A ferocious war cry made Squall’s ears twitch to the left, and Rainbow burst through the frond walls of the longhouse, tackling the pirate and sending them both tumbling across the sand. With the aid of her wings, Rainbow ended up on top, and she immediately set her hooves to work on remodeling Squall’s face. “You monster!” she screamed. “Leave her alone!”
Squall’s nose crunched under Rainbow’s hooves and blood began to seep into her crimson coat. The pirate gasped and sputtered, but Rainbow gave her no quarter. Squall’s horn flared to life, and Rainbow immediately dropped both hooves on it, chipping it and canceling whatever spell the pirate was about to cast. But in the process, she exposed her gut to Squall, who immediately drove a steel-shod shoe into it as hard as she could. Wheezing, Rainbow recoiled, and Squall threw a headbutt to her face, her sandy horn nearly gouging out Rainbow’s eye. Magic shoved Rainbow off her chest, and then Rainbow found herself standing about ten feet away from Squall, each mare sucking in air during a brief ceasefire in the fighting.
And then Squall grinned, the blood dripping from her lips making it look like her coat was melting off her skull. “You’re mad, aren’t you?” she taunted, her words slightly slurred from her broken nose and swelling lips. “She was important to you, was she?”
“I’ll kill you!” Rainbow spat at Squall. “You’re gonna pay for hurting her!”
“Good.” Squall cracked her neck and readied a single sword in her wavering magic. “I didn’t want you holding back anyway!”
Rainbow Dash glared Squall down from across the campsite. The rain fell in thick, smothering sheets, almost like they were standing beneath a waterfall. Every inch of Rainbow’s thin body was drenched, and whatever volume her blue coat usually gave her was flattened against her petite frame. Even worse, the rain and sand had finally worked its way into her feathers, severely limiting her mobility. Even if she took wing, she wouldn’t be able to move very fast with her feathers in such poor shape.
Thankfully, Squall seemed similarly handicapped. The chips Rainbow had put into her horn were obviously affecting her ability to wield her magic, and her telekinetic grip around her sword, though strong and stable, nevertheless flickered randomly in time with the sparks produced from the pirate’s alicorn. Her nose and mouth continued to drip blood, staining the white sands red, and sand was plastered to almost every inch of her body. But she still had that crazed, wild look in her eyes, and Rainbow knew the rabid pirate would happily fight hoof and nail to kill her. In fact, she was almost certain the pirate would’ve preferred it that way.
It didn’t matter.
Rainbow was furious. She wanted nothing more than to hurt and maim the pirate standing across from her. Her eyes slid to Squall’s left, where just a little bit away, Rarity still lied on the ground, her hooves weakly pawing at the sand and her eyes glazed over. The sight both sickened and terrified her. She’d already seen Squall shoot Coals today, and the stallion was teetering on the brink of death behind her. Though Rarity looked more active, Rainbow didn’t know where Squall had shot her. It didn’t matter; she worried for her life all the same.
“What are you waiting for?” Squall snarled. “Nervous? Or do you just want to watch her bleed?”
A red haze of rage began to cloud over Rainbow’s mind, but a spark of reason stayed her from simply charging at Squall unarmed. Wings fluttering almost uselessly at her sides, Rainbow quickly bounded over to one of Squall’s dropped swords. She didn’t have much time to prepare herself, though; almost as soon as she had her mouth around the hilt of the sword, Squall was on top of her, sword wildly cutting through the air. Rainbow whipped her head to the side, yanking the sword out of the sand and blocking Squall’s attack in one motion. She was able to force the magically manipulated sword away and flutter back three steps before Squall could set on her again. There, feeling the sword in her mouth, Rainbow allowed herself to get comfortable with the sandy weapon and slotted it into the gap between her teeth, locking it in place.
Squall fell on Rainbow like a savage beast, swinging and slashing, her sword flashing in the light of the campfire and the glow of the heavens like lightning on the earth. Rainbow kept her wings open at her side for balance as she worked on parrying Squall’s attacks, twisting and craning her neck in a desperate attempt to keep up with Squall’s sword. Sparks flew and showered across the sand, sizzling and dying almost as soon as they hit the wet tropical air. But Rainbow persisted through the beating, fighting off Squall with her limbs powered by adrenaline and rage alone.
But that didn’t put her on equal hoofing with Squall in a straight up fight. Though Rainbow had received some training as a Wonderbolt and a member of Equestria’s military by connection, Squall had been in fights. Squall had killed ponies. Squall had been fighting for longer than Rainbow had been an Element of Harmony. And under that rainy night sky, that difference swiftly made itself clear. A slash of Squall’s sword sliced a shallow flesh wound against Rainbow’s chest. A shoulder check sent Rainbow staggering backwards, and only with the balance and control her wings gave her did she pull back enough to not lose her throat on the tip of Squall’s blade. She never had a chance to press an attack of her own; her sword was tied up simply trying to hold back Squall’s.
Yet there was one thing she had that Squall and her magic lacked: two extra limbs. Though her wings were too waterlogged to fly, they were still appendages she could manipulate while she used her mouth to fend off Squall’s attacks. Taking a step back, Rainbow planted her right rear hoof in the ground and used her right wing to fling wet sand at Squall. The sudden attack caught the pirate by surprise, and Rainbow immediately lunged at her, scoring a deep cut on Squall’s right shoulder and down across her ribs before the pirate shoved her away with her magic.
Thunder boomed, nearly deafening, as the two mares reset. By now, the noise of the storm was so loud Rainbow couldn’t even hear the crashing noises going on through the jungle. She doubted anypony could even hear her struggle with Squall unless they were right outside the camp. She didn’t know what had happened to the two ponies Squall sent away to patrol the perimeter, nor the pirates the noise had led away, but they hadn’t returned yet. That in itself was a blessing; if even one other pirate had joined the fight, her and Rarity would have lost immediately.
They still weren’t faring that much better, though. Both Rarity and Coals were on the ground from Squall’s guns, and Rainbow was quickly tiring. She wouldn’t be able to keep her duel with Squall up for much longer. She knew she had enough energy for two more exchanges with the pirate captain… maybe three. If she didn’t find an opening then, it was all over.
It was now or never.
With a battle cry that stirred the blood of her warrior ancestors within her, Rainbow planted her wing crests in the ground and used them like extra legs to launch herself across the clearing at Squall. The pirate braced herself for the attack, moving her sword out a pony length in front of her muzzle, ready to intercept Rainbow’s charge before she reached her. But again using her wings for traction, Rainbow feinted one side and immediately reversed to the other, sliding around Squall’s sword. From there, she had an open path to Squall’s ribs.
Those few feet felt like an eternity to Rainbow. Her mind processed everything in the blink of an eye. The individual raindrops seemingly falling in slow motion. The flickering light of a lightning bolt arcing across the sky. The snapping waver of Squall’s horn as another burst of magic flared through it. How the very air itself began to crackle and shimmer as the pirate’s red magic began to manifest. The rippling of the pirate’s muscles beneath her silk blouse as she tried to dive away from Rainbow’s sword.
The cutlass shook in Rainbow’s mouth as it bit into solid flesh. The coppery smell of blood as steel split sinew and muscle. Her sword cut deep and true across Squall’s left side, spilling the pirate’s blood onto the sand. A strangled cry of pain escaped Squall’s throat from between her clenched teeth, and as Rainbow severed the muscles to her left foreleg, the pirate teetered and staggered.
And then she was behind Squall, sword as red as the pirate’s coat. There was a gasp of pain to accompany the booming of the thunder and the pattering of the rain on the sand. Rainbow relaxed as the sword quivered in her grasp, blood dripping off the end.
But there was no sound of a body hitting the sand.
The gasping continued, and Rainbow turned around, eyes wide with surprise. There, she saw something she didn’t think was possible: the pirate still stood, despite the river of blood pouring from her chest and her useless foreleg held limp and dead against the sand. Squall’s horn lit up, and her flickering magic pulled a flaming log out of the feeble fire. Then, screaming through the pain, she seared the gash in her chest, slowing the bleeding to little more than an oozing trickle. The smell of burnt hair and cooked pony flesh nearly made Rainbow vomit.
Squall dropped the log in the sand, where it sizzled and blackened the sediment around it, and her magic once more readied her trembling sword. “Is that all you’ve got?” she hissed through clenched teeth. “You’re gonna need to do better than that.”
Rainbow swallowed hard. She wasn't sure if she could.
The whole world was bells and high-pitched ringing.
Rarity whimpered on the ground. For the past eternity, she’d been curled in the fetal position as somepony tried to drill into her brain with a screwdriver. The ringing wouldn’t stop, and another nauseous convulsion wracked her body from the continuous stimulation overload. It made the cool, wet sand beneath her body feel so infinitely far away, like she was floating in a void, a void filled with bells.
But, little by little, the chimes finally began to ring their last. As the painful omnipresent noise started to silence itself, Rarity became more aware of her surroundings. She could feel the patter and kiss of rain on her face, the cold knives of the wind’s fingers through her coat, the coarse sand on her side. And she could finally identify the source of the pain giving her intense migraines. Raising her hoof to her head, she felt around her skull, grimacing at the blood sticking to her hoof, until she touched her right ear. She immediately hissed in pain and revulsion at the slightest touch, especially when she realized that it wasn’t there.
The realization made her want to cry and vomit at the same time: Squall had shot off her ear. No wonder the ringing and pain had put her down for the count, leaving Rainbow to fight the pirate alone for so long. And now she began to notice just how off the world sounded, how much different her perception of noise was with only one ear.
Then the practical part of her mind stepped in and quietly ushered those thoughts away. Her attention shifted back to the middle of the camp, where she heard a scream of pain. She saw Rainbow and Squall staring each other down, Rainbow’s sword covered with blood, but her eyes wide in alarm as Squall seared her own chest with a log she must’ve taken from the fire. “Is that all you’ve got?” the pirate taunted Rainbow, dropping the log in the sand with a furious hiss. “You’re gonna need to do better than that!”
Rarity swallowed hard. How long had the fight been going on? And how was Squall still standing? Rarity could see the wound and the blood from where she lied on the sand. There shouldn’t have been any possible way a pony could keep fighting through a wound like that. By the way she stood and carried herself, Rarity could immediately tell that the pirate couldn’t use her left foreleg, and the deep gash across her chest would’ve made it very difficult to move and twist her upper torso as well. Yet she still stood across from Rainbow, sword at the ready, bloodlust and rage filling her eyes.
Squall was no pony, Rarity realized, nor a rabid animal. She was a demon straight from Tartarus, driven mad by bloodlust. How could her and Rainbow possibly kill somepony like that?
To her continuing surprise, Squall was the first to advance on Rainbow, using her three legs to quickly and awkwardly close the gap between the two, her foreleg dragging uselessly across the sand. Though she couldn’t move as fast as she once did, she compensated for it with greater manipulation of her sword, quickly pushing it out and drawing it back in an irregular rhythm to prevent Rainbow from getting behind it or advancing too close. Rainbow shifted left and right as she tried to find a way past Squall’s defenses, but the pirate’s relentless pressure kept her circling around the camp, unable to close the distance.
Rarity knew she needed to help. Forget her missing ear; she could always cry about it later. What she couldn’t afford to lose was Rainbow herself, and she needed to engage the pirate now to help. Squall had left Rarity with her swords after she’d shot her, so Rarity quickly picked the three surviving weapons up again and began to stagger across the campsite to join the fray.
She’d hoped to jump Squall and take the pirate by surprise, but thanks to Rainbow’s frantic retreat from the crippled mare’s onslaught, Squall saw her before she could get close enough to strike. Snarling, she viciously jabbed at Rainbow, forcing her back, before she oriented herself to face both ponies. “Look who’s back,” she spat. “Want me to lop off your other ear?”
Rainbow’s head whipped to the side and she did a double-take. “Rarity! You’re alive!”
“Just dazed, darling,” Rarity said, her swords slowly spinning around her. “But I am still very much alive.”
“But… your ear…”
“I’m trying to save my vanity-fueled nervous breakdown for after this fight,” Rarity said, shooing her away with a hoof. Then, snarling at Squall, she marched across the sand to engage the pirate. “Early this night, I promised myself I wasn’t a murderer, that I wouldn’t kill ponies and betray who I am just to survive this nightmare. But you are no pony, Squall. You are a monster in a mare’s body, and I intend to split you open and show the world before I send you back to Tartarus myself!”
“You’ll die like everypony else,” Squall growled, beginning her own advance on Rarity. “You’re an upstart playing in the big leagues, and you’ll drown in a river of your own blood!”
Her red magic surged as she swung her sword at Rarity, but Rarity blocked it with her own cutlass. A grim smirk of confidence and anger took hold of Rarity’s muzzle, and she forced the pirate away with a twirl of her own weapon. “We shall see about that.”
-----
Gyro shivered in the cold and the rain. The storm had gotten so much worse, so quickly. The wind had turned all her chimes and noisemakers into a constant cacophony of noise. Her short mane was plastered to her face, and water dripped off her muzzle. The trees at least gave her a little cover from the most direct of the rainfall, but they weren’t nearly thick enough to keep her completely dry. That, and the rain came down so heavily that it would’ve gotten to her eventually.
She’d done all she could to run the noisemakers and keep the pirates away from the camp, and she’d been expecting Rarity and Rainbow to return any minute now. But there’d been no sign of either of her friends. To make matters worse, the pirates had quickly lost enthusiasm with the chase. They’d been huddled under a cluster of trees not too far away for the past five minutes, trying to avoid the worst of the storm while the jungle sang with metal plates crashing against each other. They were close enough that she could barely make out their conversations through the noise filling the night.
“This is awful. It fucking sucks.”
“There’s nothing out here. It’s just noise.”
“But where the fuck is it coming from? This is some spooky shit and I don’t want to be a part of it anymore.”
“It sounds like it’s coming from above us.”
“Yeah, I noticed it too. Hey—what’s that thing?”
“What thing?”
“Look, up there! Somepony raise a torch!”
There was a moment of silence, and Gyro’s heart practically seized up. She immediately began trying to stand, knowing that she was about to be discovered. Her walker and hind legs didn’t cooperate with her, and the mud tried to suck them back down into the ground. But at the very least, the loss of sensation below her waist meant that she couldn’t feel the cold and the rain on half her body…
“What the fuck is that shit?”
“It’s a bunch of panels tied to a rope.”
“Panels tied to a rope? What the fuck?”
“Cut it down. I want to take a look at this shit.”
Gyro continued to grimace and try to stand. The rain had half buried her walker in the mud, and with only her forelegs to leverage her body, it was proving incredibly difficult to get out of. And as she worked her way out, her eyes fell on the ropes tied in front of her when one suddenly went slack.
“What the fuck?”
“It’s only tied at one end.”
“Well, where’s the other go?”
“I think we should find out. We might find whoever did this.”
Gyro swallowed hard as she heard them approach. “I’d say fuck me, but…”
The pirates’ campsite began to pool with water. Rarity’s dainty white hooves splashed across shallow puddles as she and Squall traded blows. Their swords cried out into the night with the desperate shrieking of pained metal locked in a struggle of life and death. The dance of death continued, and Rarity could tell that it was moving into its final act. All three combatants were exhausted and wavering, and the mistakes were beginning to pile up for all parties involved.
Despite her grievous injuries, Squall managed to keep pace with both Rarity and Rainbow. The two friends tried to attack her from different sides constantly, but Squall merely fetched her second sword and kept both at bay from a defensive stance. She’d planted herself near the dying fire, using it as an obstacle to prevent Rainbow from attacking her hurt side, and her quick and strong magic kept up both her defenses while her eyes darted back and forth to keep track of both her opponents. Rarity didn’t know how the pirate didn’t make herself dizzy from doing it.
Though Rarity and Rainbow weren’t as exhausted or wounded as the pirate, they still lacked the raw skill needed to break through her defenses, even two on one. And even then, they weren’t without their own injuries and handicaps. Rainbow’s wings were by now so sand filled that she couldn’t use them for lift at all, instead relying on them for balance and the occasionally dirty trick. Rarity, meanwhile, was beginning to feel a sharp and cracking pain in her horn from the chip in it she’d received the day before. On top of that, her missing ear was beginning to severely discombobulate her. To her, it sounded like somepony had put a pillow over the right side of her head, muffling the noises her ear could hear, while her left still picked up sound as well as ever. The conflicting sensation had left her with a growing sense of dizziness and vertigo that was becoming harder to compensate for, not to mention the constant, throbbing spikes of pain shooting into her skull whenever she tried to move and point an ear that wasn’t there.
Squall fought like a caged beast, and the ferocity and viciousness of her fighting soon began to worry and frighten Rarity. Every lull in their attacks she would capitalize on, forcing one away with a dangerous flurry of attacks before she’d have to defend herself from the other. The pain and handicap she had to be suffering from the wounds Rainbow had inflicted on her didn’t seem to affect her at all. After almost five minutes of fighting the pirate by the campfire, Rarity started to wonder whether it was actually physically possible to defeat her, let alone kill her.
Squall’s horn surged, and she pulled out two of her three remaining loaded pistols. Rarity and Rainbow immediately bolted for cover behind one of the lean-tos just as the bark of one of the pistols joined the thunder in the night sky. The bullet tore through the fronds right between their huddled figures, thankfully not hitting either of them as it spun wildly off into the foliage around them.
Rarity took the moment to catch her breath. “How are we going to beat this mare?” she wheezed at Rainbow between pants. “We can’t even get close to her!”
“She’s literally too angry to die!” Rainbow bemoaned. “I almost cut her leg off and she acted like it’s nothing! She a crazy friggin’ psycho bitch who won’t give up!”
Rarity’s remaining ear perked at the sudden silence that had fallen over the camp, devoid of the pirate queen’s taunting or haggard breaths. Moments later, a pair of swords ripped through the frond walls of the lean-to, nearly splitting both ponies open. Rainbow and Rarity immediately scrambled in opposite directions, and Squall burst through the gap a split second later, bloody lips stretched wide in a gory smile. “It’s not nice to talk about ponies behind their backs!” she spat, and her second pistol poked through the gap as Rainbow and Rarity tried to escape. Rarity threw herself onto her side and slid around the corner of the lean-to as the second gun fired, and she heard the bullet whizz past her ear. Heart pounding, she swiftly picked herself back up onto her hooves and glared back at the pirate. “Stop shooting at me! I’m growing dreadfully sick of it!”
Squall sneered and drew her final loaded gun. “Stand still and I’ll stop!” she spat, taking aim at Rarity. But before she could, Rainbow tackled her from behind, barely missing Squall’s neck with her sword as the pirate instinctually dropped to her side and rolled across the sand, trying to shake Rainbow off of her. The two tussled and grappled on the ground, and Rarity immediately galloped back toward Squall to try and end it before she could escape from Rainbow’s weight. Yet the pirate continued to struggle, and with a crimson glow of her horn, flung Rainbow off of her and over the lean-to, nearly hitting Rarity in the progress.
Rarity’s horn surged blue, and her three swords briefly floated into the air before she stabbed all three of them down at Squall, who still had her back in the sand. The pirate hissed, and her two swords spun over her head, parrying all three attacks and forcing them to bite harmlessly into the sand at her side. Before Rarity could pull them out and attack again, Squall rolled to her hooves and started slicing at Rarity’s face. One slashed across her nose, making her snort and drawing her head back in shock, and the other cut down over her brow, nearly costing her an eye. Blood seared her eye, already still sore from the hot ash Squall had flung into it earlier, and half-blinded Rarity right in the middle of Squall’s onslaught.
A telekinetic shove knocked Rarity onto her back. She gasped as cold sand touched her shoulders, and with her heart racing a million miles a minute, she tried to locate her swords through the red staining her vision. She was defenseless and helpless, and she saw Squall looming over her, swords raised for a killing blow. Her red magic pinned Rarity to the ground, preventing her from moving, and she smiled, blood and spittle dripping from her split lips onto Rarity’s face.
There weren’t any witty comments. There was only hatred and rage. Her horn surged, and Rarity knew it was the end.
At least, until a wooden board with nails sticking out of it clubbed Squall across the cheek.
The squawk of genuine pain and surprise sounded wholly unnatural coming from the rabid pirate, and it caused her to drop her swords before she could stab at Rarity. One spun wildly off into the dark jungle undergrowth, and the other buried itself in the sand some distance away from the two of them. Rainbow Dash snarled as she pulled the plank out of Squall’s face, and once more she fell on top of the pirate. They struggled and writhed in the sand, each trying to kill the other with their bare hooves, while Rarity forced herself to sit up. Rainbow Dash had saved her life again, and now Rarity needed to return the favor. But more than that, she needed to end the fight now. Her and Rainbow couldn’t afford to let this fight go on any longer.
Her eyes fell on Squall’s gun, not too far away. It was the last one Squall had yet to fire; she could still see the ruby in the side glowing faithfully, waiting for a pull of the trigger. Snatching it in her blue magic, she pointed it at the pair of grappling ponies and swallowed hard, looking for an opening. She knew if she fired at the wrong moment, she could just as easily hit Rainbow instead of Squall. She needed to make sure that wouldn’t happen.
At first, it looked like Rainbow had the upper hoof. She sat on top of Squall, using both her forelegs to force the pirate’s muzzle into a shallow pool of water in an attempt to drown her. Though Squall fought and sputtered, she only had one foreleg to try to fight Rainbow off with, and it simply wasn’t doing the job. But then her horn came into play, and pushing against Rainbow’s face, she managed to buy the space she needed to get her muzzle out of the water.
Sucking down deep breaths, the terrifying fire in Squall’s eyes burned with renewed hatred. The direction of her magic reversed, and suddenly Rainbow’s face slammed into the water instead of Squall’s. The pirate captain rolled onto Rainbow’s back and used her weight to pin Rainbow to the ground, slowly choking the life out of the pegasus at the same time.
It was the opportunity Rarity had been waiting for. She aimed, squeezed her eyes shut, and pulled the trigger. The pistol’s recoil nearly threw itself out of her magic, and the bang was like a hammer applied directly to her already aching skull. But there was a rough cry of pain from in front of her, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Squall collapsed on the ground.
Rainbow rolled away from Squall as fast as she could, taking shelter at Rarity’s side and wiping mud and muck off her muzzle. Both ponies panted in silence, and Rarity dropped the gun from her grasp. They watched Squall’s limbs twitch once, twitch twice, twitch three times…
To their shock and horror, Squall started to rise again. Both mares tensed as the pirate started to climb to her hooves. Her blood was indistinguishable from her coat, and one shaky hoof at a time, she slowly turned to face Rarity and Rainbow. They drew back in shock and fear as Squall stared them down. The pirate opened her mouth to say something, coughed…
And then her eyes rolled back and her legs collapsed beneath her. Squall fell to the ground like a sack of flour, limbs twitching once more as she deflated like a balloon. Rainbow and Rarity watched in disbelief, expecting the pirate to jump up again at any second.
But she didn’t. Nearly a full minute dragged by, and Squall remained down for the count. Her hooves, about the only part of her they could still see beneath the foliage in the darkness of the night, were dead still.
Rarity let out a sigh of relief and hugged Rainbow, nuzzling the pegasus’ wet neck. They’d done it. Somehow, they’d finally done it.
Rainbow sat with her back to the ruined lean-to, Rarity held in one foreleg, the white unicorn’s nose pressed against her wet cheek. Little by little, her heart began to slow down, and weary exhaustion started to seep into her sore limbs. The wind whipping through the camp had mostly died down by now, and even the rain was beginning to let up. A fitting end for a wild night.
But they couldn’t stay there forever. As much as Rainbow wanted to do nothing more than just curl up into a ball and sleep by Rarity’s side, she knew she couldn’t. They’d have to move before the pirates came back, and they needed to start that process now.
Gently shrugging Rarity off her shoulders, Rainbow stood up and winced as she forced her sore and exhausted body to move. She immediately took a few hobbled steps forward in an attempt to catch her balance, coming to a stop with her waterlogged wings held out at her sides. Groaning, she whipped her head back and forth, the vertebrae in her neck cracking with each motion.
Behind her, Rarity did the same. Her beautiful white coat was covered in mud and blood, making her more gray and red than pearly ivory. Sniffling, she wiped some of the blood and grime off her face and gave Squall a wary look. “Is she… is she truly dead?”
“I hope so,” Rainbow muttered. Staggering forward, she reached Squall’s body and put a hoof on the pirate captain’s neck. She couldn’t feel a pulse or much of anything through the cold mud clinging to her hooves, but neither could she feel the rise and fall of the mare’s chest. The pirate’s body was so decorated in wounds and cuts that it was almost impossible to tell where the blood ended and her coat began. If nothing else, blood loss and exposure would ensure the pirate died in the next few hours if she somehow wasn’t dead already.
Rainbow spat on Squall and walked away, leaving the cold red body behind in the mud. “She’s dead,” she said. “I don’t know where exactly you shot her, but I don’t want to take a look. The sooner we can get away from that freak, the better. Let the ants eat her up for all I care.”
Rarity nodded, her eyes locked on Squall’s body. “I… I killed her.”
Smiling, Rainbow helped her marefriend stand. “You saved my life,” she told her. “You saved both our lives. Squall was a monster. Don’t feel bad about it. She’s not even worth our pity.”
Shivering, Rarity merely dipped her head. Rainbow gave her a hug and kissed her cheek, trying to soothe her. “Come on,” she whispered in Rarity’s ear—her only ear. “Let’s pick this place apart and get out of here.”
Slowly stepping away from Rarity, Rainbow retreated a few paces before walking around the lean-to and back into the center of the camp. The whole place had been trashed by the storm and the fighting, and the fire weakly guttered with barely more than a few tiny tongues of flame sticking out of the fuel. Despite the onslaught of the rain, somehow it had managed to survive through stubbornness and determination, much like her and Rarity.
Her attention fell on the other body currently lying in the vicinity of the camp. Wet wings flailing as she galloped over to him, Rainbow quickly sat down next to Coals and checked his vitals. To her infinite relief, she could still feel him breathing, unlike Squall. But it was weak, and she didn’t think he’d survive the night without immediate medical attention. But what could she do?
“Who is that?” Rarity asked, approaching Rainbow from behind. “One of the pirates? What happened to him?”
“He wasn’t just a pirate,” Rainbow said. Looking over her shoulder, she made eye contact with Rarity. “Remember that stallion Gyro told us about? How they tried to bang in every room at their trade school?”
“Yes, now that you mention it…” Rarity’s eyes fell on Coals, and a spark of understanding flickered to life within them. “Is that really him?”
“Yeah. Crazy stuff. He was on another ship when Squall’s crew attacked it before she was captain. They forced him to be their engineer and he’s been stuck with them since.” Her voice faltered and her face fell. “At least until Squall figured out he was planning on helping me. Then she shot him. He’s still alive, but…”
Rarity knelt down by Coals’ side and looked around. “I suppose that’s where she shot him,” she said with a grimace, hoof pointing at the hole in his side. “And I’m also going to suppose that the bullet wasn’t removed.”
“I don’t have the tools to do it,” Rainbow said. “He needs to get that bullet out and he needs stitches, otherwise he’ll just bleed to death. I’m amazed he hasn’t already.”
“He’s no earth pony, but he’s certainly tough.” Rarity’s horn lit up, and the wound in the stallion’s side began to glow. “If you can find me some thread and something to use as a needle, I can remove the bullet and stitch the wound together.”
Rainbow quickly covered the wound with her hoof. “Don’t pull the bullet out yet,” she warned Rarity. “Without those stitches, it’s the only thing slowing the bleeding. Like a cork or something.”
Rarity bit down on her lip and let her magic die away. “Okay. Then help me look for a needle and thread.”
“You might be asking for quite a lot there, Rares,” Rainbow said with a shake of her head. Nevertheless, she stood up and made her way into the lean-to. “They were keeping all their supplies in here. Let’s be quick before those other pirates come back.”
“They shouldn’t be back so long as Gyro keeps ringing those metal plates,” Rarity said, moving to the other lean-to and rummaging through supplies with her magic. “They drew the pirates out in the first place, and so long as she’s still ringing them, then they should still be out there on a wild goose chase.”
Rainbow blinked. “Uh, Rarity? I can’t hear them.”
“You can’t?” Rarity blinked and raised her head, her ear pointing in different directions. “I-I can’t tell, my head has been ringing nigh constantly…”
Rainbow swallowed hard. “Gyro can get away though, right?” she asked. “She’s a strong mare. I bet she could cave a pirate’s face in with a kick if they even got close to her.”
Rainbow’s jaw hung agape. She’d managed to survive her two days of suffering and torture in Squall’s camp on the hope that Rarity and Gyro were alright and looking for her. She hadn’t expected that they too had their share of terrible mishaps since making landfall. The possibility hadn’t even crossed her mind, but as soon as Rarity had said it, she knew the mare wasn’t playing some sort of joke on her. Rarity wouldn’t ever joke about something like that, despite how much Rainbow presently wished she did.
“We were trying to explore the piece of the hull you’d found on your flight over here,” Rarity explained. “We went looking for you when you didn’t return, and while we were there, Gyro suggested that we explore it for salvage. While she was inside, she knocked it off balance and broke her back in the fall. I’m sure you heard the loud boom when it hit the ground yesterday.”
Rainbow sat down and rubbed at her eyes with her wingtips. “Crap,” she muttered with a shake of her head. “I just can’t… she can’t walk or anything?”
“She can use her forelegs, but nothing below her waist,” Rarity said. The unicorn used her magic to pull open another canvas bag of supplies in her continuing hunt for a needle, thread, and first aid materials. “I had to carry her around the island to get her back to safety. She was all but incapable of moving on her own.”
“And you just left her out in the jungle to distract pirates while she can’t move?” Rainbow was dumbstruck. Surely this wasn’t as bad as all the signs seemed to be pointing to.
“What else could we do?” Rarity said, her voice rising in growing frustration. “We were desperate to find you because you wandered off somewhere without telling us, and when I figured out you were here last night, we put this plan together to rescue you before Squall decided torturing you had run its course! Celestia, I didn’t even know if you were still alive when I came here tonight!” Swallowing down her anger, Rarity tossed a sack back onto the sand and moved onto the next one. “And she’s not entirely immobile and defenseless. We built her a crude walker to support her hindquarters. It at least allows her some locomotion, even if it’s far from perfect.”
“Unless she can gallop away from pirates at top speed, I don’t think it’ll help her at all.” Groaning in frustration, Rainbow kicked a crate and roughly shook out her wings. “Friggin’ damn it, I don’t want to lose her and Coals in one night! Did you find something to make stitches with yet?”
Rarity shook her head. “There’s nothing. Thread is easy enough to improvise; tail hair will do well enough, so long as it’s clean. The needle is the hard part.”
“I doubt any of the pirates had a sewing kit on them,” Rainbow grumbled. Snatching an empty sack in her teeth, she started looting the lean-tos for useful supplies. “If there’s nothing we can do for him, then we’ve just gotta hope for the best. Let’s steal all the useful stuff from the pirates and get out of here before they get back.” Sighing, she added, “I just hope Gyro’s still in one piece…”
Rarity swallowed hard. “I don’t think I could forgive myself if she isn’t…”
-----
Gyro panted and panted beneath some large, overhanging ferns. She’d managed to move herself away from the control rig for the noisemakers and into some thicker cover before the pirates arrived to find her. It hadn’t been easy with her walker trying to bury itself in the mud behind her, but desperation was as good a steroid as any. She’d barely slipped into cover about twenty feet away before the pirates crossed the distance and discovered her command center.
“What the fuck is this?” one of the pirates shouted. She heard a distant rattle of metal panels and the hissing sound of a rope sliding through palm fronds. “Are these attached to those ropes with the metal on them?”
“The actual shit?” a mare growled. “Somepony was yanking on these things. Look, there’s some hoofprints in the mud.”
“So we were led on a wild goose chase,” another concluded. “Fuck, they must’ve just been trying to get us away from the camp. We need to go back!”
“Or we could find whoever was out here and I can tear their head off with my magic! Nopony gets to make us look like dumbasses two nights in a row!”
“You think it was the same mare from last night?”
“Who else could it have been? The other assholes haven’t tried anything like this before. They’ve been too content to hide in that fucking tomb.”
“Well, let’s take a look. Whatever they’re trying to do at the camp, Squall can handle it. I’ve seen that psycho kill five ponies in seconds.”
“We all have. That was during the engagement with that royal corvette. We would’ve been dead if she hadn’t cut down all their officers immediately.”
Gyro swallowed hard and tried to make sure she was as tucked in under the foliage as she could be. If Squall was still at the pirate camp and Rarity had to contend with her…
Mud squelched beneath hooves as the pirates began exploring the area around her. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, making it easier to see and hear beneath the trees. Gyro held her breath and put both hooves over her muzzle as she saw shadows move in her periphery. Hopefully they would pass her by, assuming that she’d fled deeper into the jungle as soon as the pirates had discovered her ruse. For a moment, she hoped she might even be right; the pirates started walking past her, prowling deeper through the forest.
Then there was a yelp, and the harness around Gyro's shoulders and waist shook. One of the pirates fell to the ground, splattering mud everywhere, before standing up and glaring back in Gyro’s direction. A horn surrounded in the glow of magic lit up the night, and Gyro cried out as she was suddenly ripped out of her cover.
“The fuck do we have here?” the stallion growled at her, lifting Gyro off the ground as she struggled and flailed with her forelegs. “A wannabe cyborg? What is this shit?”
His magic tore the walker off of Gyro’s body and he dropped the mare into the mud and sand. Panting, Gyro lifted the front half of her body with her forelegs and tried to crawl away, for all the good it would do her. But she could hardly move at all with her dead and limp hind legs dragging through the muck behind her. The pirate laughed and tossed the harness aside, waving over his comrades and pointing to Gyro. “Look! We’ve got a cripple to play with!”
The rest of the pirates returned one by one, and soon Gyro found herself in the center of a terrifying ring of marauders and reavers. Swallowing hard, she put on a nervous smile. “So, uh, I don’t suppose you five are the kind who like to talk things out, right?”
One of the pirate mares grabbed her by the throat and lifted her up in the air with her magic. “It’s not what you say, but what you do that matters, right?”
Gyro clutched at the fingers of magic around her neck. “So… gah… that means you’re… gonna let me go… that’s cool… I’d be down for that…”
The mare sneered and slammed the mechanic back into the mud. Coughing and sputtering, Gyro looked up only to see a stallion looming over her, already setting his weapons aside. “It’s been too long since I’ve gotten any,” he said with a dark smile on his face. “Squall wouldn’t let us touch the other bitch, but I don’t think she’ll mind if we fuck a cripple.”
Swallowing hard, Gyro tried to back away, which was easier said than done without her back legs. “Just because I can’t feel my plot doesn’t mean I’m okay with you using it.”
“Good,” another said. “I like it when they struggle.”
Gyro broke out in a cold sweat as the ring of pirates converged on her. There was no way out of this. There was nothing she could do. If she’d been a pegasus or a unicorn, she might have had some means of escape, but not as a simple earth pony. Her only strength had been taken for her and there was nothing she could do.
A rustling in the leaves put pause into the pirates. “What was that?” one of them asked. He got his answer when several cries broke the stormy calm of the night, and Gyro caught glimpses of figures moving behind the pirates’ legs.
“It’s a trap!” another pirate screamed, and they dispersed around Gyro to grab their weapons. Bodies collided all around her, and Gyro buried her head under her hooves, feeling very small and weak in the middle of a cacophony of noise exploding around her. Ponies fought and yelled, and a pistol even discharged into the night.
“Back!” a pirate screamed somewhere ahead of Gyro. “Back! Regroup at the camp! Come on!”
There was the drumming of hooves, a cry of valor… and then near silence.
Gyro’s ears perked up, and she looked around. A bloody mare’s face stared back at her, several holes and gashes torn through her neck, and Gyro shrieked and tried to scramble away. Three or four bodies lied around her, but four ponies still stood. One of them saw her and immediately scrambled to her side. “Celestia, are you hurt? We heard you and—Gyro?”
Gyro blinked and looked the stallion in the eyes, immediately recognizing the bandana he wore around his neck. “Ratchet? You’re… holy crap, you’re alive? I thought all the other mechanics died in the crash!”
Ratchet smiled at her and knelt across from her. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it later. We need to get back to our camp before the pirates rally and come back.” He held a hoof out. “Can you walk?”
Gyro grimaced and looked at her hind legs. “I’d love to say yes, but…”
“So you guys have just been hiding from the pirates this whole time?”
Gyro still couldn’t get over her elation at seeing friendly, familiar faces. Ratchet, the Concordia’s chief engineer, carried her on his back as the troop of survivors moved out. Normally, she’d make a wisecrack about being put in such a compromising position, but she knew when it wasn’t the right time or place for them. Being rescued from rape and death by friends she’d thought were long dead certainly was one such time.
“The pirates started abandoning ship right before the Concordia went down,” Ratchet said. “Some of the crew started trying to free passengers and ready lifeboats. In the end, there must’ve been twenty or thirty of us that ended up scattered throughout this island.”
“Twenty or thirty?” Gyro whistled. “Can’t wait to meet the gang then.”
The middle aged engineer’s expression turned dour. “That was when we landed. There are ten of us now. You’re looking at four of them, and there were twelve five minutes ago.”
“It was the pirates, wasn’t it.” It wasn’t a question, because Gyro already knew the answer.
Ratchet dipped his weary head, water still dripping off this thinning mane and scraggly silver beard from the rain earlier. “I don’t know how they ended up here; I didn’t see their barge go down anywhere around here, but there were more of them when they first showed up. About twelve or thirteen, though there are fewer now. But they started attacking and cutting down survivors wherever they found them. By the time we’d organized and collected everypony who was still alive, that rabid captain of theirs was burning bodies on the beaches.”
“I would’ve thought she’d at least try to work with the other survivors,” Gyro said. She used her forelegs to adjust her position on Ratchet’s back so she wouldn’t slide off. “Forty-something ponies could’ve easily built a crude ship and made it back to land.”
“I saw enough of her right after they boarded the Concordia to know she’s not right in the head.” Ratchet carefully picked his way across the mud and muck, choosing a path that would keep his hoofprints hidden in the chaotic and upturned ground. “I think she breaks the world down into two kinds of ponies: those she trusts, and those she doesn’t. Her solution to dealing with the latter is to kill them before they stab her in the back.”
“But you’ve been fighting back, at least,” Gyro observed. “So you’re making her regret her decision.”
“Mostly we’re just hiding. They have the weapons, and in a straight fight, they’d cut us to ribbons. We’re not battle-hardened scoundrels like they are, we’re civilians.” But, smirking, he added, “Though if we can get the jump on them, I’m all for thinning their numbers a bit. Last time we reconnoitered their camp, there were only nine of them. Now we’ve cut them down to seven… but not without cost.”
Gyro swallowed hard and let her gaze wander to the two bodies carried on the backs of two other stallions. One she recognized as Wingnut, a friendly if off-kilter mare who worked on the airship’s rigging. The other looked like one of the Concordia’s wait staff, but she couldn’t put a name to his face. She wasn’t as close to the wait staff as she had been with her fellow engineers, mostly because the two groups had a fundamental disagreement on the maximum amount of bearing grease a pony could be allowed to have in their coat.
“If this keeps up, there’s only gonna be one or two ponies left here by the time the killing’s done,” she said. “It’s not solving any problems.”
“If we had an alternative, I’d be all for it. As is, I’m just trying to save as many of us as we can. Squall’s pirates aren’t doing me any favors.”
The survivors reached a shallow channel between islands, and Gyro’s ears perked as Ratchet began to cross it. “Wait, wait, stop!” she shouted, forelegs struggling in vain to move her body on Ratchet’s back. The older engineer briefly stopped to adjust for her, and the other ponies ceased crossing the channel as well. “Rainbow Dash and Rarity! They’re still at the pirate camp!”
Ratchet did a double-take. “Rainbow Dash and Rarity? They’re here too? Just how did you three get here, where did you come from?”
“From the other islands,” Gyro said. “They ended up on one of the islands together, and they started exploring the others. They found me at the island to the north where all the minotaurs are from. They’re looking for these little statue things that they think are on all the islands, they think it’s a way to get back home!”
“That’s… what?”
Gyro groaned and once more tried to pull herself off Ratchet’s back as if she was going to go to the camp and rescue her friends herself. “It’s a really long story, but if those pirates are going back to the camp, then they’re in really bad danger! We have to do something!”
Ratchet grimaced and let Gyro roll off his back. “There’s nothing we can do, Gyro,” he said, standing over the gray mare as she tried in vain to stand. “There are four of us out here tonight. Four! We can’t take on six pirates and their psychotic captain by ourselves! Even if Rainbow Dash and Rarity helped us fight, we still wouldn’t come close to winning!”
“Then take me back to where you found me,” Gyro said. “Rarity knows where that is. She set the whole thing up. If they managed to escape from the camp, she’d head back there to find me. Then we can all escape together!”
Ratchet chewed on his dull red lip and looked at his companions. “Go back to our camp and make sure those weapons are in good condition. Bury Exchange and Port Tack. I’ll bring Gyro back.”
One of the mares, a masseuse Gyro liked to visit from time to time, Soft Step, took a worried step forward. “But what if the pirates come back? The two of you can’t fight them off. They’ll kill you!”
“And they’ll kill all of us if we all go,” Ratchet said. “It’s better to lose one pony than four. Especially when we’re barely clinging on to what numbers we’ve got.”
“What, I don’t count?” Gyro asked. “I’m offended.”
“If you did count, you’d only be a half,” Ratchet said, quickly returning Gyro’s dry wit. “I’m only counting the ten of us who’ve still been here all this time.”
Soft Step frowned, but turned around and splashed through the water. “Stay safe,” she called over her shoulder, and the green pegasus fluttered to the opposite beach, joining the other ponies from her troop.
Once more, Ratchet picked Gyro up, setting her back on his back with his magic. Then, retracing his steps, he carefully picked his way back through the jungle, ears trained out ahead and around him for the sounds of any pirates. “This better not get us killed, Gyro. We can’t afford to lose more ponies.”
“We can’t afford to lose Rainbow and Rarity,” Gyro countered. Hanging her head, she watched the trees pass by in a nervous sickness. “They’re our only hope of making it back to Equestria alive.”
Rarity grabbed whatever she could and dumped it into a tarp Rainbow had dragged over from the pirates’ lean-tos. Everything from cloth and dry wood to glass and swords found its way into the bag in one shape or another. She’d even found a crate of rum hidden away in the back of one lean-to. The pirates must’ve been saving that for a special day, but Rarity decided her and Rainbow needed it more than them. Rarity especially hadn’t had a drink in over a month—even rum would do at this point.
All the while, her and Rainbow kept wary eyes trained on the perimeter of the camp. Gyro’s chimes had stopped a few minutes ago, and they had no idea what had happened to the two pirates set to patrol around the camp. As far as Rarity knew, they’d just disappeared. Rainbow had even gone and poked around the edges of the camp for a quick minute to see if she could see them, but they weren’t there. Had they simply deserted Squall? Rarity knew they weren’t too content with her rule, so it didn’t seem too far-fetched.
“What have we got?” Rainbow asked, dumping Squall’s guns, a horn of powder, and some shot into the tarp. “We got enough crap?”
“Most of the pirates’ food and water, some of their weapons, Squall’s pistols, building supplies, and a few bottles of rum.” Rarity smirked at Rainbow as she lifted one of the bottles and its amber fluid out of the tarp. “I think we’ve earned ourselves a drink after tonight.”
Rainbow immediately reached for the rum, nearly snatching it out of Rarity’s magic before she pulled it out of reach. “Gimme that,” she whined, hooves flailing against empty air. “I need it.”
“I think becoming inebriated is the last thing we need right now,” Rarity said.
“It’s alcohol, Rares, I need it to disinfect Coals’ wound. Plus we could probably do with a little splash ourselves. Who knows where this sand’s been.”
“Here, I would presume.” Nevertheless, Rarity surrendered the handle to Rainbow, who immediately took it over to Coals’ side and popped the cork. “Are you sure drinking alcohol is even good for wound cleaning?”
“Depends on the proof,” Rainbow said. She stuck her muzzle over the open bottle and immediately made a face. “Okay, this stuff’s like, a hundred, at least. Holy crap. Yeah, I think this is good enough.”
Coals actually whimpered and winced as Rainbow poured a drizzle of the rum onto his open world. Even Rainbow grimaced before setting the bottle aside. “I do not envy you, dude,” she said, shaking her head. “But I mean, you’re hanging in there, so that’s good, right?”
“I just hope he makes it,” Rarity said. “I don’t think I could go back to Gyro and tell her that we found her long lost coltfriend but Squall killed him before we could facilitate a reunion.”
“I think if he’s made it this long, he’s pretty good,” Rainbow said. She peered into the bullet wound in his side and shrugged. “I think he stopped bleeding, but he’s still breathing and stuff, so that’s gotta be good, right?”
“He still needs some kind of medical attention,” Rarity said. “Until we close that wound, he’s in serious peril of an early demise.”
“We’ll figure something out.” Eyeing the bottle, Rainbow stuck the end in her mouth and took several gulps before Rarity could say anything. Wiping some booze off her chin, Rainbow shook her head back and forth, grimaced, and fluffed her damp wings. “That hit the spot.”
“You are such a headache,” Rarity grumbled, snatching the handle from Rainbow and stuffing it into the tarp. “I don’t know why I fell for you.”
“Because I make everything awesomer by being in it?”
“Because you were the only other living pony for miles at the time, I think.” Sighing, Rarity bunched up the tarp and tied off the end with a drawstring. “I can take care of this, can you carry Coals?”
Rainbow looked at the stallion and shrugged. “I guess I can. He shouldn’t weigh that much, right? I’m sure he’s lost a few pounds of blood.”
Rarity winced. “Must you?”
“Gyro’s rubbing off on me, I think,” Rainbow said. “That mare’s the master of grim humor. Was she making jokes when she broke her back?”
“Unfortunately, as much as it made me uncomfortable.”
Rainbow snickered and dipped her head. With a few grunts and awkward fluttering of her wings, she managed to roll the stallion onto her back. Coals whimpered and grunted a few times, and Rainbow shot the unconscious stallion an apologetic look. “Sorry, dude, but it’s for your own good. We’re gonna get you out of here.”
“And hopefully ourselves, too.” Rarity’s ear cocked, and she shuddered at the continuing vertigo it gave her. Between the dizziness, her exhaustion, and not even having two functioning ears, Rarity didn’t know if she could trust her hearing anymore. But if she could, and she certainly wished to believe that she still could, then her good ear picked up the sounds of hooves and voices approaching the pirate camp.
An assumption that was reinforced from Rainbow’s raised ears and still stance. “The pirates are coming back,” she said, quickly looking around the camp. “We need to go. Come on, let’s get out of here!”
Rarity grabbed the canvas bag in her magic and hurried over to Rainbow, effortlessly floating the thing with a thin ring of magic to try and minimize mana glow in the darkness of the night. “You certainly don’t have to tell me twice. The only reason I’ve lingered around this dreadful encampment so long is to catch my breath and rob as much as we can from these cretins. It’s the only way to properly pay them back after everything they’ve done.”
“Let’s just hope that we didn’t make them even more pissy,” Rainbow said. Shaking her head, she quickly darted off to the south, away from the camp and the direction the pirates approached from. “That’s about the last thing we need.”
“Indeed.” Rarity perched at the edge of the camp, giving it one last look, and frowned. Her eyes fell on the dull red hooves still lying in the shadows at the edge of the camp, and the tiny flickering flame in the center. “This night will make quite the story to tell our friends,” she mused. “Assuming we ever make it back to them.”
“We’ll make it back,” Rainbow assured her, already moving into the shadows. “Come on, let’s go find Gyro and get out of here.”
“I just hope she’s alright,” Rarity said. “I don’t think I have it in me to mount another rescue operation.”
The dense jungle of the pirate-infested island was even more frightening and difficult to navigate for Rarity when she only had one ear. Where before, she used her hearing almost equally in part with her eyes to figure out where things were, now she had to rely almost entirely on her eyesight as the two sides of her head sent her brain mixed signals about what they were hearing. And given that it was still the dead of night out, still cloudy, and still drizzling at a steady rate, Rarity felt almost completely blind and lost in the suffocatingly humid jungle.
But she couldn’t use that as an excuse now. Only she knew where she’d set up Gyro, and so she had to lead Rainbow back to their other companion if they wanted to reunite and figure out their next move. But there was no noise through the jungle trees save for the occasional clattering of a noise maker or the whistling shuffle of the breeze ruffling the tree canopy. The worry gnawing at her gut that something bad had happened to Gyro only grew and grew the longer it took them to get back to the mechanic.
Rainbow, meanwhile, kept her head swiveling left and right and tilting up and down as the two mares quietly stalked through the forest. Her ears pointed this way and that, picking up the haunting notes of the chimes Rarity had strung up earlier that evening. “This is like some seriously spooky stuff, Rares. You and Gyro did this?”
“I did the bulk of the rigging, but yes, this was our work,” Rarity said in a quiet murmur. She couldn’t even tell if she was being louder or quieter than normal, so she erred on the side of caution. “Gyro and I tied scrap metal and wooden scraps to rope and hung them through the trees. Thankfully between the cover of night and the storm it was too dark for the pirates to notice them. Or at least, so I hope.”
“So you had Gyro just pulling on the ropes those noise maker thingies were attached to?”
“Yes, as far away from the pirates as we could manage.” Her eyes darting through the trees, Rarity picked out the glint of one noisemaker and immediately started following it through the foliage. “Though I found lots of rope, it certainly wasn’t infinite. That being said, Gyro had a comfortable cushion between where she was and where the noise makers were placed. Even in her crippled condition, she would have had enough time to flee to someplace safe and hide from the pirates. They’re likely returning to their camp presently because of such a scenario.”
Rainbow frowned in worry and peered through the plants, as if already looking for Gyro hiding somewhere in the undergrowth. “Or they found her, killed her, and are bringing her body back to their camp for a friendly bit of cannibalism.”
“I was trying to avoid thinking about that possibility,” Rarity muttered. “I prefer to think positive.”
“Good vibes aren’t gonna do anything for our cripple if she’s living-impaired.”
“Celestia, Rainbow, sometimes I wish to make you living-impaired.” Roughly shaking her head, Rarity slid into a bush and halted while the leaves still provided her muddy body some shelter. “Gyro? Gyro darling, are you here?” she whispered into the darkness. She could see ropes tied to a branch out ahead of her, so she knew she was in the right spot, but there wasn’t any sign of the mechanic. “Gyro, please answer, you’re going to give me a heart attack!”
Rainbow moved into the bush beside Rarity, a blue wing comfortingly placed against the unicorn’s side. “Are those bodies?” she asked, pointing to a shadowy corner of vegetation.
Rarity strained to see through the shadow. But, sure enough, after a few seconds to focus on what she was seeing, she started to make out the outlines of bodies. There were two of them, a stallion and a mare, but she couldn’t make out more than that in the darkness of the night. And next to them, she saw the familiar outline of the walker she’d made for Gyro hours before.
Worry for her friend made her throw caution to the wind. Bursting out of the bushes, Rarity dropped the sack of pilfered goods on the ground and used her horn to light up the surrounding area. She immediately recognized the two bodies as pirates, given their nasty, salty, and overall barbaric look. And the walker lying next to them had been forcibly removed, if the damage to the harness was anything to go by. But there wasn’t any sign of Gyro, and that made Rarity’s gut sink.
“They took her,” Rarity moaned, nearly on the verge of frustrated wailing. “They took her! Celestia damn it, I can’t, I can’t!” She collapsed on the ground from sheer exhaustion, both physical and emotional. “One step forward and two steps back! Every time! We’ll never get off these blasted islands! Never!”
The plants around them began to rustle, and Rainbow shot Rarity a nervous look. “Uh, Rares? Could you be quiet? Somepony’s coming…”
“I’d almost prefer that they ended my miserable existence right here and now. Prevent me from suffering any longer!”
While Rarity took her diva tendencies to dangerous new levels, Rainbow spread her wings and readied herself for a fight, exhausted as she was. But instead of a pirate making his way through the foliage, it was an older stallion, and lying on his back, a familiar gray mare.
Rainbow blinked. “Gyro?”
“Rainbow?” Gyro squeed and flailed her forelegs as if trying to fling herself off the stallion’s back. “You’re alive! Oh my goodness, I was worried you were gonna be pirate chow or something!” Then her expression darkened. As her eyes fell over both Rainbow and Rarity. “Holy crap, what happened to you two? You look like you went through Tartarus and took a second lap just for fun.”
“Squall happened,” Rainbow said, helping Rarity stand with some insistent nudging from her wing. “She tried to kill both of us.”
The stallion carrying Gyro widened his eyes. “You fought that crazy mare… and lived?”
“I’m definitely not a ghost, if that’s what you’re asking,” Rainbow said. “And just because Rarity’s white doesn’t mean she’s a ghost either.”
“Is she dead?”
“I would certainly hope so,” Rarity said. Standing up, a happy smile fell onto her muzzle at seeing Gyro safe and sound. “Oh, goodness, Gyro, we were so worried about you when the noise makers stopped ringing.”
“I had a bit of a pirate problem,” Gyro said. Then, slapping the stallion on the shoulder, she grinned at him. “Then Ratchet and some other ponies from the Concordia saved my flank. They’re gonna take us there where it’s safe!”
“I’m all for safe,” Rarity said, floating the walker over to Gyro and reattaching the harness around her body. “I’m exhausted and feel like I could sleep forever. Not having to worry about pirates jumping me while I sleep will be a blessing.”
Even Rainbow was inclined to agree. “Fighting pirates and stuff is cool and everything, but yeah, some R&R would be awesome right now.” She pointed to the tarp on the ground and grinned. “Plus, we looted the pirates after we messed up Squall. We’re all set to kick some ass now!”
“A blessing, to be sure,” Ratchet said, letting Gyro off his back now that she had her walker attached once more. “We need every little bit of help we can get.”
As Gyro once more settled into the strange feeling of carrying her weight about her midsection instead of across her four hooves, her eyes fell on a figure she hadn’t noticed earlier lying across Rainbow’s back. Between the excitement at seeing her two friends alive and the dark cover of the night, she hadn’t noticed the pony’s black coat against the blackness of the night. “Who’s your friend?” she asked as the four survivors made set to leave for safety.
Rainbow blinked and flipped her head over her shoulder. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot I was carrying him. It’s been a long night.” Then, blinking, she raised an eyebrow at Gyro. “You mean you don’t recognize him?”
“No?” Gyro cocked her head to the side, suddenly worried. “Should I? he’s not another mechanic or something from the Concordia, right?”
Ratchet preemptively shook his head. “The pirates never took any of us alive. They killed whoever they got their hooves on. I’m amazed they didn’t kill you two as well.”
“He’s not one of the ponies from the Concordia,” Rarity said. She hesitated, searching for the right words to frame her next statement. “He’s… well, he’s your friend, darling. Hot Coals.”
Gyro’s breath caught in her throat. She shook her head in disbelief, but nevertheless pulled herself a stride closer to the mysterious pony. “No, that’s… that can’t be right,” she said. “That can’t be him… can it?”
“He was captured by the pirates years ago,” Rainbow said, stepping forward so Gyro could get a better look at his face. “They forced him to serve on their crew as their engineer. He’s been stuck there ever since.” She shot another worried look over her shoulder. “And he needs some medical attention like, hours ago.”
The brief flash of joy and elation Gyro felt at seeing a long lost friend for the first time in years was swiftly washed away with icy terror. “What happened to him?” she asked, awkwardly trying to hover over him like a worried mother while her cumbersome walker made it difficult for her to even move. “What’s wrong?”
“Squall shot him,” Rainbow said, perhaps a little too flatly. “When I told him that you were here on this island, he risked everything to help me. He never wanted to be a pirate, and he was looking for a chance to escape. But Squall found out, and she shot him.”
“How long ago was that?” Ratchet asked.
Rainbow shrugged. “Hours ago. Around dinner time. I did the best I could to stop the bleeding, but…”
Gyro immediately started trying to find the wound with a hoof. “Where did he get shot? Can I help? What can I do? Will he be alright? Please tell me he’ll be alright!”
Rarity immediately stepped up and put a hoof on Gyro’s shoulder, gently nudging her away from Rainbow and Coals to give them some breathing room. “He’ll be fine if he can get some stitches,” she said. “He’s lost a lot of blood and we still have to remove the bullet. I can take care of that on my own, but without a needle, I can’t stitch the wound together and stop the bleeding entirely.” Her eyes swiveled to Ratchet. “Which is why we need to go someplace safe immediately.”
Ratchet nodded and moved next to Rainbow. “Do you want me to take him for you? You look like you could use the help.”
“I’m fine, dude,” Rainbow insisted, grunting and shifting her balance to something more comfortable. “I can carry him back.”
Nevertheless, Rarity’s blue magic carefully lifted Coals off of Rainbow’s back and transferred him to Ratchet. “We appreciate the offer,” Rarity said with a flash of a smile. “Rainbow especially, though she won’t admit it.”
Rainbow sighed and let her wings sag. “I could’ve handled it, Rares…”
“I know you could have.” Rarity stepped forward and pecked Rainbow on the cheek. Then, nodding to Ratchet, she gestured vaguely off into the jungle. “I suppose we should get moving now before the pirates return, yes?”
-----
Black Flag was panting by the time he and the other two pirates returned to their camp. They’d completely taken the bait and fallen for the trap, and now it’d cost them two more crew. At the very least, it’d been an even exchange of two lives for two lives, but it tipped the balance of power on the island towards those damned survivors from the Concordia. Now there were merely six of them and an unknown number of survivors who’d undoubtedly stolen the weapons they’d left behind.
He needed to talk to Squall. As much as he disliked and feared their rabid captain, he knew she was the only one who could keep them afloat. When she focused her burning rage and menace on something, that something tended not to last very long.
“Captain?” he called into the night once he’d finally got some breath back in his lungs. The campsite looked abandoned, and he noticed that the structures they’d spent so much time building over the past month were all severely damaged if not outright destroyed. A tiny, limp tongue of fire flickered and faded in the firepit, and the sand was all churned up from numerous hooves frantically running across it. Sniffing the air once, he caught a whiff of copper, and when he looked down, he saw blood on the sand.
Something had happened while he and his party were away. Suddenly, even their camp didn’t feel safe anymore.
“Find the captain,” he said to the two other pirates with him. “See if she’s anywhere around here. This place was attacked while we were gone.”
The other two pirates nodded and breathlessly set about their task, desperation slicing out any grumbling or banter that would normally accompany such an order. Flag, meanwhile, looked over the camp, making a mental tally of the carnage. Their supplies had been raided, leaving them with precious little, and the prisoner and the treacherous rat, Coals, were both gone. But other than that, there wasn’t any record of what had happened.
“Flag! Over here!” one of the pirates shouted, and Flag immediately galloped over in their direction. Emerging from behind the camp buildings, he saw a blood red figure lying on her side in the sand, completely still and limp.
He immediately knelt down at Squall’s side and looked her over. Her body was covered in all sorts of horrible wounds, and her coat was sticky with drying blood. Somepony had shot her in the back, and that wound still bled slightly. He figured it must’ve been the blow that put her down. Cursing, he put a hoof on the mare’s neck, just under her jaw, and felt for a pulse.
“Is she still alive?” the other pirate asked. He nervously shuffled his hooves in the sand. “I can’t believe somepony got the best of her…”
Flag bit down on his lip. He moved his hoof around, looking for a pulse, wondering if maybe he’d simply looked in the wrong spot. Squall couldn’t be dead. It was almost impossible to think of.
In the center of the camp, the tiny tongue of fire faded into a wisp of smoke.
Eventually, Flag swallowed hard and took his hoof off the mare’s neck. “She’s dead,” he finally confirmed. “There’s no pulse and she’s not breathing. She’s dead.”
The other pirate cursed and hung his head. “So what do we do now? There’s only three of us. I have no idea what happened to the other two that were here with her.”
Flag stood up and kicked at the sand. “First, we bury her,” he said. “Then, we grab every weapon we have and we find where these rats are hiding. Tomorrow, we’ll slaughter them all in their sleep. We’ll end this, once and for all.”
The other pirate saluted and stood up. “On your orders, captain.”
Flag blinked, but accepted the title with a weary nod. He was captain now, and this was all the crew he had left.
He had to protect them, and there was only one way he knew how.
Rarity’s weary limbs could hardly support her anymore by the time the small band of survivors finally started moving out. Every time they slowed down to maneuver past an obstacle, she felt like she could just shut her eyes and be sound asleep before she even flopped to the ground. As far as she could remember, she’d never felt so tired in her life. Even her many nights of staying up until well past the breaking of dawn hadn’t left her as fundamentally drained as this single night had. She didn’t think she could ever complain about being exhausted again, which was a feat in itself. Celestia knew how she loved to complain about the littlest things, as if by complaining about them she trivialized them into something more manageable to compartmentalize and deal with.
She wasn’t quite ready when she walked into a tree and nearly fell over, yelping as she barely managed to catch herself on her lethargic limbs.
Rainbow quickly placed herself against Rarity’s side, stabilizing the unicorn before she could fall over. The entire procession stopped as Rarity found her hoofing once more, and they all turned worried eyes to her. “You alright, Rares?” Rainbow asked, making absolutely sure Rarity wasn’t going to fall over again before she took a step to the side to return to the seamstress her personal space.
“I’m fine,” Rarity insisted, though the words came out half-slurred through exhaustion. “I’m merely tired is all.”
“Once we return to our camp, you can rest easy for as long as you need,” Ratchet said. “After tonight, I don’t think the pirates will be in any position to try anything. I don’t even think they know where we are. We’ve been very careful to mask our movements between the islands to make it nearly impossible to track down.”
The older stallion stepped onto the silty beach around one of the channels between islands. Adjusting his stance, he made sure that Coals’ head was roughly at his shoulder level before beginning to cross. The water splashed around his hooves, rising up to his belly at its deepest, before beginning to recede as he started to emerge on the other side.
Rainbow, Rarity, and Gyro all followed him into the channel as well. The water felt unpleasantly cold and sharp against Rarity’s aching muscles, and she caught similar grimaces on Rainbow’s muzzle. Gyro growled as she fought the small but persistent current in the channel that tried to sweep away her walker and drag her out to sea with it, and Rarity ended up using her exhausted horn to help support the mare’s crossing. Eventually, the three friends emerged on the next island over, dripping seawater and all around tired and annoyed after having to make the crossing.
“How many more crossings to we have to ford?” Rarity asked, already feeling a whiny edge beginning to prick its way into her voice.
“Another three,” Ratchet said, making a beeline for the heart of the island to mask his hoofprints beneath the trees. “We’re on almost the complete opposite end of the island cluster from the pirates. Using the channels has made us very difficult for them to track.”
As they walked through the jungle, Rainbow piped up. “So I heard Squall say that there were ruins or something in the middle of these islands. Have you guys seen them?”
Ratchet nodded, holding back a low-hanging branch so everypony could pass by it. “We used them as a point to rally and fend off pirate attacks while we were still collecting all the survivors we could. But they’re big and sprawling, and the pirates knew that we were hiding there. So as soon as we gathered everypony we could find, we moved to another island for safety. As far as I’m aware, they still think that we’re hiding at the ruins.”
“They certainly seemed to think that,” Gyro said. “They were muttering about a tomb while they were chasing my windchimes around. They said something along the lines of you guys being too content to hide in the tomb to do anything.”
“We certainly haven’t been content. We’ve been doing everything we can just to survive.” His hooves pushed aside more sand and silt as he approached the next channel, and Rarity barely had time to sigh in disappointment before the mechanic started to cross it. “We didn’t even get a chance to look around the ruins and see if there’s more to them. The pirates had started doing that shortly after they found them and knew we were there as well.”
“Squall claims they’re cursed,” Rainbow said. “I don’t know what she means by that, but she didn’t want to take her crew near the ruins.”
Ratchet shook some of the water off his coat upon emerging on the other side. “We never noticed anything like that while we were there. Besides, I wouldn’t trust Squall’s judgment on something. You saw the mare herself, you know what she was like.”
Rainbow still looked unsure, so Rarity tried to assure her with a touch. “He does have a point, darling,” she said, smiling at Rainbow. “The mare was psychotic to an extreme degree. She could have easily imagined something there as being cursed. At the very least, the fear of a curse would let her control her crew better.”
“And the crew seemed to buy into it,” Gyro said. “They thought all the noise I was making had to do with this made up curse and stuff when they first heard it. It’d definitely make sense for her to use it to keep any potential mutinies at bay.”
Rainbow still looked unsure, but she didn’t press the issue anymore. Even Rarity felt a finger of doubt worming its way into her mind. What if the insane pirate hadn’t been making it up? What if she really believed there was a curse?
More importantly, what if she was right?
Ratchet didn’t seem to give those thoughts any mind. “If there was a curse, and that’s a big if, I’m sure we would have experienced something by now. But we haven’t, so I’m not worried. I’m not going to explain to the pirates that the superstitions keeping them away from us are false.”
They crossed the next to channels in relative silence, their thoughts focused elsewhere. Despite the unpleasantness of the walk and the waters they had to cross through, Rarity felt herself relaxing more and more with each passing minute. Her limbs loosened up and a blissful sleepy haze started to settle over her mind. Now that the cold shock of the water had passed her by, she once more felt the need to curl up in a ball and sleep for the next week.
Eventually, she noticed a light through the trees. Ratchet stopped in place, motioning for the others to do as well, and whistled into the foliage surrounding them. There was a few seconds of delay, and then a stallion’s voice drifted out into the night. “Ratchet? That you?”
“It’s me,” Ratchet said, still not moving forward, his hooves planted right into the ground.
“Who’s with you?” the voice asked again. Rarity blinked and flicked her ear around; was it just her, or did the voice sound like it came from somewhere else entirely? She couldn’t pin its location down very well with only one ear.
“Friends,” Ratchet said. “One of them needs to see the doctor as soon as possible.”
“Alright. You can come in now.”
Rarity’s ear swiveled to the left, following the sound, and she nearly jumped and shrieked when a stallion suddenly emerged from the foliage to her right. Ratchet saw him approaching and smiled, slapping the stallion on the shoulder. “I’m sure Soft Step and the others told you what happened?”
The stallion, a mint green unicorn with a sharp, almost mysterious face, smiled. “That they did. When they said to expect guests, I wasn’t expecting to find four more.”
Rarity, Rainbow, and Gyro all stared at the stallion. He had the same voice as before, yet there he was standing next to him. There was no way he’d been in all those other places moments before. Rainbow whipped her head around and pointed with a wing in the last direction she heard him speak before emerging from the shadows. “How did you—?”
“I’m a ventriloquist,” the stallion said. A faint, almost invisible glow accompanied his horn, and Rarity flinched as she heard his words coming from behind her. “Along with just a general magician. I was to be one of the entertainers on the Concordia, but then we all ended up here.”
“He’s really good at keeping watch,” Ratchet said. “If the pirates tried to chase him down through the jungle, he could lead them for all sorts of loops and tricks.”
“Stage magic can be very useful in matters of life and death such as this one.” Then, grinning, he bowed to the three mares. “My apologies, I didn’t properly introduce myself. Clever Ruse, at your service, but I don’t mind if you call me Clever.”
Rarity wasn’t sure if the joke was actually funny or if she was just that tired, but she giggled regardless. “A pleasure, Clever. I’m sure you know who Rainbow and myself are, and the other two are Gyro and Hot Coals.” She quickly pointed out the other two ponies before a yawn immediately interrupted her next words. “Oh, do excuse me. I’d love to talk more, but at the moment, all I can think about is sleep.”
Clever bowed his head. “Do take care, then. We will have plenty of time to talk when the time is right.”
Ratchet nodded in agreement, then gestured to the mares following him. “Come on in. Let’s get you all acquainted with everypony and then you can get to sleep.”
“Won’t get any complaints from me,” Rainbow said, shuffling off after Ratchet. “I missed my naps today. I hate it when I miss my naps.”
Rainbow Dash felt a horrible sense of déjà vu as her group entered the survivors’ campsite. Her first glance revealed a firepit and structures made from palm fronds surrounding it. The survivors had even coincidentally constructed a lean-to to keep their supplies under as well. It gave her flashbacks to Squall’s pirate camp she’d just escaped from, and the irrational part of her brain flipped into panic mode when it thought that somehow she’d ended up back there once more.
But once she finally got a chance to look at everything, she calmed down. This camp wasn’t surrounded by bloodthirsty and salt-crusted pirates. It was surrounded by fellow survivors from the Concordia. Not only that, but there were a lot more of them than there were pirates. Rainbow counted four ponies, one mare and three stallions, sitting around the fire. The buildings erected next to it could’ve housed double that number. Coupled with Ratchet and Clever Ruse, Rainbow figured there had to be around ten survivors gathered here. At the very least, that was more than she could say for the pirates.
The four ponies around the fire looked up as Ratchet led the newcomers to the warmth. “I brought us some new friends,” he said, sitting down on the sand, letting the warmth of the fire dry out his coat, now doubly soaked by the rain and the sea. “They helped us thin the pirates some before we found them.”
“Don’t give us too much credit, darling,” Rarity insisted, sitting down on the fire-dried sand. She shivered in delight as the warmth of the fire started to dry her dirty and damp coat. “Oh, this already makes me want to curl up into a ball and sleep for a thousand years!”
Rainbow sat down by her side and wrapped a damp wing around Rarity’s barrel. “You’re gonna miss out on so much awesome stuff if you sleep that long, Rares,” Rainbow teased. “Especially the most awesome pony around.”
“Rainbow Dash and Rarity?” The other mare sitting across from them sat upright and fluttered her green wings. “You’re alive! Oh my gosh, this is amazing!”
“Yeah, I’m amazed we’re still alive, too.” Blinking, she nearly did a double-take. “Wait, you’re that massager pony from the spa place! You’re alive, too?!”
The green mare giggled and pawed at the sand. “Yeah, I am. Soft Step, in case you forgot.”
Gyro chuckled and carefully laid down on the sand next to Rainbow. “Don’t worry, she probably forgot. She’s like that.”
Rainbow stuck her tongue out at Gyro. “Quiet, you.”
“What happened to you, Gyro?” one of the stallions asked. “Did you get that fighting pirates, or did you just fall out of a tree?”
Gyro rolled her eyes. “Blow off, Blow Off. Even without half my legs I’m still twice as good at my job than you.”
Ratchet shook his head. “Can it, you two. Save it for another day,” he said. Then, pointing a hoof at the other two stallions, he listed off their names. “The unicorn’s named Ball Bearings and the pegasus is Stargazer. The former was on my maintenance team, and the latter was the ship’s navigator.”
“Glad to see you two are alive. Plus, a navigator’s pretty useful.” Her attention shifted once more to the gray and white spotted stallion sitting across the fire from her. “It’s not like these islands have any valves for Blowhard to pop.”
The maintenance pony stood up and scowled at Gyro. “I think I’d rather go visit the pirates. Better yet, maybe we should leave you out as bait for them.”
“Been there, done that, fuck off.”
Blow Off deepened his scowl for a second and marched away from the fire towards one of the structures erected around it. Ratchet just watched him go, sighed, and glared at Gyro. “Even out here, with all we have to deal with, you two can’t put your squabbling aside and just work together?”
“I only worked with him when the Concordia depended on it,” Gyro muttered. “There’s no Concordia anymore, so I don’t give two shits.”
Rarity winced. “I don’t pity him. I’d imagine he’d have to do something quite severe to make such a sarcastic mare like yourself cross.”
“Idiot’s been trying to get under my tail since day one,” Gyro grumbled. “I know I complain a lot about not getting laid, but that’s not an open invitation to treat me like I’m a hooker.”
“Eh, screw him,” Rainbow said. Only when Rarity slapped her cheek did she realize that she chose her words poorly. “Errr… you know what I meant.”
“I was hoping he’d died in the crash,” Gyro grumbled.
Gyro merely raised an eyebrow at the mare. “Would it make you feel better if I said no?”
The masseuse frowned at Gyro and lowered her head, sulking. “We’re not gonna get anywhere if we’re at each other’s throats.”
Ratchet nodded, but started walking away from the fire. “I’m going to find the doc. We need to get this stallion some medical attention immediately,” he said, nodding to Coals on his back. “You all take care. When you’re ready to turn in, you three, just go and find some bedding in the big house to sleep on. We… don’t use it all, anymore.”
The implication of that was clear enough for Rainbow, and she nodded. “Will do. Thanks for taking us in, dude. You’re awesome.”
Ratchet offered her a smile in return. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash. That means a lot coming from somepony like you.”
And then he walked away, taking Hot Coals with him. Rainbow noticed out of the corner of her eye how Gyro’s pale blue eyes watched him cross the camp. Her lips moved in some silent prayer, but other than that, she didn’t move.
Rainbow offered the engineer a wing. “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine,” she assured her. “If they’ve got a doctor then he’s already in good hooves, right?”
“It’s Doctor Gauze,” Stargazer said, piping up for the first time since he’d been introduced. “There’s nopony better suited to take care of him.”
“Who is he, by the way?” Soft Step said. “He doesn’t look like another survivor.”
“He’s my colt—erm, my friend,” Gyro said. “He’d been a prisoner of the pirates. Rainbow and Rarity helped rescue him.”
“That dreadful pirate captain shot him,” Rarity said. “But he’s tough. If he’s lasted this long, then I think he’ll make it.”
“Doc Gauze’s the best there is,” the masseuse said. “Celestia knows he’s had to treat all of us for something or other in the years since the Concordia’s launch.”
“And I think I can sleep better knowing that.” Yawning, Gyro laid her head down on crossed forelegs. “You know, I think I’m just gonna fall asleep out here,” she said. “Trying to move this stupid walker is a pain in the flank. Somepony tell Celestia to do me a favor and keep the sun below the horizon for an extra hour or five in the morning.”
Rainbow and Rarity chuckled, and Rainbow stood up to offer Rarity a helping hoof before the seamstress could even move. “I think we should turn in as well,” she said. “It’s been a long night.”
“Yes, quite,” Rarity agreed, taking the offered hoof. Then, smiling at her new acquaintances, she started walking toward the palm house. “See you all in the morning! I look forward to getting to know you all better then.”
“Yeah, what she said,” Rainbow said, waving a wing and accepting their goodbyes with a smile.
They made their way across the campsite toward the structure, but before they could enter inside, Rainbow pulled Rarity away from the entrance. The white mare stumbled, surprised by the sudden change in direction, and raised an eyebrow at Rainbow. “Rainbow? Where are we—!”
Rainbow pulled her lips away from Rarity’s and wiggled an eyebrow at her. “Shut up and there’s more where that came from.”
Rarity blinked once, and then a smile settled on her muzzle. “Consider me interested…”
Rainbow Dash led Rarity away from the survivors’ camp and into the dense and dark foliage surrounding it. She didn’t want to push too far out into the wilderness, but she also wanted to find a spot where they could have some privacy. When the glow of the campfire was a faint orange light around them and the occasional chatter of voices had faded into the natural music of the night, she finally came to a stop and sat down where it was mostly dry.
Rarity wordlessly sat down by her side and slid in close until their bodies were touching. Then, with a happy sigh, she laid her head on Rainbow’s shoulder. Blue feathers wrapped around her back, and the two ponies contentedly watched meager white light glow on some of the puddles around them as the moon fought to show its face through the clouds, chasing away the last few drizzles that had drowned the island not too long before.
“I can’t believe we’re alive,” Rainbow said. “We fought that crazy pirate and won. We shouldn’t be alive.”
Rarity nodded, her cheek rubbing against Rainbow’s shoulder. “We’re lucky. But sometimes, luck is all you need.”
“I guess you’re right.” Nostrils flaring, Rainbow buried her muzzle in Rarity’s mane, smothering herself in the seamstress’ scent. Though muted beneath a layer of sand, salt, mud, and sweat, she could still smell a weak aroma of cloth and fresh linen. “I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she admitted. A quick tremble shook her limbs, passing in a flash like lightning. “Squall nearly killed me several times. Only luck stopped me from dying.”
“Don’t say things like that,” Rarity said, snuggling closer against Rainbow to try and comfort her. “I don’t want to hear it. We’re alive, and we’re back together, and that’s all that matters.”
“Is it?” Rainbow reluctantly parted from Rarity’s side and slid a pace or two away. Putting her hoof on Rarity’s chin, she angled the mare’s head so she could see her blue face. “We’re alive, but we’re not in one piece. Squall scarred me for life. She broke my nose, messed up my teeth, and cut my face up bad.” She pointed to the deep cut running along her left cheek from muzzle to just below her eye. “That’s gonna leave an ugly scar. I know I didn’t have the prettiest supermodel face before, Rares, but now I look like a homeless pony who got into a lot of fights on the streets of Manehattan or something.”
Rarity blinked. “Why do you even mention this, darling?”
“Because… because…” Rainbow hung her head. “I don’t know. I know you like perfection and stuff, Rares. I don’t even know what you see in me half the time. And I want to do nothing more than to hold you and be happy with you and celebrate that we’re both still alive but now my face is all messed up and I don’t want you to have to worry about dealing with an ugly pony like me and—!”
Rarity’s magic stayed Rainbow’s lips and silenced her nervous blubbering. The damp sand shifted as Rarity once more closed the difference between them, and her chipped horn pulled Rainbow’s muzzle against hers. Her eyes fluttered shut as she savored the kiss, and Rainbow felt Rarity’s tongue explore every inch of her mouth, running over her chipped or missing teeth one at a time. Rarity didn’t shudder or pull away in horror at the sensation, and she only ended the kiss after locking Rainbow’s muzzle to hers for nearly ten seconds. Licking her lips, she let the corners of her mouth poke upwards. “Rainbow, what’s on the outside doesn’t matter as much as what’s on the inside. I know I can seem superficial at times, shallow, even, but did you really think I was going to abandon you just because a nasty pirate mutilated your face?”
Rainbow let her eyes fall and tapped her hooves together. She suddenly felt very stupid and foalish. “I… err…”
Rarity giggled. “I’d suggest you refrain from finishing that thought.” Then, sighing, she put a hoof to her own face, feeling out her own scars. “Squall did worse to me than she did to you, at least physically. She shot my ear off and put a deep scar over my eye. I’m amazed she didn’t cut it out entirely. I feel like I belong in a spy thriller movie as the evil trillionaire set on world domination.” She allowed herself to giggle some more, and her face twisted into a faux scowl. “First, Equestria, then tomorrow, the world!” she shouted in a scratchy voice, which immediately broke into a fit of ladylike giggles.
A dumb smile plastered itself to Rainbow’s muzzle, and she laughed along with her marefriend. “I’m shaking right now,” she quipped. “That was scary!”
“I’m glad you think so. Maybe I should audition when we finally return to Equestria.” After a few moments, her giggles died away, but a little smile remained. “All told, Rainbow, I believe I received worse lasting injuries. I’ve been trying to adjust to life without an ear for the past hour or two now. It’s a lot harder than one would think.”
Rainbow grimaced and hung her head. “I know, and I’m sorry, Rares. I never wanted any of this to happen to you, and I swear, I’ll find some way to make it up to you.”
“Oh, Rainbow, darling, you don’t get it, do you?” Rarity put her hoof on Rainbow’s cheek, and Rainbow’s eyebrow rose in response. “None of this really matters. When we were back in Equestria, sure, I’d be having a panic attack right now. I’d be curled up on my fainting couch in my bathrobe, downing ice cream by the tub. I’d be too terrified to step outside and let anypony see my face, knowing that it’d be plastered all over the tabloids within hours.”
She shook her head. “But out here? None of that matters. We are fighting for our lives, Rainbow, our very existence. There are too many things that are infinitely more important to worry about than how we look. After being stranded on these islands for more than a month now, I’ve finally started to realize that. And so my first thoughts have since always been centered around our survival and nothing else.” Her hoof stroked the cut on Rainbow’s cheek with a gentle touch, eliciting the tiniest wince out of the pegasus. “It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside, darling. I don’t care if Squall broke your nose or scarred your face or even ruined your perfect Wonderbolt smile. All I care about is that you’re alive, darling. And so long as you’re still alive, then I can still be with you. We can still be together.” Practically purring, she added, “That’s all that matters to me.”
That confession settled a deep worry in Rainbow’s gut, and she immediately reached out, drew Rarity in close for a hug, and began to kiss her. Rarity didn’t protest, and instead fought for more purchase to hold onto her marefriend. The two mares fell to the sand in a frantic burst of passion, but neither pony cared about that. Instead, they merely tried to press themselves together, to lock as much of their bodies against each other as they could, all the while celebrating their survival with their lips and their hooves.
It didn’t take long before they rolled off beneath the undergrowth, disappearing from sight entirely.
Rarity’s dreams were pleasant that night. She dreamt she returned from the island with Rainbow at her side, and the two of them together started a fashion line of tropical clothing for the summer season. Princess Celestia gave her a new ear and healed the scarring done to her face by Squall, and her newly revitalized visage graced the covers of every reputable magazine. Ponies queued up for hours outside of her stores to buy dresses from the mare who’d survived for months in the middle of nowhere, and her fashion empire toppled all of its competitors in the ensuing seasons. That left her as the sole titan of the fashion industry, and every mare all across Equestria soon had at least three of her dresses for every conceivable occasion.
She was almost disappointed when she woke up. Almost, because once her senses fully returned to her, she felt herself embraced by a warm, feathery body. Somehow while they slept, Rainbow ended up plastered over Rarity like a fuzzy blue blanket, her six limbs splayed every which way as she lied on top of Rarity’s side. At the very least, Rarity was glad Rainbow was a pegasus; the blue mare’s small frame and hollow bones left her at roughly half Rarity’s weight despite being only a few inches shorter.
Though she appreciated waking up to Rainbow’s tender embrace—graceful or not, with how much the pegasus snored and drooled while she slept—Rarity quickly found herself a victim of nature. Though she would’ve loved to cuddle with Rainbow all morning, she could only delay answering nature’s calling for so long. Groaning, she finally began to orchestrate her escape, using her magic to pick Rainbow up and gently set her back down on the sand. Though Rainbow grunted and groaned in her sleep and the sudden loss of a warm body to hold onto, she didn’t wake.
After a moment to watch her marefriend sleep with a soft smile on her face, Rarity walked away from her and back towards the survivors’ camp. She winced as she stepped out into direct sunlight. Was it already that late in the morning? The sun was practically overhead at this point. She had no idea when her and Rainbow finally fell asleep last night, but it was almost noon and she still felt groggy and tired. She wasn’t sure if that was because she slept for too long or for too little. Or maybe it had to do with her activities last night.
Rarity decided she was too tired to keep thinking about why she was tired, but not tired enough to not relive those fuzzy feelings and memories.
Once she’d freshened up as best she could on an island with no beauty care products whatsoever, Rarity entered the clearing once more. She recognized Soft Step and Ratchet sitting by the fire, boiling what looked like oats in a kettle. As soon as she saw the oats, Rarity felt her stomach do flips, and she quickened her trot over to the fire. “You have oats here?” she asked, mouth already watering in anticipation. “Where did you find oats?”
“The Concordia’s galley ended up not too far from here,” Ratchet said. “Though a lot of the things in bottles ended up broken and shattered, we managed to recover lots of foodstuffs from it before the seas swept the wreckage away. We’ve got enough oats to last us another three months, as well as potatoes, corn, and even some dried flowers.” He looked Rarity’s sandy body over and smiled. “Good morning, by the way. You and Rainbow Dash didn’t use one of our shelters last night, did you?”
Rarity blushed and sat down next to Soft Step. “We wanted a little privacy.”
“I can imagine. You two deserved it after everything you did last night.”
Soft Step’s eyes brightened. “Ratchet said you two killed that horrible pirate captain.” She turned to Rarity with a grin on her face. “That’s awesome! Glad that somepony finally gave that mare what she deserved.”
“It… wasn’t easy,” Rarity said, and her ear wiggled almost for emphasis. “We didn’t walk out of it quite in one piece.”
“I noticed that last night,” Soft Step admitted. “I didn’t want to say anything about it. I know how concerned you are about your appearance, Miss Rarity.”
“I had almost the exact same conversation with Rainbow last night.” Shaking her head, Rarity turned her attention back to the oats. “I try not to think about it too much. I’m merely grateful that we got out of there with our lives.” She smiled at Ratchet and Soft Step in turn. “And I’m glad that more ponies from the Concordia survived, too.”
“It’s always nice to see another friendly face,” Soft Step agreed. Her eyes flickered dark for the briefest of moments, and she continued in a sadder tone. “There aren’t many of them left. Detendu didn’t make it. Jetstream didn’t make it. So many ponies I knew on that ship didn’t make it.”
Rarity put her hoof on Soft Step’s. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “It must be so much harder for you and the crew. You all knew each other, didn’t you?”
“Mostly.” Sighing, Soft Step tried to shake her head and dash the sad thoughts away. “I guess I should just be happy I’m still alive. I could’ve very easily drowned. Through some luck, I managed to ride out the storm as the ship came down.”
“Do you mind my asking about that?” Rarity asked, her eyes flitting between the two ponies. “Rainbow and I escaped from the bridge when the airship’s cables destroyed it, and then we took one of the lifeboats down. But how did you all survive? The pirates locked everypony up below decks.”
“They didn’t lock up all of the crew,” Ratchet said. “They needed some of us to do our jobs and keep the ship flying while they manned it with a skeleton crew. When they started abandoning ship, we tried to unlock as many doors as we could and escape to the lifeboats.”
“I was locked in the spa,” Soft Step said. “Not the worst place to be, all things considered, but I was one of the last they managed to free. Then the ship started going down. While the earth ponies and the unicorns tried to get into the lifeboats and launch them before the ship broke apart, lots of us pegasi tried to fly through the storm and brave it. Not a lot of us managed it.”
She held out one of her green wings, and Rarity noticed that it was twisted, crooked. When she folded both wings against her sides, the wingtips didn’t point the same direction like usual. One wing pointed up with the feathers above her cutie mark, and the other pointed down below it.
“Can you still fly?” she asked, Rainbow’s fears and worries coming to the forefront of her mind. After seeing how Rainbow fretted about her injured wing and understanding what flight meant to a pegasus, she immediately worried about the green masseuse.
“Yeah, I can,” she said, to Rarity’s relief. “Not very long and not easily, though. But I can still fly up to the treetops. It’s just… a lot harder to do so with my wings crooked.”
“We didn’t find Doctor Gauze for almost a week after we ended up here,” Ratchet said. “Her wing set wrong after she fractured it flying through the storm. Gauze could’ve broken and reset it, but without an x-ray to see the damage done to the bone, he didn’t want to risk permanently crippling her and causing her to lose her flight for good.”
“I think he made the right choice,” Soft Step said. “I’d rather fly like a foal than not fly at all.”
“Then I’m glad you’re doing okay,” Rarity said. After looking around the camp, she noticed a distinct absence of a gray and white engineer. “Do either of you know where Gyro got off to?”
“She’s with the doctor right now,” Ratchet said. “She said she wanted to get her back looked at, but I think she mostly wanted to see his other patient and make sure he was alright.”
Rarity swallowed. “And… is he?”
“Last I heard, yes,” Ratchet said, to Rarity’s relief. “He hasn’t woken up yet, but Gauze says he’s stable. Since I know you’re going to ask, they’re in the brown hut over there.” He pointed his hoof across the campsite to a cramped hut built around a tree to give the roof some support.
Rarity smiled. “Thank you for that. Though I’m not going to go there immediately. First and foremost, I want something to eat.” Her stomach growled again, and she grimaced as she rubbed it. “I’ve had nothing to eat but sugary fruits, coconuts, and grass since I ended up here. Some real oats would be heavenly.”
Chuckling, Ratchet grabbed three bowls and a ladle and started measuring out the oatmeal for the three of them. “Then you’ve come to the right place.” Passing a bowl over to Rarity, he winked at her. “Welcome to the Sandy Islands Resort. I hope you enjoy your stay, because you’ll be with us for a long time.”
It amused Rarity how similar all the huts and shelters she’d seen since ending up on the islands over a month ago were. Somehow, three groups of ponies had independently come up with the same design principles and building materials. At the very least, it meant that her and Rainbow had done a good job with their own shelters back home.
Doctor Gauze’s clinic occupied a small space at the very edge of the camp, and was oriented as far away from the pirate camp as possible. Out here in the tropic wilderness, a trained and licensed medical professional was invaluable, and so the survivors from the Concordia had taken steps to afford the doctor and his quarters a little more security through its positioning. Rarity was merely happy that there was somepony that could look after their wounds and injuries if it came down to it.
Rarity brushed aside the palm fronds covering the doorway and stepped inside. Even with the scarcity of resources available out on the islands, the small shelter still felt like a doctor’s office: neat, organized, and somehow hiding every little bit of medicine or tool a pony could possibly expect to find inside one. Four piles of fresh bedding lined the walls, though only two were in use. Coals lied on one such bedding pile, his eyes shut and a white bandage covering the bullet wound in his side. At the very least, he looked to be sleeping peacefully, and Rarity could see the rise and fall of his chest even from where she stood. Knowing that the stallion was okay, she let her eyes wander to the opposite side of the hut, where Gyro lied on her stomach while another stallion sat next to her, feeling her back with his hooves.
The stallion noticed the shifting shadows and light patterns as Rarity walked through the doorway, but other than a quick glance in her direction, he continued to focus on Gyro. “Is there something you need?” he asked in a disinterested tone. “Or is this a social calling?”
Rarity blinked, one hoof still hovering outstretched in front of her. “I… well, I wanted to see how Gyro and Coals were doing.”
The stallion slid his hooves down Gyro’s back, ending at her tail, before pulling them away and standing up. Blue magic adjusted half-rim glasses, and his focus swiveled to Rarity, giving her a good look at his features. He was well into his middle ages, roughly fifty years old, with a white coat and a graying blue mane. His face was sharp and angular, and his eyebrows almost seemed to sag under their own weight, giving him a stern resting expression. He wore a dirty and fraying white suit with blue tie that had somehow survived the chaos of the airship crash and the subsequent month and a half of being stranded on the island. Some brown stains across the chest and near the sleeves left little wonder as to what they were.
“I performed basic surgery on Hot Coals last night,” Doctor Gauze said, his voice stern and professional. “I removed the bullet and closed the wound, but I don’t have any blood packs for transfusions nor the tools for testing blood types to perform a safe donor to patient transfusion here. I expect him to be out for the count for a week as his body tries to rebuild its blood supply. Assuming he doesn’t die from the stress his blood loss is putting on his organs.”
Rarity winced. “Thank you for painting a detailed picture for me, doctor.”
“It’s my job to keep ponies healthy and keep their friends and family informed,” he flatly replied. Then he glanced at Gyro, who was watching the two unicorns with interest. “I’ve been examining Gyro’s back for the past half hour. Without x-ray machines and most of my modern tools, it’s difficult to diagnose exactly what’s wrong with her spine. From what I can tell, she’s suffering from a severely herniated disc between in her lumbar vertebrae.”
“So what does that mean, exactly?” Gyro asked, twisting her upper torso while her legs remained motionless and dead behind her. “Am I totally screwed?”
“No,” Gauze said. “Only mostly.”
Gyro frowned and her eyes fell. “Oh. Well, that’s better than nothing… I think.”
“Is there anything you can do for her?” Rarity asked, striding closer to the doctor. “She hurt her back falling out of the airship wreckage on the northeastern face of the island. I think she said she hit her back on an open bin or something of the like.”
Gauze adjusted his glasses again and advanced on Gyro without even so much as glancing at Rarity. “Yes, I’ve already heard the full story from Gyro herself. The blow to her spine damaged the disc between her vertebrae, and I believe, as I mentioned earlier, it may have resulted in its herniation. However, I believe it’s merely a severe case of lumbar disc herniation as opposed to something worse.”
“I don’t usually hear ‘merely’ and ‘severe’ go together that often,” Gyro grumbled, laying her chin back down on the bedding.
Gauze regarded her with an unamused look. “You have to consider the alternatives. You could have completely broken your back, which you miraculously did not, or you could have died. As it stands, your spine is still in one piece, if a bit mangled, and you’re still converting oxygen into sarcastic wisecracks with frightening efficiency.”
While Gyro grumbled and sulked, Rarity eyed the mare’s spine. “But there is something you can do for her, is what you’re saying.”
“It depends on how severe the underlying nerve damage is,” Gauze replied. “Given Gyro’s inability to feel anything below her waist and her incontinence, there’s some damage there. I can at least diagnose part of it as cauda equina syndrome, but it’s obviously more than just that. She would need surgery on her spine to help decompress her nervous system and allow her to use her legs again…”
The way his voice trailed off and the sigh didn’t escape Rarity. “But what?” she asked. “You can’t do it?”
“I have my surgical equipment and basic first aid with me,” he said. “I can perform the surgery. I’m not even worried about the risk of infection; we have fresh water and we have wood, so I can boil my tools to disinfect them. What I’m worried about is my lack of anesthesia equipment and other medical conveniences to simplify the surgery.”
“I mean, I can’t even feel my legs,” Gyro said. “Do you even need anesthesia for that?”
“You are currently lacking sensation below the damage to your spine,” Gauze informed her. He stepped forward and put his hoof on a bulge in Gyro’s back, sharply pressing down for a second. “Can you feel that?”
Gyro hissed, squeaked, and writhed in the sand. Even after the doctor removed his hoof, she shook and trembled. Tears of pain welled in her eyes, and she panted through gritted teeth. “Okay… I get your point…”
“Can’t you use your magic to help her?” Rarity asked. “You’re a doctor and a surgeon, I would imagine you know some numbing spells.”
“I can induce paralysis in a patient and I can apply topical anesthesia while performing surgery with ease. But I’m going to be cutting around her spine and trying to decompress her nerves.” He shook his head. “That’s much more complicated. I need actual anesthesia to fully desensitize her for the surgery. Even if I tried numbing the pain directly, I can’t perform the surgery while I’m focusing on that spell. I risk doing more harm than good if I can’t deliver my full attention to the surgery and her injury.”
Gyro swallowed hard. “But you could do it, right? You could fix my back?”
Gauze nodded. “I could fix your back without anesthesia, but the trauma and shock from the pain might be too much for you.”
“I’m a big girl,” Gyro insisted. “I’m an earth pony. What’s a little pain?”
“Your life.” Gauze sat down next to Gyro and removed his glasses, a sign Rarity knew meant he was about to tell her something serious. “The incredible pain will dramatically increase your heart rate and dump adrenaline into your blood. Considering I will have to cut open your back and carefully make my way through muscle to access your spine, there will be blood loss. On top of that, this won’t be a quick surgery. It will take a few hours. Over the course of those few hours, you run a risk of severe blood loss and suffering from shock. To put it another way, without my proper tools, there’s a nonzero chance that the surgery will kill you.”
“Then… it can wait until we get back to Equestria, right?” Gyro’s eyes took on a hopeful sparkle. “You can fix it then, right?”
But Gauze shook his head. “By that point, the nerve damage will become too severe to reverse. You will never be able to walk again. Essentially, I must perform the surgery within the next twenty-four hours if you want to use your legs again.”
“Is it really that much of a risk, doctor?” Rarity asked. “What are the odds that Gyro would die from blood loss and shock during your surgery?”
“One in five,” Gauze said. “There’s a reason corrective surgeries like these are only performed in professional and equipped hospitals. It’s too dangerous for a non-life-threatening injury.”
Rarity thought for a moment. “What if I helped you perform the surgery?” she asked. “I’m a seamstress. I work with dozens of needles and spools of thread, often at the same time. My magic is as fine and precise as anypony’s. I could do the actual cutting while you numbed her pain.”
Gyro’s eyes brightened. “Hey, that’s an idea,” she said. “The two of you together could do it. I know you can!”
Gauze regarded Rarity with a skeptical look. “I’m not sure I want to trust delicate surgery like this to an amateur. Sewing and stitching is one thing, but working with scalpel and knife is another.”
“I know I can do it,” Rarity said. “You just have to tell me where to cut.” Her eyes shifted to Gyro. “But, overall, it’s Gyro’s decision. Not ours.”
“A fair point.” Gauze pivoted to Gyro and raised an eyebrow at her. “Now that you know the choices, what do you want to do? I do warn you that even after the surgery, you will have a long road of rehabilitation ahead of you.”
Gyro thought for a moment, but as soon as her eyes made contact with Rarity’s, Rarity knew exactly what she would say. “Let’s do it,” she said. “I trust you two. I know you can do it.”
Gauze bobbed his head once. “Very well. We’ll begin after dinner. I need to make sure your stomach is empty before we start, and then you’ll have the night to sleep the worst of it off. In the meanwhile, if you reconsider, let me know.” Standing up, he nodded to Rarity. “I’ll find you when it’s time to begin. In the meanwhile, do whatever you want. I don’t particularly care.”
Rarity gave him an affirmative nod, and he walked right by her and out that door. After he was gone, Rarity looked back at Gyro and offered her a smile. “So, you’re sure about this?”
“Honestly, I’d rather die than spend the rest of my life a cripple,” Gyro said with a grin and a shrug. “It’s a win-win situation!”
The seamstress sighed and frowned at Gyro. “I do really wish you wouldn’t talk about your own life with such levity.”
“What do you want from me, Rarity? It’s just how I deal with stress.” Groaning, she pushed herself halfway off the ground with her forehooves. “Now, mind helping me get back into my walker? I don’t want to spend the rest of today just sitting around the doctor’s hut, staring at Coals. I don’t think he’d appreciate that too much when he wakes up.”
Rarity did as she asked, her blue magic quickly affixing the harness around Gyro’s body. As she helped Gyro stand, she shot her a concerned look. “If you change your mind…”
Gyro responded by putting her hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “I appreciate it, Rarity, I really do. But I know that you and Gauze can do this.” Smiling, she added, “I wouldn’t trust anypony else.”
Rainbow stirred and groaned, her blue wings shifting and shuffling the sand around her body. Bleary ruby eyes opened one after the other, and the pegasus grunted and moaned as she tried to wake herself up. Even when she managed to raise her head and stretch her limbs, her body still wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep for another day. After spending two days living in the constant fear of violence from a psychotic pirate with a mercurial temper, Rainbow merely wanted to capitalize on the safety and chance for sleep the survivors’ camp afforded her.
Rubbing at her eyes, Rainbow slowly looked around the clearing. “Rarity?” she mumbled, her drowsy tongue slurring over her teeth. “What time is it? Anypony got an alarm clock?”
“It’s well past midday,” Rarity said from behind her. “You should get up. There’s so much to do.”
Rainbow heard shuffling hooves approaching her, and she hid an impish grin from Rarity’s sight. As soon as she heard the hooves stop by her side, she whirled around and tried to tackle the mare, her lips lunging for Rarity’s.
Clever Ruse quickly stayed Rainbow with a hoof to her chest, stopping their muzzles from meeting by a few inches. “I’d prefer if you asked first,” he said, winking at her. “Sudden passion works a lot better in storybooks and show business than it does in real life.”
Rainbow jumped backwards and fell back into the sand. The world momentarily spun, a lingering effect from her concussion, and her eyes went cross. “But how did… where’s Rarity?”
Clever Ruse’s mint green horn briefly shimmered. “What are you talking about?” Rarity’s voice said, coming from his lips. “I’m right here, darling. Don’t you recognize me?”
Rainbow frowned and rubbed her forehooves against her temples. “Grrrr… Okay, funny. I’m gonna assume that you’re like this all the time.”
The stallion bowed with a grandiose sweep of his leg. “It’s my pleasure and my job to keep ponies entertained,” he said, switching back to his normal voice. “It’s what I earned my mark in, after all.”
“Yeah, well, waking up to your marefriend’s awesome voice only to find out it’s just some stallion who likes playing tricks on ponies kind of ruins the experience.”
Ruse shrugged and offered Rainbow his hoof. “I don’t merely use my talents for the sole purpose of entertaining an audience. I use them to entertain myself too, sometimes.”
“Whatever.” Regardless, Rainbow took the stallion’s hoof and stood up, her limbs cracking and creaking as she worked her stiff joints. Grimacing, she extended and closed her wings several times. “All this sand and salt is starting to dry me out. Maybe Rarity’s right, by the time we get back to Equestria, we’re gonna be like leather.”
“Have you tried rubbing coconut oil on your joints?” Ruse asked. “It’s a wonderful topical treatment for stiff joints, and Celestia knows there’s more than enough coconuts on these islands.”
“I’m pretty sure Rarity mentioned something like that once,” Rainbow said with a shrug. “Honestly, I probably wasn’t paying much attention. It’s just boring beauty stuff.”
“I would’ve imagined that you of all ponies would understand fashion and appearances,” Ruse said was they walked back to the camp.
Rainbow cocked her head at him. “Huh? Why?”
“You’re a Wonderbolt, are you not?” Ruse returned the look with a sly grin. “How many times have you had to wear makeup and nice dresses or uniforms for social events? You don’t get to wear the jumpsuit all the time.”
Rainbow scowled down the length of her blue muzzle. “Okay, yeah, sure. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.”
“I’m not saying you have to like it. I’m just saying that I figured you’d understand the benefits of caring for your appearance.” They walked past one of the huts, and Ruse nodded his head. “It’s not all ‘boring beauty stuff’ after all, once you look at it that way.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh…”
Smiling, Ruse turned around and began to trot off in a different direction. “Catch you around, Rainbow Dash. Enjoy your stay, darling,” he added, his voice once more mimicking Rarity’s.
A shudder crawled along Rainbow’s spine as she watched the ventriloquist walk away. “That’s freaky,” she mumbled to herself, turning around and leisurely making her way over to the fire.
Rarity, Gyro, and Soft Step sat around the low flames, simply letting the fuel burn away. Spotty clouds kept the air from heating up too much, and a persistent wind from the west blew away the smoke. The three mares saw Rainbow approach, and Rainbow sat down in an open space between Rarity and Soft Step. “Hey, girls,” she said, smiling at each of them in turn. “What’s up?”
“Passing time,” Rarity said. Her horn lit up and she dropped a bowl of oatmeal in front of Rainbow. “They have oats at this camp, can you believe it? I haven’t eaten oats in forever!”
Rainbow’s mouth began to water as soon as she set her eyes on the bowl. “It’s been nothing but fake apples and coconuts for forever now. Oatmeal sounds fantastic!” Before anypony could say anything else, she simply buried her face in her oatmeal, making all sorts of gurgling sounds as she practically sucked down the meal. Around her, Rarity and Soft Step watched with somewhat horrified expressions, while Gyro merely snickered and tried not to laugh.
It hardly took a minute before Rainbow had completely licked her bowl clean. When she took her face out of it, random bits of lost oats clung to the hair all around her muzzle, and she spent several seconds trying to lick what she could off with her tongue. Eventually, she burped and pushed the bowl away with a contented sigh. “Could use some cinnamon.”
Rarity sighed and put a hoof to her face. “You are an animal, Rainbow Dash.”
“I thought we all were,” Rainbow said. “At least, that’s what Twilight keeps telling me.”
“You know what I mean.”
While Rarity shook her head, Rainbow looked around at her companions, she noticed how Gyro hungrily eyed the kettle of oats sitting on the fire and raised an eyebrow. “You hungry, G? Need some help getting some?”
“Yes, I’m hungry, and yes, I do need help getting some,” Gyro said, but the amused smirk on the side of her muzzle meant something else entirely. It took Rainbow several seconds before she pieced together what exactly she’d said.
“Ha, yeah, sure,” she said, shaking her head. “When Coals is feeling better I’m sure he can help with that. But actually, though, you need somepony to pour some for you?”
Gyro shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m having surgery later tonight.”
“Surgery?” Rainbow cocked an eyebrow. “What for?”
“We’re fixing her spine,” Rarity said. “Doctor Gauze and myself. He believes we can cure her paralysis with a simple procedure. At least, I hope it’s simple. I’ve never done surgery before, but I offered my magic to help. I figure if I’m precise with a needle and thread, I can be precise with a scalpel too.”
“And you’re good with this?” Rainbow asked the engineer. “Sounds like it’ll be risky.”
Gyro shrugged. “Risky or not, I don’t have much choice. The doc says if I don’t have the surgery performed by tonight, then I’ll never walk again. I figure, why not take the risk if I have nothing to lose?”
“Didn’t you say though that it could be dangerous?” Soft Step asked. “There’s a chance you could die if it goes bad.”
“Only from blood loss,” Gyro said. “I’m sure the doc and Rarity can patch me up good if it comes to that.”
Rainbow whistled and shook her head. “Well, good luck with that,” she said. “You need me for anything? I’d love to help if I could.”
“Maybe just somepony for Gyro to talk to,” Rarity suggested. “Doctor Gauze made it sound like he won’t be able to completely anesthetize Gyro for the procedure. It might make it easier for her.”
“Yeah, that’d be nice,” Gyro said, her throat bobbing as she swallowed behind an uneasy smile. “Nothing like lying there helpless while somepony goes digging through your back with a knife…”
“I’m sure it won’t be too bad,” Rainbow said, trying to reassure the earth pony. “Just imagine it like a massage or something. When it’s done, you’ll be able to walk!” Her eyes turned to Soft Step, and she sheepishly smiled. “Speaking of which… you wouldn’t mind, would you?”
Soft Step blinked, her attention having been elsewhere moments earlier. “I’m sorry?”
Rainbow fidgeted. “I, uh, was kinda hoping that you could… you know… do your thing on my wings.”
Rarity’s lip quivered as she looked away, trying to pretend she didn’t understand what Rainbow was abashedly asking for.
After a moment, Soft Step opened her mouth and grinned. “Oh, why, yes, of course!” she said. “It’ll be a little bit more basic than usual, but that’s only because we’re out in the middle of nowhere instead of a spa. But yes, I’d be happy to give you a mass—?”
“Thank you,” Rainbow said, harshly interrupting the pegasus before she could say the magic word. Looking around, she cleared her throat and stood up. “I’m, uh, gonna go looking around for a drink and stuff. Where’s your watering hole?”
Soft Step faltered, but pointed a green wing off through the trees after a second of hesitation. “It’s… through that way?”
“Awesome.” Rainbow immediately started to canter off in that direction. “I’ll, uh, see you or something when I get back.”
“Right…” As Rainbow walked way, Soft Step raised an eyebrow and turned to the other two mares. “Is she always like this?”
“Only when she’s embarrassed,” Rarity said. Winking at Soft Step, she added, “You will turn her into blue jelly, will you?”
Soft Step shrugged. “I could…”
“Do it.” Then, winking at Gyro, Rarity added, “You have to see her face when she gets a wing massage. It’s amazing.”
Rainbow Dash lied flat on her stomach on a bed of fronds and sand. She held her wings outstretched at her sides, relaxed and loose, while green hooves worked on each one in turn. A glazed expression covered her face from ear to ear, and Rainbow found herself unable to move at all with sheer bliss turning her limbs into boneless noodles.
Soft Step sat at Rainbow’s left side, cradling Rainbow’s blue wing in her lap. Her delicate green hooves carefully plied their way along Rainbow’s wing, dispelling knots and sore spots in her muscles with every precise touch. The effect was something magical, and quite literally left Rainbow drooling in a daze.
The masseuse giggled at a particularly strange gurgle Rainbow made from somewhere deep in her throat. “I think you like these even more than Misty did,” she said, stroking Rainbow’s wing to smooth some of the feathers back down. “It’s cute.”
“Mmmmrfffff… not cute…” Rainbow mumbled, her bleary eyes blinking out of sync with each other.
“Whatever you say.” Soft Step squeezed out the final few bits of tension in Rainbow’s left wing before setting it aside. “There, all done. Anything else you need from me?”
Rainbow grunted and slowly managed to lift her head. “I mean, I can’t ask you to massage them all day, can I?”
“For that, you’d have to pay me,” Soft Step replied with a wink. “Besides, once the muscles are loosened, I can’t relax them any further. It wouldn’t accomplish anything more. It’d just feel like I’m touching and rubbing your wings.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to come back another time.” It took a lot of dedicated effort for Rainbow to force herself into a standing position on her boneless limbs, but she eventually managed the impossible feat with only a little swaying and staggering. Then, turning to Soft Step, a mischievous smile settled on her muzzle. “So do I have to like, make appointments still, or…?”
The masseuse giggled and dismissively waved a wing. “So long as I’m not doing anything else important around the camp, then whenever’s fine. But unless you do some rigorous flying soon, you won’t need my touch for at least a week.”
“Hey, maybe I should take you flying with me sometime,” Rainbow said, lightly fluttering her wings. “Return the favor, you know? Haven’t you ever wanted to fly with a Wonderbolt? And don’t say no, because every pegasus wants to fly with a Wonderbolt when they’re foals. Just, for some ponies, that passion doesn’t go away.”
Soft Step genuinely smiled, but it took on a sad tinge when she held out her wings. “If you could be bothered to go low and slow for me,” she said, and Rainbow noted how her left wing seemed twisted and stiff compared to her right. “I’m not exactly the best flier.”
Rainbow’s smile immediately fell flat. “Oh, shoot, Esses, I didn’t know.” The stunt flier immediately felt sorry for the mare. “When did that happen? You weren’t born like that, were you?”
“Thankfully, no,” Soft Step said. “I only hurt my wing escaping from the Concordia and it set wrong. By the time we found the doctor, it was too late for me to get it to heal right.” She shrugged and folded her wings back against her sides. “I can get it fixed when we get back to Equestria, though. That’s just a matter of breaking and resetting the bone so it heals right. Unpleasant as it sounds, I at least know I’ll be able to fly like normal again.”
“Yeah, well, that’s good then.” Rainbow held out her left wing as well. “I also broke my left wing in the escape from the ship. But, like, I had Wonderbolt training, so I knew how to set it right. It’s not as strong as it used to be, but I can at least fly.”
Soft Step nodded. “I thought I felt a bump along your bones there. I wasn’t going to ask.” Then, quirking an eyebrow, she cocked her head at Rainbow. “Also, ‘Esses?’”
Rainbow waved her hoof. “You know, Soft Step, two S’s, so I figured just call you Esses.” Smirking, she added, “I like giving ponies nicknames. You’re not the first one; just ask G and Rares.”
The masseuse smiled and shook her head. “I see. So, do you have a nickname?”
“I mean, yeah, a few.” The Wonderbolt shrugged. “My teammates call me Crash, but that’s only my teammates. A few other ponies call me RD. But when you have two short and awesome names like ‘Rainbow’ and ‘Dash’, there isn’t really a need for that.”
“I’ll call you whatever you want, then,” Soft Step said. Sighing, she arched her back until her spine popped, then started to walk back towards the center of camp. “Let’s go back to camp and see if Ratchet needs us for anything. If not, I might catch a quick nap.” She yawned and added, “I didn’t get much sleep last night. I was on the raid with Ratchet where we rescued Gyro, and then I helped keep watch until nearly dawn.”
Rainbow whistled. “At least nopony can say anything bad about your endurance. You’re a real trooper for being… you know, a spa pony.”
“Even us spa ponies can rise up and do what we have to to survive when the time comes for it.” She glanced at Rainbow. “After all, hasn’t Rarity already proven that?”
Rainbow stopped and thought a moment. “I… yeah, when you put it that way, that’s fair. I thought she was gonna do nothing but complain and whine the entire time we were stuck on these islands, but she’s been really level-headed and helpful when it comes to surviving. Well… most of the time. She still has to vent her drama queen every so often,” she added with a mirthful chuckle.
“Do you at least indulge her when she does?”
Rainbow shrugged with her wings. “I mean, I put up with it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It isn’t.” Soft Step shook her head, while Rainbow raised an eyebrow at her. “If you really want to make her happy and appreciative, indulge her a little in those moments. Try to sympathize with her drama, as hard as it might be. I don’t mean, like, get dramatic yourself, I just mean agree with her and then try to calm her back down. She’ll appreciate it later, trust me.”
Rainbow blinked a few times, then continued her walk. “I mean, if you say so. I’m not sure how exactly to go about doing that. It’s not like I can go buy her flowers or bake her a cake or something out here.”
“No, you can’t,” Soft Step agreed. “But you can use your imagination. There’s plenty of nice little gestures you can do for her. Anything helps.”
“Huh.” Her wings briefly fidgeted at her sides and an ear flicked at a fly. “I’ll keep that in mind, then.”
“Good.” The two ponies got within line of sight of the fire, and Soft Step giggled when Rarity and Gyro looked at them with scandalous smiles on their faces. “I’m going to find a tree or something to take care of business with first. You, on the other hoof, enjoy the conversation you’re about to have.”
Rainbow stopped. “Conversation? What conversation?”
“You’ll find out in time,” Soft Step sang, already trotting away from Rainbow. “See you around!”
Rainbow Dash already had a good idea of what she was about to get herself into when she sat down in the sand across from her friends. Regardless, she still tried to feign confusion in the hopes that it would keep them from talking about it. “What are you two giggling about?”
Gyro and Rarity glanced at each other. “Where have you been off to?” Rarity asked, quirking her eyebrow above her curved lips.
“Uh, taking a look at Soft Step’s wings?” Rainbow fidgeted in place; she didn’t like where this conversation was inevitably going for a number of reasons.
“That could mean a bunch of things in pegasus slang, I’m sure,” Gyro said. “Are you sure Rarity’s okay with that?”
Rainbow buried her face in her hooves and let out an exasperated sigh. “Celestia, sometimes you two drive me nuts. You already know what I was doing, I can see it in your faces.”
Rarity and Gyro snickered and dropped the act. “And how was your massage, darling? Good?”
“Esses’ got the best hooves in the game. She knows what a pegasus needs. Of course it was good.”
Gyro blinked. “Esses?”
“Soft Step,” Rainbow muttered.
“Oh, she has a nickname now?” Rarity asked. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d start throwing around some choice accusations.”
Rainbow sighed and laid her chin in the sand. “Whatever. Yes, I like her massages and they’re pretty awesome, girly as it sounds. Let me know when the torment has passed so I can go back to being awesome.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and slid over to pat Rainbow’s shoulder. “Oh, come now, Rainbow, it’s just a little light teasing. Nopony blames you for finding enjoyment in something objectively delightful. In fact, I might have to inquire about her services myself.”
“I bet she’s super busy around here,” Gyro said. “Having a trained masseuse in your crew must be great for morale. Celestia knows it must feel great after trying to survive in the wilderness by the skin of your teeth for so long.”
“Yeah. Think we can keep her when we find what we’re looking for, here?” Rainbow raised her head and spotted the green pegasus wandering through the plants around the edge of the camp. “I’d love to have my own massager pony on call whenever I need her.”
Gyro frowned and scuffed her hoof through the sand. “What are we gonna do about that, though?” she asked. “Are we going to take all these ponies back to our island, or are we going to move here, or what?”
Rarity blinked. “That’s… a good question, actually.”
“Yeah.” It was, admittedly, something Rainbow hadn’t thought about. But then again, she’d hardly had any time to think about it in the first place. What would they do with the new survivors they’d found? The number of survivors they knew about living on the islands had quite literally quadrupled overnight, and then some. They’d gone from three ponies to thirteen. That certainly changed a lot of things and a lot of plans her and Rarity had formed when it was originally just the two of them.
“Can our island even support that many ponies?” Rainbow asked. “It’s a lot smaller than this one, and there’s really only the south hill that grows fruit.”
“I think we’d be hard pressed to sustain ourselves for very long,” Rarity said. “Though they do have some food from the Concordia to help lighten the load.”
“But by how much?” Gyro asked. “It sounds like they can stretch their rations to cover everypony for a couple of months. But what happens when they run out?”
“Yeah, exactly what I was wondering.” After a moment to think, Rainbow rubbed a hoof along her chin. “Think they have any seeds in those bags?”
Rarity blinked. “Seeds? What for?”
“For growing stuff, Rares. Why else would we need seeds?”
“I thought the whole plan was to get off these islands,” Gyro said. “Not build a home here and move in.”
“Yeah, but just because we don’t want to be here for the long haul doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan for it.” Rainbow shook her head. “If we plant seeds, we can grow crops, and if we can grow crops, we can sustain ourselves basically forever. We definitely won’t starve then.”
Gyro shrugged. “I guess.” Groaning, she laid her head on the sand and covered it with her forelegs. “Oh, can we stop talking about food? I’m so hungry and I can’t eat until after my stupid surgery.”
“Hey, at least you’ll get to walk after that, right?” Rainbow asked. “That’ll make it worth it.”
Gyro eyed the sand in front of her, where a stray oat or two lied half-buried. “At this point, my stomach is trying to convince my brain that I don’t need legs, only some delicious oats.”
“Just… try not to think about food or something, G,” Rainbow said. “Have you guys gotten to meet anypony else here?”
Rarity and Gyro shook their heads. “The ponies we didn’t meet last night left early this morning on another patrol and scavenging mission,” Gyro said. “Ball Bearings, a concierge named Champagne, a room service mare named Fresh Linens, and a passenger, I think his name was Straight Edges or something.”
“It seems like most of the survivors are Concordia crew,” Rarity observed. “Not many passengers apart from Rainbow and myself.”
Shrugging, Gyro shook her head. “Can’t really say why. I guess the crew was just in a better position to escape when the storm hit the ship. Every passenger was locked up somewhere while some of the crew was left around the decks.”
“I guess it’s a good thing Squall separated us from everypony else then, right, Rares?” Rainbow asked. “Otherwise we’d have been stuck below decks and we would’ve been toast.”
Gyro slammed her forehead against the sand and let loose a muffled groan.
Rainbow blinked. “What? Did I say something?”
Rarity shook her head and sighed. “Don’t worry about it. She’ll survive. But, speaking of future plans, we should probably start looking for this next figurine while we’re here.”
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, if the survivors know where this tomb thingy is, then I bet that’s where the figurine is hiding. The sooner we get that, the sooner we can get out of here and away from those pirates. Squall might be dead, but there’s still plenty of her crew left somewhere out here.”
“And the longer we remain here, the greater the risk that somepony else will lose their life unnecessarily,” Rarity agreed with a nod of her head. “Haste is the best solution to helping everypony keep their lives.”
“Yeah. Speaking of which…” Rainbow spotted Ratchet from across the camp and started waving her wing until she caught his attention. “I figure the head honcho can help us out with what we need.”
“So you guys just like, stumbled across this thing one day?”
Rainbow Dash quickly fluttered across the channel separating two of the small islands, keeping her hooves dry, while Rarity and Ratchet simply forded it. The three ponies had left the survivor camp behind them to go and see the tomb and the ruins. With the sun beginning to set, they’d agreed to go immediately to see it before what daylight they had left expired and the jungle would become more difficult to navigate at night. They’d also taken a few weapons from the camp just in case; though Ratchet was confident they wouldn’t run into too much pirate activity during the day with Squall dead and their numbers thinned as they were, it never hurt to take a few extra precautions.
“At its most basic, yes,” Ratchet said. “When we started linking up, we went to the dead center of the island cluster, figuring that if any other survivors happened to be looking for us, they’d make their way further inland. It gave us a nice stronghold to defend, too. It certainly helped us when Squall and the pirates were at their most vicious.”
“Did they ever try to force their way to you?” Rarity asked. “I can’t imagine she’d just let you sit there uncontested.”
Ratchet nodded as he emerged from the channel, seawater dripping off his legs and tail. “They assaulted it twice. Our numbers advantage was the only thing that saved us then. We didn’t have many weapons, and they had swords and firearms. Though we took a few pirates out, they were bleeding us dry. We were down to fourteen or fifteen left when the smoke cleared from the second attack, and the pirates had only lost three or four. After that, we pulled back to find a safer place to build camp and haven’t been back since.”
“And Gyro claims that the pirates still believe you’re hiding in those ruins,” Rarity remarked. “The irony must be that they never ventured back to the ruins again since that attack if they’re unaware that you’ve relocated.”
“I don’t necessarily regret pulling out of there regardless,” Ratchet said. “That just means that if they do wander back there in search of revenge for killing their captain, they won’t find us. As far as they know, we’ll have just vanished into thin air.”
Rainbow dropped out of the sky, her hooves sending little ripples of sand around her upon impact. “I don’t even know if they’ll be able to mount a counterattack,” she said. “We took most of their weapons and supplies. It’s not like they have a lot left to fight us with.”
“You’ve given them a thirst for vengeance and desperation,” Ratchet said. “Those two things in combination can be very dangerous. Even without weapons, those pirates could kill us if they got the jump on us. I’m doubling up on our patrols for the next week or so to catch them if they try to sneak up on us. Besides,” he added, chuckling, “our ventriloquist friend could use a little help now and then.”
“Does he handle that all himself?” Rarity asked. “I can’t imagine he’s solely responsible for keeping watch.”
“He does the bulk of it and doesn’t complain. It’s incredible.” The chief engineer lowered his head as he passed beneath some obtrusive ferns and branches, while behind him, Rarity merely pushed them aside with her magic. “He’s one of those ponies who can function on four hours of sleep. I don’t know how he does it, but he’s perfectly fine and rested after four.”
“Four? Holy crap!” Rainbow shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t feel like I’m at my best unless I get, like, ten.”
“I can’t imagine how wonderful that must be,” Rarity said. “If I had four or five more hours to work with per day, I could accomplish so much. I fall asleep at my workshop often enough as is!”
“He’s not the only one either,” Ratchet said to the mares’ continuing surprise. “Soft Step’s also a quick sleeper. That’s why she was up late last night when we returned to the camp, and then awake at dawn with her usual chipper outlook.”
“Jeez,” Rainbow said. “Guess it’s not hard for you guys to make sure somepony’s always on watch around the camp.”
Ratchet nodded. “It’s certainly had its benefits. Especially for an old guy like me. I find it harder and harder to stay up after the sun sets these days.”
“I can sympathize with that,” Rarity said. “If nothing else, all this time out here with no technology, no artificial lights, no screens or what have you, has helped restore my sleeping patterns to a more natural rhythm.”
“And then dealing with first minotaurs and now pirates has really messed with them,” Rainbow said. “We’ve spent so much time snooping around at night because of this that I feel like my sleep schedule’s gotten worse, if anything.”
“Eventually, it simply adjusts to the mere need for survival,” Ratchet offered. He grunted as he heaved himself up a stone jutting out of the sand—a block of stone that had obviously been cut. “We’re getting close now,” he said. “Not too much further.”
Rainbow helped Rarity up the chest-high block of stone with a little bit of tugging from her wings and hooves, and the two mares started to notice the scenery change around them. Daylight more easily made its way to the jungle floor as the canopy thinned, and there was a distinct reason for that. More cut blocks of stone made up cracked floors and forums, crumbling walls, and shattered columns. Rainbow immediately knew she was standing on the ruins of some great temple or ancient structure, laid low with the passage of time and the relentless, consuming march of the foliage through every inch of available space.
“No wonder I couldn’t see this place from the sky,” Rainbow said, her ruby eyes wandering up and down the blocks of stone and crooked trees mixed between. “The jungle’s so thick and this stuff’s so low that it’s completely covered from the air.”
“Do you happen to know what this place was used for?” Rarity asked, trotting closer to Ratchet’s side. “Apart from a tomb, of course.”
Ratchet shook his head. “No, we don’t. You’ll see why in a bit.”
Rarity blinked. “We’ll see why?”
“Yeah. There’s a reason we used the rubble around here to hold up and defend ourselves instead of the tomb proper.”
Rainbow traced the edges of an eroding block of stone with her wingtip, only for her feather to slip into a hole in the stone chewed out by a fat bullet. “Eeesh, I doubt that was fun. But being cornered in a tomb would’ve been worse.”
The engineer shrugged mid-stride. “Perhaps. Regardless, we’re still here.” Then, angling his head off to the side, he maneuvered around a pile of rocks that might have once been a statue or symbol of some kind. “The tomb is down here.”
“Down here?” Rarity curiously cocked her head and hurried to Ratchet’s side to see exactly what he meant. Rainbow, on the other hoof, took wing again and decided to see for herself. Just past the forum Rarity and Ratchet currently trotted across, she saw the land abruptly give way into a deep staircase carved into the earth. More than a staircase, it seemed like a ramp down into the very bowels of the earth. It was, at a minimum, fifty tail-lengths wide, and it dropped so deep down into the earth that a stone overhang shrouded a door in the back in shadow.
Ratchet and Rarity stopped at the edge of the stairs while Rainbow hovered above them. “There’s some kind of temple or tomb down those stairs,” he said, pointing to the intricately decorated and chiseled door at the bottom. “We don’t really know for sure, but we think it’s a tomb instead of something else.”
“And how do you suggest that without being able to get inside?” Rarity asked. “Are there any defining marks? Any evidence for that?”
“Yes, on the door.” He continued to gesture at it, and Rainbow swooped directly down the stairs to land in front of the door. “You can tell by the carvings.”
Indeed, Rainbow could tell at a glance that it had to be a tomb of some sort. The Ponynesians had carved dozens of little ponies into the face of the door lying in neat rows on their backs with their eyes shut. Above them, stars and clouds swirled around a full moon pierced by the horn of a regal and frightening unicorn stallion. The stallion looked the slightest bit demonic, with barely visible fangs and slitted eyes etched into his likeness. It didn’t take long before Rainbow recognized him from the sun temple they’d found Gyro in.
“There’s a bunch of dead ponies underneath a picture of that moon dude from the sun temple,” Rainbow shouted out the side of her muzzle and back up the stairs. “I bet the unicorn statuette thingy is in here.”
Ratchet raised an eyebrow. “What is this about a statuette? I believe Gyro mentioned something like that to me before, but she didn’t explain.”
“We need to find them if we’re going to get back home,” Rarity said. “We discovered that there’s some kind of magic ward around these islands preventing us from being found. We’ll never get back home unless we take it down, and the key to doing that is to find these statuettes scattered across the four islands here. We already have one for a pegasus and one for a crystal pony. We’re missing a unicorn and an earth pony now.”
“Huh.” Ratchet blinked as he turned that new piece of information over in his mind. “Well, if you think so. I’m down for anything that gives us a chance to get back home. Only problem is, we can’t open the door.”
Rainbow frowned as she scrutinized the door. There weren’t any handles or keyholes to work with, and no obvious locking mechanisms like what held the sun temple’s doors shut. All there was were depictions of the unicorn and the moon, along with starlight and many nighttime motifs.
But if the sun had opened the interior of the sun temple, then could the moon open this temple?
She turned around and fluttered back up the steps to her friends. “It’s nearly a full moon, right?”
“It should be tonight or tomorrow,” Ratchet said. “The moon’s gotten pretty large. We just couldn’t see it last night with all the rain.”
Rainbow eyed the clouds sliding across the horizon with a wary look. “Well, Rares and I came from a temple that had doors that could only be opened by direct sunlight. Maybe this thing works the same?”
Rarity craned her neck back to look up at the sky. “You believe the full moon will cause the door to open for us?”
“I’d bet on it,” Rainbow said. “So long as those clouds stay away.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Ratchet said. “It looks like they’re moving in pretty steadily.”
Rainbow frowned and thought. What could she do? If the weather didn’t cooperate with her, then they might miss their chance to get the next figurine. There had to be something she could do instead of just praying for the best.
And then it dawned on her. There was something she could do. She couldn’t do it before, but now she could. It was what her people were born to do.
“How many pegasi are with you guys?” she asked Ratchet.
Ratchet blinked. “Why?”
“Because it’s important.” Rainbow had already started eyeing the clouds, starting to pick apart their patterns and prevailing wind currents based on how they moved. “I need them. All of them.”
“Well, there’s Soft Step, Stargazer, and Champagne. The three of them are the only pegasi we have.”
“Good. I can do with four.” She remembered Soft Step’s wing and corrected herself with a little grimace. “Or, well, three and a half. That’ll work.”
“Rainbow?” Rarity asked. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking, Rares, that if the weather won’t cooperate with us…” A grin spread across her muzzle and she draped a wing over the unicorn’s back. “We make it cooperate with us the only way I know how.”
Rarity’s head was abuzz with a whirling maelstrom of thoughts and worries. Ever since her and Rainbow had scouted out the tomb with Ratchet, she didn’t know what to think or focus her attentions on. Once more, her and Rainbow were tantalizingly close to getting another figurine and moving one step closer to rescue. Yet once again, some obstacle prevented them from simply walking in and walking out. What they had was at best an idea of how to open the door. But what if it wasn’t controlled by the full moon? What if it was controlled by something else? And, more importantly, what if that meant they had no way of opening the door and getting inside?
Those worries kept her occupied until dinner, but they weren’t the only things she fretted about. Where were the pirates? She would’ve expected them to show their faces by now, but not even the morning patrol reported seeing them when they returned. They hadn’t dared venture close to the pirate camp out of fear of a trap or retaliation from the pirates, and nopony was keen on forcing a fight and risking death when they could avoid it. Where they were or what they were up to remained a mystery.
And then there was the issue of the supposed curse on the tomb. Why did the pirates think it was cursed? From seeing it herself, she hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, and Ratchet didn’t know why either. Was it just something Squall had made up to keep her crew in line, or did the pirates somehow know something about the tomb that the survivors from the Concordia didn’t? And if on the off chance the tomb really was cursed, then what was the curse and what did it do?
For better or for worse, her concerns didn’t seem to be shared by her friends. Gyro had fallen asleep in the sun sometime after midday, and the mare had only started to stir in the past few minutes with the smell of dinner beginning to waft around the camp. Rainbow Dash had tracked down the other three pegasus survivors and was briefing them in a little circle off to the side, occasionally pointing her wing up at the clouds drifting in overhead or drawing things in the dirt. Though the other pegasi seemed a little confused at first with all the weather terminology and directions Rainbow tossed around, they quickly began to pick up on it. Even Champagne, who Rarity quickly noted didn’t speak Equiish as her primary language, started to follow along with the complex terminology. After all, managing the weather was in their blood, whether or not they’d actually done it before.
Eventually, Gyro awoke with a sudden snort and a sneeze. Her sneezes lasted for several seconds and her forehooves pawed at the ground as she practically convulsed. Eventually, sniffling, she wiped her nose and looked around in momentary confusion before her eyes settled on Rarity. “Oh. Hey.”
“Have a nice nap?” Rarity asked with a little giggle. “You weren’t dreaming about feathers tickling your nose, were you?”
“I hate sleeping on the sand,” Gyro said. “It’s so easy to stick your nose in it and accidentally inhale a bunch. Especially for somepony who likes to sleep on their side, like me.” She rubbed off some of the sand caked to the side of her face and looked around. “I didn’t sleep through my surgery, did I?”
Rarity shook her head. “We’re just finishing up dinner, then it’s time for your surgery,” she said.
“Oh. Good. Then I don’t have too much longer to wait then, right?” Gyro laughed, but it was small and nervous. Rarity couldn’t quite blame her for that; she’d be having a much worse panic attack if she was in Gyro’s position.
“You’ll be walking before you know it,” Rarity assured her. “At the very least, it’s a miracle that your back can even be fixed. If it’d been much worse than just a pinched bundle of nerves…”
“Yeah, I guess that’s the silver lining and everything.” Gyro groaned rubbed her empty stomach. “So, how was the tomb? Find any spooky curses?”
Rarity shook her head. “No curses, but a mystery. We couldn’t figure out how to get in, but Rainbow seems convinced it’s controlled by moonlight. And it’s supposed to be the full moon either tonight or tomorrow, so she figures there must be enough moonlight to open the temple then. But I don’t know why the pirates would think it’s cursed, and that bothers me.”
Gyro shrugged. “Well, if you unleash some horrible plague or something upon these islands, maybe even some ancient elder being that wants to consume the world, at least it was an accident, right?”
The seamstress groaned and rolled her eyes. “Hardly a comforting thought when some horrid eldritch being of some sort is feasting upon my soul for dinner.”
“At least I could go down saying I got eaten out one last time.”
Rarity merely sighed and let her shoulders sag. “Sometimes I wish I could just stitch your mouth shut. You are just too much, darling.”
“Good, then that means I’m doing my job.” Gyro’s ears perked when she saw a stallion walking towards them, and she managed to push her upper body upright on her hooves. “Hey, doc. Is it time?”
Doctor Gauze nodded to her. “You haven’t eaten anything, right?”
“Ask my stomach,” Gyro said, and almost on cue, her stomach growled and grumbled rather loudly.
“Good.” He turned to Rarity. “Come with me, then. Let’s get her set up and we can get started.”
“Right.” Rarity stood up and craned her neck around, searching for a blue pegasus. When she did, she tugged on Rainbow’s ear with her magic from afar. “Come now, Rainbow, darling, it’s time for Gyro’s surgery.”
Rainbow nodded and fluttered over after saying quick goodbyes to the pegasi she’d been talking with. “Cool. Hopefully this won’t take too long, right? I just finished briefing the other pegasi, and we’re gonna want to hit the temple as soon as we finish here.”
“It shouldn’t take us longer than two hours,” Doctor Gauze said. “But we will have to work carefully. We don’t want to inflict any additional damage to Gyro’s spine.”
After they helped Gyro to her hooves, they trotted over to the doctor’s hut, where Gauze had laid out a rough operating table for his patient. Once Gyro finally wheeled her way inside, he gestured to the table. “Remove your walker and we’ll get you placed on the table. I think it goes without saying that you need to lie on your stomach.”
Instead of cracking a witty remark, Gyro only swallowed hard and nodded. With the help of her friends, she soon shed the walker and crawled onto the table. Her light blue eyes worriedly looked around the room, and she shivered when Gauze pulled a series of cutting tools out of his doctor’s bag and started arranging them within easy reach of the table. “So, you promise this isn’t going to hurt, right?”
“You won’t be able to feel a thing,” Gauze assured her. “But you won’t be able to move once I paralyze your body. You’ll only be able to move your head and neck.” He put his hoof on Gyro’s shoulder and lowered his voice a note in what Rarity assumed was the closest he could come to a sympathetic tone. “I would strongly urge you to not look behind you and see what’s happening. It will look a lot worse than it actually is, and you don’t need that stress and worry in your life. Fear and adrenaline will only make it harder for me to maintain the paralysis and the numbing spell, and we do not want either of those to fail.”
Gyro shakily nodded and turned her eyes to Rainbow, who found a seat in front of her. “Don’t worry, G, you can just talk to me. I’ll keep you distracted.”
“Thanks, Rainbow,” Gyro said. “That means a lot to me.”
Dr. Gauze took some charcoal Rarity supposed he must have scavenged from the fire and began drawing lines on Gyro’s back. The dark black charcoal lines were difficult to see against Gyro’s gray coat, but he applied them liberally until they stood out. “This is where you’ll have to cut,” he said to Rarity, pointing to the lines. “When I tell you to, you’ll have to slice through here until we have an opening to work on her back. After that, follow my instructions.”
Rarity swallowed hard and grabbed a scalpel. “Right,” she said, nervously twirling it in midair. “Just like cutting patterns for dresses. It shouldn’t be too hard, right?”
“So long as you only cut where I tell you to and only touch the things I say you can,” the doctor responded. After a moment of chewing on his lip, he shot Rarity a look of mild concern. “I suppose I should have asked earlier if the sight of blood makes you squeamish.”
Rarity’s tongue started to turn to cotton. “I… uh… it won’t be too much blood, will it?”
Gauze blinked and stared at her for several seconds. “…No.”
“That’s not true at all, is it?” Rarity muttered under her breath.
“Less than you think, but more than you’d expect,” Gauze said. “We will have to work quickly and avoid cutting any arteries.” Then, turning to Gyro, he touched her shoulder. “Are you ready?”
Gyro took a deep breath and nodded.
“Good.” Gauze’s horn flared to life, and Gyro gasped as her limbs locked in place. “That’s just the paralysis spell. It’s uncomfortable, but don’t fight it.”
“O… Okay,” the engineer wheezed. “It feels like I’m caked in cement.”
“Then it’s working.” Next, Gauze’s horn shifted colors slightly, and a glow started to spread across Gyro’s back. He turned his attention to Rarity. “Poke her with the scalpel near the operating area, will you? Hard.”
Rarity nodded and did as she was told. While she jabbed once at Gyro’s flesh, Gauze carefully watched the engineer for any signs of a reaction. “Can you feel that? I need to know if you feel anything, even just the slightest bit. Otherwise, you’ll really feel it when we start cutting.”
Once more, Gyro swallowed hard and shook her head. “No,” she said. “I can’t feel anything.”
“Good.” Lastly, Gauze let his eyes fall on Rainbow, who watched the whole thing with mild worry. “Talk to her,” he said. “Keep her occupied. And it’s probably for the best if you don’t watch either.”
Rainbow nodded and scooted a little closer to Gyro. “So, uh, anything you want to talk about?”
“I can talk about anything,” Gyro grunted back. “Tell me about the Wonderbolts or something.”
Rarity faintly smiled as she saw Rainbow’s eyes light up. She knew the pegasus would never run out of material to keep the engineer occupied with. When her eyes wandered back to the doctor, she found Gauze staring at her. “Now,” he said, “make the first cut. I’ll walk you through it, step by step.”
Swallowing hard, Rarity readied her knife and lowered it to Gyro’s skin. “Here goes nothing,” she murmured to herself, and the blade pierced flesh.
“…That’s why nopony wants to race Fleetfoot anymore. Not even me. It’s just… ugh.” Rainbow shook her head. “She’s a good mare and all, probably one of my favorite on the team, but she can get like that when her pride’s on the line.”
“I’m sure that sounds familiar,” Gyro said. “I feel like I’ve met a pony like that.”
“Who?” Rainbow asked, smirking and brushing her hoof against her chest. “I’m the definition of humble.”
Gyro chuckled, but it was strained. Rainbow didn’t miss the way the mare’s eyes were slightly wider than normal, or the way she drew in shaky, shallow breaths, or how her neck twitched and quivered as she fought the urge to look behind her. She was scared, and the Wonderbolt didn’t blame her. It didn’t help that every so often something would drip against the sand, and the smell of copper filled the hut.
Rainbow swallowed hard and kept her eyes fixed on Gyro’s, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t see things in her peripheral vision or occasionally pick up the low murmurs between Rarity and Doctor Gauze. The two unicorns were fetlock deep in Gyro’s back, and both of their white coats were smeared with blood. While Gauze remained calm and patient as he walked Rarity through the procedure, Rarity looked white as a sheet—an impressive feat given her ivory coat. She noticed her marefriend stagger and stumble a few times during the procedure, but somehow she managed to keep her eyes open and magic focused on the surgery. Once again, Rarity’s ability to persevere when other ponies depended on her was simply astounding to Rainbow.
Gyro’s gray throat bobbed and her ears pointed back in the unicorns’ direction. “It’s going okay there, right? I’m… feeling a little lightheaded.”
“That’s just your nerves,” Gauze flatly told her. “Your blood loss is well within what I expected, given our lack of modern equipment. Everything is proceeding smoothly.”
“Okay… okay. Cool. That’s good… real good.”
“Quite.” Gauze turned his attention back to Rarity and gestured with his hoof. “Place the scalpel in here and make an incision barely wider than the length of the blade. That should help us start freeing the nerves.”
The scalpel moved and Rarity looked like she was on the verge of vomiting. “This is… sweet Celestia, this is what’s causing her paralysis?”
“Yes, and it should be easy to see why.”
“I’ll say. That’s… that’s disgusting!”
Gyro noisily cleared her throat and put desperate eyes back to Rainbow. “So, uh, speaking of Wonderbolts derbies, how many have you done? Win any? I hear you need more than speed to win them, right?”
“Oh, yeah, derbies are tough, because it’s not just how fast you go, but how long you can keep that up.” Rainbow proudly flexed her wings. “Me? I’m a sprinter, and I’m really good at it. But I suck at endurance flying. Like, honestly, one of the worst on the team. So my derby strat is to just try and build as big of a lead as I can and hold it through the derby. It works… sometimes.”
Rainbow relaxed a bit when she saw Gyro start to relax as well. So long as she was doing her job and keeping Gyro distracted, then she started to feel more comfortable as well. But with the pace Rarity and Gauze were moving at, she didn’t know how much longer she could keep it up.
She just hoped it would be long enough.
-----
Black Flag sat next to the ruins of Squall’s hut with his cutlass resting in his lap. He’d spent the day sharpening it and preparing his weapons for the night, knowing that he was about to get into the fight of his life. For all he knew, it could be the final fight of his life. He didn’t expect the survivors from the Concordia to cut his tiny crew any slack now that the tables were turned, and he knew he’d have to be brutal and vicious if him and Hayseed and Jolly Roger were to have any chance of beating them.
His two surviving crew members had similarly kept themselves busy throughout the day. They didn’t have much in the way of weapons and supplies, so Hayseed had spent much of the day checking the surrounding area for anything she could find, while Jolly Roger readied his pistols with what little powder and shot the thieves had left them when they’d cleaned the camp. By his count, the pegasus had ten shots in total for his two pistols, but Flag didn’t know if that would be enough. He didn’t have a good estimate on how many survivors there were, but there were probably somewhere around ten. If Jolly got lucky, he had exactly enough bullets to take them all out.
But things had been anything but lucky for them as of late.
Flag’s eyes wandered over to the raised mound of sand off to the side of their camp where they’d buried Squall that morning. He still couldn’t believe the red mare was dead. For so many years, for so many raids, she’d seemed invincible. But in the course of a single night, all that changed, and she’d gone down, at least not without a fight. As for what happened to Matchlock and Scabbard, Flag had no idea. They likely would’ve been involved in the fight alongside Squall, but their bodies or weapons weren’t anywhere to be seen. Did the survivors kill them, too? Did they simply desert the crew? Or, perhaps worst of all, did they mutiny on Squall and help the survivors kill her before joining them? He had no idea, and Hayseed hadn’t seen any trace of them all day. Whatever hoofprints they might have left were long since destroyed by the heavy rain that night.
Speaking of the rain, the clouds started to rumble again in the distance. With the sun swiftly vanishing in the west and drenching the island in shadow, the incoming thunderstorm only hastened the total blackness starting to take root over the island. It was bound to be another wet and dark night, which suited him just fine, apart from the inconvenience and nuisance it would be. If the survivors had managed to wreak so much havoc on his crew the night before, he could hardly imagine how much more pain and misery he would repay them tonight and for as many nights to come as he could manage. The survivors may have had numbers, but through harassing guerilla tactics, he could wear them down until they were on even terms.
Then he’d snuff them out like a light.
He climbed to his hooves, shaking sand from his body. Both Hayseed and Jolly Roger saw him stand, and he nodded to them. “Let’s go,” he said. “I want to scout out their defenses and find where they’re hiding. If they’re still at the tomb, then we’ll need to find a good place to approach. If not, we’ll have to find where they went.”
“I doubt they’re still at the tomb,” Hayseed said, spinning a pistol around in her magic. “After all that freaky shit we saw? No way.”
“Freaky shit or not, we still have to check it out,” Flag insisted. “Swarms of bats and owls in the middle of a storm don’t mean anything. It’s just coincidence.”
“It’s an omen,” Roger insisted. “A bad one. We shouldn’t go anywhere near that tomb. Those survivors have already done enough damage camping out on it and defiling it.”
Black Flag strode over and smacked the other stallion. “Get over yourself, brother. I always knew you were afraid of the dark.”
Jolly Roger rubbed his cheek and frowned at Flag but didn’t say anything more.
With that matter settled, Flag nodded to Hayseed. “You have everything you need?”
“Everything except some heads to slice off,” she said, and her magic twirled a pair of cutlasses around before she slid them into cuts in her fraying clothes like makeshift scabbards. “Tonight’s gonna be fun.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Readying his own weapons, Black Flag walked past the two of them and began the trek into the jungle. “Come on. And keep your ears open for any odd noises in the night. We can’t let them jump on us, and if we manage to find one of their patrols by itself, we can even the odds a little bit.”
Rarity’s blue magic removed some debris from the operating area on Gyro’s back and tossed it aside in a small bowl. Her head felt light and her hooves tingly and numb, but she persevered through sheer stubbornness, refusing to let the sight of blood, muscle, and the vertebrae of Gyro’s spine make her fall faint. Even still, all she wanted was to finish the procedure as fast as possible so she didn’t have to look at it anymore.
Gauze leaned closer to Gyro’s spine and slowly worked his eyes across it. “The nerve bundles don’t seem compressed anymore and you managed to repair the herniated disc. I don’t see any other signs of damage, so we should be finished.”
The seamstress let out a sigh of relief. “Good,” she said. “Now, how do I go about patching her back up?”
“With plenty of stitches,” Gauze said, passing a needle and thread over to her. “This part should be easy for you, or at least I should assume.”
Rarity nodded and took the thread and needle, and with Gauze’s directions, she began to repair the damage done to Gyro’s back. While she did that, the doctor stepped forward just enough for Gyro to see him. “We’re finishing up,” he told her. “Congratulations, you survived.”
“Really? It’s done?” Gyro excitedly turned her head as if she expected to see her hind hooves tap dancing behind her, but Gauze quickly stopped her from turning all the way around with an outstretched hoof.
“Rarity hasn’t finished sewing your back shut,” he informed her. “I would not recommend looking right now.”
“Oh. Yeah, you’re probably right.” Gyro turned back to Rainbow, but the jubilant smile on her face was impossible to miss. “I’m gonna walk again! This is awesome! I didn’t die and I’m gonna walk again!”
“That’s that earth pony toughness for you,” Rainbow said, bumping her hoof against Gyro’s paralyzed limb. “I bet you’ll be walking around here tomorrow like nothing ever happened!”
Gauze shook his head and turned back to watch Rarity work. “She still has to undergo rehab,” he said. “Paralysis like this, even temporary, damages the muscles and nerves. Your spinal nerves were compressed and unable to send or receive signals for more than forty-eight hours, Gyro. I expect it to be nearly a full week before you’re able to stand on your own and walk again.”
“A full week’s not so bad when I was staring down paralysis for life, I guess,” Gyro asked. Grimacing, she added, “How long until I get control of my bowels again?”
“That should pass much quicker, thankfully.” Gauze shook his head. “You might find it a little more difficult to go than usual, but I will ask you to make sure you don’t strain too hard.”
“Eww.” Rainbow stuck out her tongue. “That’s nasty, doc.”
Doctor Gauze merely gave her a deadpan look. “It is my duty as a medical professional to keep a patient informed and honestly answer their questions to the best of my ability. Addressing Gyro’s incontinence is no different.”
“This is why I don’t like doctors,” Rainbow grumbled to herself. “They’re never any fun.”
“Fun does not save ponies’ lives or fix their backs. Practice and expertise does.”
“Or a pony who’s good with her magic,” Rainbow rebutted, winking at Rarity.
Rarity shook her head and moved onto the next thing that needed stitching. “I was merely acting as an extension of Doctor Gauze’s own experience and knowledge,” she said. “I wouldn’t have had the slightest clue what to do or where to cut otherwise.”
“And you performed admirably,” Gauze said with a slight nod. “Your magic is some of the steadiest and most precise I’ve ever seen. I understand now why my daughters are obsessed with pinching their pennies to buy your dresses.”
“Daughters?” Rarity blinked. “You have a family? A wife and kids?”
“Just the kids,” Gauze said, holding up a hoof. “The wife and I are divorced. Me serving aboard airships and never being around put a strain on the marriage. It’s old news, frankly. This happened nearly ten years ago.”
“Oh.” Rarity momentarily let her focus shift back to her work as she tried to let the conversation die. “Well, I’m sorry, regardless.”
Gauze merely nodded once. “Make sure the stitching is tight,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to work her skin like fabric. Skin is tough and pliable; it’ll survive. The important thing is to stop the bleeding.”
“It’s merely like sewing designs onto ponnequins,” Rarity said. “I suppose with her body paralyzed like so, Gyro isn’t too much different.”
“I heard that,” Gyro grumbled. “You better not use some kind of freaky spell to turn me into one when you eventually snap after not making a dress in so long.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “I was never good at major transfiguration such as that,” she said. “I always had Twilight do it for me. Otherwise, they would struggle too much, and the pose would be all wrong.”
Gyro blinked and her shoulders tensed. “I… uh…”
“That was a joke, darling,” Rarity assured her. Winking, she added, “Two can play at that game.”
“To be fair, G, you never know what’s gonna come out of a unicorn’s horn next,” Rainbow said. “I’m pretty sure half of them could take over Equestria if they wanted to.”
“It does seem to be the unicorns that are always messing things up,” Gyro said. “No wonder magic makes us earth ponies uncomfortable. There’s nothing we can do against that.”
Rarity hummed to herself as she knotted off the final stitch. “There, all done,” she said. Smiling, she took a step back to admire her work. Though blood oozed around the cuts in Gyro’s back and stained her coat, the obvious bulge in her back had disappeared, sliced out by Rarity’s magic. She swayed a bit, still feeling faint after getting hoof-deep into the mare’s back, but she knew that because of her, Gyro would one day walk again. That feeling alone was worth it.
“Alright,” Gauze tested the quality of the stitching with his hoof, then walked around in front of his patient. “How good is your pain tolerance?” he asked her.
Gyro shrugged. “I broke my leg once and dealt with it for an entire day because my dad didn’t think it was actually broken, so I guess pretty good.”
Gauze nodded. “I’m going to remove the numbing spell from your back now because it’s exhausting to maintain. I don’t have any painkillers with me, so it is likely going to hurt for the next twenty-four hours. After that, the pain should gradually begin to subside over the next few days. I’m not going to release the paralysis spell yet because I don’t need you thrashing and flailing about and risk injuring your spine or bursting your stitches, okay?”
Gyro nodded. “I’m sure it won’t be too bad. I’m an earth pony.”
The doctor merely shook his head. “That’s what they all say,” he murmured to himself, and the glow around his horn dimmed by half.
Gyro immediately sucked down a deep breath and a vein on her forehead momentarily bulged. Hissing in pain, her jaw trembled as she clenched her teeth shut, and her eyes bulged out. She grunted and squeaked, but after what felt like an eternity to Rarity, her features slowly began to relax, and she started to breath more or less normally again.
“That…” Gyro wheezed, “That’s nothing.” The corners of her twitching lips pulled off something resembling a cocky smile, though it was hard to pick out beneath the pain. “I… I feel like going for a walk…”
Gauze shook his head and lifted the paralyzed mare off of the table with his magic. Carefully laying her on a bed on her stomach, he took a step back. “Do not try to twist your back or roll over. Rest here and don’t move until I say you can. The important thing is that we give your back time to properly heal. Understand?”
The gray mare nodded along. “Yeah… sounds great…”
With that, the glow around Gauze’s horn completely vanished, and Gyro’s body fell limp. Gyro immediately stuck her hoof in her muzzle and bit down on it as hard as she could, and the doctor turned to Rainbow and Rarity. “I’ll give her a piece of wood to chew on,” he said. “She’ll be fine under my care. As I understand it, you two have other engagements for the night.”
Rarity nodded. “Yes, I believe we do. Thank you very much for this, doctor,” she said. “It means a lot to her, and to us by extension.”
Gauze bowed his head. “It’s my job,” he said. “Though I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Yeah, that was awesome, Rares!” Rainbow said. Draping a wing across Rarity’s back, she nuzzled the seamstress’ cheek. “Ever think about being a doctor when we get back home? You’re pretty good at it.”
Rarity giggled and shook her head. “Oh, no, that’s much too stressful for me.” Then, smiling one last time at Doctor Gauze, she dipped her head. “Keep her safe and comfortable. We’ll be back in the morning.”
“I will,” the doctor assured her. “Take care and stay safe.”
Within half an hour, Rainbow and Rarity had organized their expedition to the tomb for that evening. Apart from the pegasi, which Rainbow more or less recruited through sheer force of will, they’d picked up two volunteers to join them on the ground and provide security: Ball Bearings and Blow Off, the two other engineers in the camp. While they set off on an expedition to the tomb, Ratchet kept the other four ponies back at camp to keep it secure in case of pirate attacks.
The seven ponies who had gathered to go to the tomb that evening started trudging through the undergrowth as the rain began to drizzle down. Rainbow already knew her team of four was going to get quite the workout tonight trying to clear a gap in the sky for the moonlight to hit the temple. But if her time on Ponyville’s weather team had taught her anything, it was how to manage a gap in the clouds with only three or four ponies. Hopefully they’d be able to keep the sky clear in that localized area long enough for Rarity to figure out how to keep the tomb open on the ground.
When they finally approached the outskirts of the temple ruins, Rainbow stopped their procession to brief them all. “Alright, so here’s what’s gonna happen,” she said, after forming her followers up into a rough circle. “Me and the other pegasi are gonna get airborne and work on clearing the clouds over the temple here. We’re gonna try to get the moonlight to cover as much of it as we can. While we’re doing that, you three on the ground are gonna look for anything that seems affected by the moonlight. You’ll probably hear it before you see it, so try not to make too much noise, okay?”
“Why do we even have to open this tomb?” Blow Off asked, frowning at Rainbow. “We’re dangerously exposing ourselves out here. We’ve split our camp into two while there could be pirates about.”
“Because we need to get what’s inside this tomb if we’re gonna go home,” Rainbow said. A part of her regretted letting Blow Off join them for this excursion. The stallion was irritable and not fun to work with, and she knew the only real reason why he volunteered to join the expedition was to get away from the camp and Gyro. Even with Gyro confined to the doctor’s hut, it seemed like the two couldn’t stand being in close proximity to each other.
“You and Rarity and Gyro came here on a raft,” Blow Off said. “We should be using that to evacuate from these islands while we can instead of lingering here and risking running into the pirates.”
“That raft isn’t going to get us back to Equestria.” Groaning, Rainbow rubbed at her face. “Look, are you gonna cooperate, or are you just here to complain? Because I don’t want to deal with it, and you can go back to the camp otherwise.”
Though Blow Off continued to frown at her, he at least kept his mouth shut. “Any other questions?” she asked. “I’m hoping we can figure this out before dawn.”
“What should we do if we’re attacked by pirates?” Ball Bearings asked. “I know we brought weapons, but do we stay and fight, or should we run away?”
Rainbow and Rarity glanced at each other. “Uh, I mean, what do you guys usually do? We’re not really familiar with how you do things.”
“Yes,” Rarity said, “Far be it from us to change your standard procedure. We only just arrived yesterday, we don’t want to tell you how to do everything now.”
“If we had the jump on the pirates, we’d usually attack,” Blow Off said. “If it was the other way around, we fled. The one thing we have that’s more important than weapons or food is each other, and we can’t afford to lose ponies fighting a battle we’re not ready to fight.”
“Alright, that’s pretty simple then,” Rainbow said. She used one of the cutlasses she’d carried under her wing to gouge a notch out of a nearby tree. “If the pirates show up, we fall back to this tree and rally here. We’ll figure out what to do next. But keep your weapons ready, just in case. Me and Rares stole what we could from them, so they’re probably hurting on weapons, but we’re really well armed.”
The other ponies at the group nodded, and Rainbow ruffled her wings. “Right. I think that’s about it. Standing under the rain here is getting annoying. Let’s get started, shall we?”
The other six ponies vocalized their agreement, and Rainbow led the expedition deeper into the temple ruins. The slowly mounting rain had turned the dirt in mud and made the stones slick with moisture, and Rainbow was half tempted to flutter a few inches above the ground so she didn’t have to deal with it anymore. But eventually, her small party made it to the entrance to the tomb, where the intricate doors remained sealed shut.
Rainbow raised a wing to shelter her face from the worst of the rain and squinted at the clouds. “The clouds are moving west to east and slightly north,” she said, stating her observations. “We’re gonna need to get set up further southwest and start clearing a zone there. If we work at it, we should have a skylight within the hour. Then we’ve just gotta maintain it.”
“And what do you want us to do in the meanwhile?” Rarity asked. “It’s not like we can help from the ground.”
“Stay low, stay out of sight, and keep your ears open. As soon as we get moonlight on the temple, start looking for any entrances. But mostly for now, just make sure no pirates will see you if they happen to investigate the tomb tonight. If they’re looking for revenge, this is probably the first place they’re gonna hit.”
Rarity nodded and started surveying the ruins around them. “Alright. You two, let’s go this way. We should have a good line of sight on the surrounding jungle from on top of this pile of rubble.”
While they began to move out, Rainbow turned to her team. “Alright, follow my lead. We’ll start flying up and getting things cleared.” Her eyes turned to Soft Step and she took a worried step closer to the crippled mare. “Can you fly up to the cloud level? You can stay on the ground with Rarity if you want.”
Soft Step forcefully nodded. “I can make it up there,” she said. “I’ll just need to rest for a few minutes when I do. But so long as I’m standing on the clouds, I can help you out fine.”
Rainbow smiled. “I like you, girl,” she said. Then, spreading her wings, she launched herself into the air. “Alright, everypony, on me! Let’s remind the weather who its masters are!”
The wind tugged on Rainbow Dash’s feathers, trying to tear them from her wings and scatter them every which way. The rain came down sharper and much heavier than before, like the clouds were doing their best to beat her out of the sky. But she persisted, climbing higher and higher with each beat of her blue wings, leading a charge against the very heavens themselves.
Her heart fell into a steady rhythm with the beating of her wings, constant and strong. Her feathers grabbed at the air like hands on a ladder, pulling herself higher and higher in defiance of gravity. Out here, there was nothing but the sky and the rain and the wind, the very essence of the pegasus soul. The charge in the air tingled along Rainbow’s soggy coat, and little sparks of electricity would discharge from her wingtips into nearby cloudstuff to disperse the buildup before she became a target for a lightning bolt. And though there hadn’t been any thunder and lightning over the island so far, Rainbow could feel the storm growing around her. It wouldn’t be long before the island would be drowning under a repeat of last night.
Behind her, her three fellow pegasi also braved the growing storm to climb up with her. Stargazer stayed right by her side the entire flight up, while Champagne and Soft Step lagged behind. Rainbow could easily tell that Stargazer was a strong flier like her, while Champagne was somewhere in the middle and Soft Step obviously lagged behind due to the injury to her wing. But the masseuse persisted, even though Rainbow could tell by the grimace on her face that she was flying in pain, and she couldn’t tell if Champagne was flying behind to keep an eye on Soft Step or was actually topping out on the climb.
“Almost there!” Rainbow shouted into the storm, letting the wind carry her voice back to her team. “Keep pushing! Once we hit cloud we can rest for five before we start clearing a hole!”
Though her team didn’t say anything in return, Rainbow knew they’d heard the message, so she kept pushing on. Down below, she could make out the vague shape of the ruins, but the swaying and lashing palm trees obscured the overgrown temple, making it difficult to spot. But the one thing she could see was the stairs and the trench carved into the earth that housed the door, and that was all she needed to make sure she got the moonlight on target.
The sky briefly became a pitch black malaise as Rainbow entered the clouds. Whatever patches of dry skin she might have held onto beneath her coat immediately became flushed out with water. The wind and rain tearing past her eyes caused her to squint and angle her head to the side. Even with her third eyelid sheltering her eyes from the worst of the weather, the innards of storming clouds were always too rough and chaotic to see clearly. Her years on the weather team had taught her to rely on her feathers and magic more than her sight, however, and Rainbow continued pushing upwards until suddenly the sky brightened around her.
Dark wisps of raincloud flew off of the ends of her wings, spinning and spiraling into the air before dissolving or landing on nearby clouds. The wind was much more constant up here, but now Rainbow could see the moon and the stars. Up here, above the storm, the world seemed peaceful and quiet. If Rainbow didn’t know better, it wouldn’t have been too hard to make the assumption that she was the only pony to have ever existed in this world of rolling cloud and boundless night.
It was why she loved being a pegasus. No matter where she went, the sky would be her home.
The clouds hissed and shifted behind her, and soon the rest of her team likewise emerged above the gray layer. One by one, they settled on the clouds, or in Soft Step’s case, simply collapsed against the doughy surface. They lied there and caught their breath for several seconds, and eventually Rainbow decided to join them, the pain in her only recently healed wing beginning to bother her again. At least she wasn’t feeling as dizzy as she had when she’d first ended up at the pirate camp.
Almost as soon as she sat down on the clouds, however, she knew something was strange about them. They weren’t soft and soggy like she was used to dealing with back in Ponyville, but instead were firm, sturdy, even pliable. She could already tell from a few quick experiments that the clouds would be much more difficult to break and clear than what she was used to back home, but she couldn’t let that stop her. It simply must’ve been a property of natural, wild weather, not the clouds and rainstorms manufactured at the weather factories in Cloudsdale. These clouds weren’t specifically designed to be easily manipulated by pegasus magic, so of course they’d be a little bit more difficult to clear.
Rainbow smirked to herself. She liked a challenge.
“Alright, good job, everypony, we’re above the storm,” she said while simultaneously checking her crew for any obvious injuries or handicaps sustained during the flight up. “Take a minute to catch your breath, and then we’ve got a job to do. I want to fly ten miles southwest and start clearing a zone there. With the current windspeed, that should take us back over the tomb in twenty minutes, so we’ll have twenty minutes to clear what we can. We need to get enough of a hole through the clouds so that the moonlight can stay on the temple for as long as possible. Not only that, but after we get a hole in the clouds and let it drift over the tomb, we’ve gotta keep it clear and push back or divert the incoming storm. I doubt this temple’s gonna stay open if the moonlight goes away, and we don’t want to trap our friends inside, okay?”
The other pegasi nodded, and Rainbow quickly oriented herself with her inborn natural sense of direction. “These clouds are gonna be tougher than clouds made by the weather factory, so they’ll take a beating before they break. Stay at it, though, and we’ll get a good hole cleared in no time.” Spreading her wings once more, she hopped off of a cloudy bluff and caught the air with her feathers before her hooves hit the next cloud. “Time to fly!”
Rarity watched Rainbow Dash lead her team of impromptu weather ponies up through the clouds, battling the fierce winds and rain the entire time. Their flight wavered and drifted as they beat their wings, and several times Rarity worried that a strong gust would knock the weaker fliers out of the air. But with dogged persistence, Rainbow led her team up to the floor of the storm, where they disappeared in a swirling haze of gray cloud.
That left Rarity, Ball Bearings, and Blow Off alone among the temple ruins. But with the rain quickly worsening as the night beat on, and no sign of Rainbow and her team clearing the clouds yet, shelter swiftly became Rarity’s number one priority. “We should find someplace dry to hide within,” Rarity said. Turning to her two companions, she glanced at each of them in turn. “You two defended this spot some time ago. Surely you found good places to hole up within when the inevitable rains came pouring down like tonight.”
“There was a crumbling shrine we used to hide from the weather,” Ball Bearings said, nodding off through the mist and haze beginning to accumulate around them. “It didn’t keep the wind out too well, but it at least kept the rain off our backs.”
“Then please, lead the way,” Rarity said. “Is it at least close to the door?”
“Close enough,” Blow Off said. “I imagine that we’ll be able to hear huge stone doors opening from anywhere on these ruins, though.”
“We don’t know if the moonlight will cause the large doors to open or if it will simply release something else somewhere else,” Rarity said. “Still, so long as the shrine is somewhat central to the location, then we should be able to hear any changes in our surroundings.”
The three ponies trudged across the ruins toward the shrine, heads hung low as if the rain and the moisture clinging to their manes were physically beating them down. But after a few minutes of wet and weary travel, Rarity finally saw what she supposed was the shrine in front of her. It was a small room of cut stone, decorated with carvings that had long since worn away due to the passage of time. What she could recognize, however, were depictions of the fanged unicorn of the night covering the walls around the entrance. Something about the simplistic art style carried a menacing undertone to it, and a shiver ran down Rarity’s spine. While it was clear that the Ponynesians had loved and worshipped their sun god, their moon god, in contrast, seemed to be one they feared and attributed malice and something almost evil to. The fact that this temple complex, this tomb was built under his signs and likeness unsettled Rarity for some irrational reason she couldn’t quite put her hoof on.
“In here,” Ball Bearings said, and he dipped his head as he scooted beneath a collapsing archway over the entrance. Rarity hurriedly followed him inside, putting aside her worries about the tomb and the shrine in favor of simply getting out of the rain, and Blow Off didn’t lag too far behind. Soon, all three ponies rose back up to their full height and started shaking water out of their coats.
“What is this place?” Rarity asked, her eyes wandering over the little interior building. “It looks almost like a chapel of sorts.”
“It might be,” Blow Off said. “We don’t know what this place was used for. The only furniture in here is an altar, but there’s nowhere for anypony to sit or kneel.”
Frowning, Rarity wandered deeper into the shrine. She had to light her horn to provide enough illumination to see by, and sure enough, the only thing on the floor was an altar placed upon a raised dais. Rarity cautiously approached it and ran a hoof over the old stones, noting very quickly that the altar had been carved from obsidian instead of the basalt used to make up the rest of the temple. The dark obsidian seemed the perfect compliment to the moon god’s dark and starry coat, still painted in vivid colors from within the shrine where it was mostly protected from the elements.
“A single altar to their moon god,” Rarity murmured to herself, continuing to walk around the altar. Her eyes wandered to the walls and the carvings decorating them around the back of the shrine, and after several seconds of examining them, she realized that they told a story if read from right to left. Frowning, she brightened her horn and stepped closer, trying to make sense of the strange carvings and what exactly they were trying to say.
There were four panels in all, or at least, four panels that Rarity could clearly make out. The first one, farthest to the right, showed the white pegasus sun god standing next to the black unicorn moon god. Both ponies, who Rarity assumed were probably brothers in the Ponynesian mythos, stood shoulder to shoulder, with the sun perched on the pegasus’ outstretched wing, and the moon pierced upon the tip of the unicorn’s horn as he held his head to the side. They seemed peaceful, or at least, peaceful enough. But Rarity knew that wasn’t going to last even before she got to the next panel based on what she remembered from the sun temple.
In the next panel, the moon god stood alone, but he’d been violently transformed, with fangs and slitted eyes decorating his face, and his horn twisted into a lethal and split protrusion from the top of his head. An army of bat-like ponies flew around him, and the night sky dominated the picture. Nightmare Moon’s eternal night had left its own impression on the Ponynesians, it seemed, and they’d interpreted it according to their own mythologies. Rarity found herself startled with how close to the actual events they’d managed to get despite being thousands of miles away from Canterlot.
The third panel showed the duel between the two gods. That was familiar enough, except instead of banishing the moon god to the moon, the sun god appeared to cut his head off with a curved sword of some kind. Rarity winced at the brutal and surprisingly graphic depiction of the moon god’s defeat. At least things had worked out much better in Equestria for everypony involved, Princess Luna included.
The fourth and final panel showed the sun god planting the moon god’s head on the moon, which was likely how the Ponynesians explained the sudden appearance of the Mare in the Moon following the event. But that wasn’t all. Beneath the moon, small and colorful ponies took the body of the dead moon god and dragged it into a temple rising out of a lagoon. At first, Rarity thought it was depicting the temple ruins she was currently standing on, but the geography of the surrounding land didn’t make sense. This was another temple somewhere else, a temple rising up out of the water. But where?
She quickly realized there was only one place it could have been. It must’ve been built on the final island her and Rainbow had yet to go to. But that left her with several more questions. Was there actually a body of a god buried there? She found that idea unlikely, but the Ponynesians seemed to be saying as much with their carvings. But then what was the point of this temple? Why dedicate a temple and tomb to a moon god killed by your sun god and then not even keep his body inside the tomb?
Rarity grumbled in frustration and shifted a little further left. There was a fifth panel here, but the collapsing shrine had completely destroyed it. Whatever conclusion it had once given the story had been reduced to rubble and lost to time. Even if Rarity found every single last piece of stone that once made up the final panel and pieced it back together, the carvings and paint were probably so worn down by now that she wouldn’t be able to figure out what it showed her. She only wondered what exactly a fifth and final panel could have told her of that story. It seemed mostly complete to her; maybe the Ponynesians had some variant of their own about Nightmare Moon’s return?
It was a fruitless endeavor, Rarity quickly realized, and one bound to simply give her a headache. There wasn’t any use worrying about it now, especially when she had other concerns to focus on. If she spent too much effort trying to figure out what could have been in the fifth and final panel, she’d ultimately end up missing any change to her surroundings when Rainbow Dash finally cleared the moonlight. That was what she needed to focus on right now, so she trudged back to the entrance to the shrine, lied down on a mostly dry slab of rock and kept her ear pointed out the door.
Hopefully Rainbow’s plan would work. She didn’t know what other options they’d have if it didn’t.
Rainbow Dash had never fought a storm like this before. That by itself said a lot. Sure, she’d battled rogue storms with her friends at the Ponyville Weather Control, and she even had to corral weather drifting in over the town from the Everfree Forest. Once, during a harsh weather training camp at Manehattan, she had to battle a Cat Two, and that had been a wild and fun time. But this storm put them all to shame.
And it wasn’t even because the storm was rough, either. As far as weather ferocity went, this was one of the more tame storms Rainbow had to fight in her life. Apart from a steady wind that occasionally gusted and some weak thunder rumbling through the clouds, it was only a heavy rainstorm. But the thing was resilient; Rainbow would even go so far as to call it defiant. The clouds absolutely refused to be broken and busted by her team, and they had to work exhaustingly hard just to punch a hole from the top to the bottom of the clouds. Instead of working with loosely-connected cotton balls like weather factory clouds were, Rainbow felt like she was trying to dig through damp clay with her bare hooves. She’d never dealt with anything like it before.
After nearly fifteen minutes of exhausting work, Rainbow finally had to call a timeout. Her nostrils flared with each ragged breath, and her chest heaved and compressed as she tried to get oxygen back to her muscles. Her team didn’t look much better; they were all lying down or sitting on their haunches, panting and trying to catch a quick break, while the rain and wind pounded them until they looked like drowning rats. If Rainbow felt tired, the rest of her team was so exhausted they could hardly move.
And what did they all have to show for it? Rainbow scowled at a tiny gap in the clouds not even wider than her wingspan. Even as she watched, the clouds started slowly creeping back together, trying to plug the hole. Rainbow simply couldn’t believe it. It was like the storm had a mind of its own and was desperately trying to prevent her from letting the moonlight through. She’d never encountered a storm this thick and stubborn before. It rested on top of the islands like a heavy quilt, too heavy and impenetrable to even clear a decent hole in the middle. How she even managed to fly through it earlier was beyond her.
“This isn’t working,” Rainbow grumbled once she finally had breath to spare. “We’re nearly over the ruins again and we don’t have anywhere near a good clearing to let the moonlight through.”
“Is weather control always this hard?” Stargazer asked. “If it is, then I suddenly have a new appreciation for my friends who work it.”
“That’s just the thing, it isn’t normally this bad,” Rainbow said. “Sure, storms made by the weather factory are a lot easier than natural storms, but I’ve fought hurricanes that yield easier than this stuff!” She slapped her hoof against the cloud she stood on and scowled when it sounded more like she hit wet mud than a soft cushion. “There’s something off about these clouds. They aren’t right.”
“Magic, perhaps?” Champagne said, her voice twisting her words with a thick Prench accent. “Could the clouds be magical in some way?”
Rainbow frowned and pressed her wings against the clouds, letting her feathers fan across their surface. After a few seconds to gauge the feeling in her wingtips, she nodded and folded them back against her sides. “There’s some kind of charm or spell on these, yeah. These aren’t natural rainclouds. They’re summons.”
“Summons?” Soft Step asked, turning her head to the side. “Like, magical unicorn stuff?”
“Weather magic isn’t just pegasus magic,” Rainbow said. “We’re just the best at it. Wizards and sorcerers can summon storms, too, but they can’t really control them. That’s why unicorns don’t bother and just leave it to us pegasi to manage, because we can actually control the weather.”
“Jeez,” Soft Step said. She shook her head. “They teach you that at the weather control?”
Rainbow smirked and shook her head. “Naw, I learned that from Princess Twilight. But if this weather is summoned, then we can’t really clear it with our hooves, because it’s not real weather. It doesn’t behave like real storms do. It’s just magic trying to pretend to be a storm. That’s why we’re having so much trouble with it!”
“So if it’s just magic…” Stargazer said, touching the surface of the clouds and frowning. “How are we supposed to clear it?”
“I… am not sure,” Rainbow admitted, frowning at the cloud she was sitting on… if she could even call it a cloud, now that she knew it wasn’t natural or manufactured weather. “The best way to do that would be to figure out what’s summoning the weather and deal with that, but for all we know that could be inside the tomb itself and we’d never be able to get to it. We’d need magic to clear magic.”
“Should we go and get Rarity?” Soft Step asked. “Maybe she can do something with her magic.”
But Rainbow shook her head. An idea was already forming in her mind. “No, we don’t need Rarity,” she said. Standing up, she stretched her sore wings and made sure her feathers were in alignment. She’d need them for what she was going to do next. “You three, make sure you keep that hole about a wingspan wide. Once you do, get ready to jump. I’ve got an idea!”
“What kind of idea?” Soft Step asked, watching Rainbow take wing and flutter upwards.
“An awesome one! You’ll see!” She began to fly straight upwards, yelling over her shoulder, “Get ready for a treat!”
As the clouds and her team dwindled beneath her, Rainbow felt her heart rate accelerate, and not just because of the exertion and thinning air as she flew higher and higher. Her wing had only healed enough to fly a few days ago, and here she was, already about to put it through its greatest test yet. She knew that it was probably a bad idea to try and push herself like this so soon after recovering from her injuries, but it was the only solution she could think of to clear the weather. Plus, if she could still pull it off, then she really was the awesomest pony in all of Equestria. Which she knew already, of course, but it never hurt to have some reaffirmation.
She climbed for almost three straight minutes, keeping an even pace to avoid tiring her muscles out too much. When she finally came to a stop several thousand feet above sea level, she briefly fluttered her wings a few times to hover in place and observe the world below her. She could vaguely make out the shapes of the other islands near the horizons where the storm had not yet reached them, but below her, the clouds were a solid layer of paste obscuring the shattered archipelago. They seemed to materialize out of nowhere to the west before drifting in as one whole piece. Only after they passed the archipelago did they start breaking up into something more natural looking, on their way to cover the other islands with rain.
Rainbow frowned. Why were the summoned clouds only summoned over the islands below her? Why not the other islands? It didn’t make any sense.
But that wasn’t her problem, she decided. The only thing that was her problem was clearing those clouds so the moonlight could hit the island. To that end, she quickly spotted the tiny hole in the clouds below her and adjusted her starting point accordingly. That hole was her target, and she didn’t want to think about what would happen if she missed. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but with the clouds acting like clay instead of clouds…
Swallowing hard, Rainbow folded her wings against her side and began to fall.
The air began to whip past her face almost immediately. The wind blew tears out of the corners of her eyes and tried to push her off course. Rainbow let it play with her body for a few seconds, let it get comfortable with her feathers, before she opened her wings and started to flap them. Even with gravity aiding her, she knew she needed to go harder, faster. Bit by bit, her airspeed increased, pushing way beyond the limits of what most pegasi considered physically possible. But Rainbow wasn’t most pegasi. She was Rainbow Dash, proud Wonderbolt and the only living pony to pull off a Sonic Rainboom.
The air around her started to charge with magical energy, but Rainbow continued to fly hard through the wind and the storm. She had to squint to see where she was going; she really wished she had some goggles to shield her eyes, because her natural protection simply wasn’t cutting it all that well. The tiny hole below her grew and grew, and she could see the rest of her team standing around it, watching her descend and watching the rainbow trail she left in her wake. Rainbow fluttered her wings a few more times and then held her forehooves out in front of her. She could feel the magic building around her body; she just hoped she timed it right.
The clouds approached her so quickly she didn’t even have time to think about her approach. Instinct alone guided her to her target, and with one final flap of her wings, she felt the sonic cone around her tighten, contract, collapse…
Gyro merely focused on breathing. It was all she could do at the moment anyway. Her back hurt so much that to try and do anything else was guaranteed pain and suffering. It was already late at night, and though she longed for sleep to at least take her away from the discomfort and hurt in her spine, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she passed out from sheer exhaustion.
So in the meanwhile, she tried to content herself with staring up at the night sky. At her request (and incessant pestering), she managed to get Dr. Gauze to move her out near the entrance to the hut where she could see the stars. Or, at least, where she would’ve been able to see the stars had the thick clouds not blocked her view of the night sky. But nevertheless, she hoped to catch a glimpse of Rainbow clearing the clouds to let the moon shine through like the pegasus said she would. Watching Rainbow work her pegasus magic would certainly be a treat by itself.
But so far, there’d been nothing. Gyro wasn’t sure if it was merely because of the angle she was watching the clouds over the tomb or something else, but nothing seemed to change about them. They were still a thick blanket of gray choking out the moonlight, making the night very dark and difficult to see through indeed. What was taking Rainbow so long? Was the storm really that tough?
Gyro sighed and laid her head back down on her crossed forelegs, wincing as several more invisible knives dug into her spine and continued to carve it up. Maybe they’d just have to wait until tomorrow to try it, Gyro figured. After all, it’d been raining for two nights in a row now; what were the chances that it’d continue for a third? As it was, she didn’t see any way that Rainbow was going to get sufficiently clear skies for what she wanted to do tonight. She just hoped that they wouldn’t miss their opportunity if they waited another day. Gyro really didn’t know if the full moon was supposed to be tonight or tomorrow night without seeing the sky, and she didn’t know if it would really matter. Did the temple need the full moon to open up, or did it just need enough moonlight? Or did it need something else entirely?
A bright flash of light suddenly lit up the horizon, and Gyro raised her head in surprise. A ring of expanding colors illuminated the islands with a crack of thunder, evaporating and destroying the clouds as it expanded outwards. The colors shimmered and shifted as the ring expanded, revealing a rainbow trail piercing through its center, a trail that curved and twirled before her eyes as the figure in front of it pulled off loops and stunts. The rainbow ring seemed to last forever, the colors only fading away once they’d traveled many, many miles out toward the horizons. In its place, a full moon hung overhead, accompanied by millions of stars decorating the night sky.
Gyro had never seen anything like it. She’d heard about the Sonic Rainboom before, but she’d never seen one live. And here she was, hundreds if not thousands of miles away from civilization, and she just got to witness one clearing the night sky. Perhaps it was simply the excitement of seeing one, or maybe it actually had to do with the dark backdrop of the night, but the fading colors of the rainboom were still so much more vibrant than any rainbow she’d ever seen in her life. The light and the noise was enough to startle the wildlife roosting in trees or on the ground, and for a few moments, the islands came alive with noise. But then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the rainboom fizzled out and vanished, and soon the island returned to the familiar calm of the night.
But its effect lingered even after it dissipated. The clouds had almost been completely purged from the sky, leaving only a few tattered and weak wisps trailing at the edges of the rainboom’s effect. Even the rain had stopped falling, following a short flurry of high intensity. All was clear and calm as a gentle spring night, and would be for at least several hours to come. Gyro couldn’t see off to the west where the storm originally came from, but she couldn’t see any clouds in that direction for as far as she had sight through the trees.
Of course, the tradeoff was that if she could see it from the survivors’ camp, then anypony else on the island had to have seen it as well. But if that was the only way to clear the clouds and access the tomb…
Gyro just hoped that her friends would be alright.
-----
The sudden boom that shook the temple startled Rarity. She’d been so caught up in listening for something to shift or change around the tomb that the loud noise practically scared her witless. Once her heart slowed down to a more manageable hundred beats per minute, she quickly scampered outside of the shrine and turned her eyes skywards just in time to see an expanding ring of rainbow light pushing the clouds away, turning them into fine mist and leaving behind clear and starry skies.
“Was that a rainboom?” Ball Bearings asked, scurrying outside next to Rarity. “A Sonic Rainboom?”
“I’ve never seen one before,” Blow Off said. “That’s certainly something.”
Within seconds, strong moonlight began to fall over the temple as the rainboom pushed the clouds away. It didn’t take Rarity long before she remembered what she was supposed to be doing. “Rainbow’s cleared the skies,” she told the two stallions with her, “so that means we need to do our job now! Quickly, now that the rain has stopped, let’s look to see if anything ch—!”
Before she could even finish her sentence, the temple began to shake and rumble. Somewhere far beneath them, enormous stones grinded past each other, the vibrations rocking Rarity’s teeth within her jaws. She pointed her ear around to try and pinpoint the source of the noise, but it was too loud and all encompassing for her to figure out where it came from. Eventually, after rattling the ground and gravel for nearly a full minute, the shaking came to a stop with a thunderous boom, followed by what sounded to Rarity like a moaning sigh that sent a cold shiver down her spine.
“Five bits says that was the temple door opening,” Blow Off said, already beginning to walk in that direction. “So much for having to listen for something quiet.”
“Yeah,” Ball Bearings said. “I bet the whole island had to have heard that.”
“Forget the noise, I bet the whole island saw the rainboom.” Blow Off shook his head and turned his attention skyward. “If the pirates didn’t know we were here, they definitely do now.”
Rarity trotted off after the two stallions. “If they come, then we will simply have to fight them off. There isn’t much else we can do anyway.” Her blue eyes picked out the rainbow streak looping and twirling in the air, and she shook her head. “There better have been a good reason why you gave us all away, Rainbow. I might strangle you myself otherwise…”
Black Flag stopped in his tracks and looked up at the sky. A rainbow ring of light sliced through the clouds above him and his crew, destroying them and briefly intensifying the rain over the island before it stopped entirely. What it left behind was a clear view of the night sky, complete with the full moon hanging almost directly overhead and a seemingly infinite expanse of stars arranged against the black backdrop of space.
“A Sonic Rainboom?” Jolly Roger asked. “No way. That’s unreal!”
“That’s that Rainbow Dash, right?” Hayseed said in her gruff voice. “Why did she do that?”
“It got rid of the clouds,” Black Flag said, pointing toward the sky. “There’s no way that wasn’t intentional.”
“But why are they getting rid of the clouds?” Roger asked. “Do they hate the storm that much?”
“I think they have another goal in mind.” Black Flag continued to creep forward through the jungle until he found himself at the edge of a channel that offered him a clearer view of the sky. The ring of colors slowly faded away on the distant horizons, and when they did, there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The rainboom had completely destroyed the storm sitting above the archipelago. The only question that remained was why?
“They obviously don’t give a shit if we know where they are,” Hayseed said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have done that.”
“So they’re armed and dangerous,” Jolly said. “Tough shit. So are we, and we know what we’re doing.”
“They have more weapons and more ponies than we do,” Flag cautioned the other pirate. “We can’t win a stand-up fight with them. But if we know where they are, then we can whittle their numbers down some.”
“And just where are they, exactly?” Hayseed said, her magic idly toying with one of her pistols. “I just want to taste some blood!”
Jolly Roger shoved her across the beach with a wing. “It’s obvious, you stupid cunt. They’re at the temple. That rainboom was right over it. They’re trying to do something there, that much is obvious.”
“Do something there?” Hayseed momentarily faltered. “They’re not trying to open the stupid thing, are they?”
“I don’t know how a rainboom would go about doing that,” Black Flag said. “But if they are, we might not have to worry about them ourselves for much longer.”
He started across the channel, the other two pirates watching him with confusion. “Wait, you want to go toward the tomb? Toward that cursed thing?”
“I want to see what they’re doing,” Black Flag said. “We’ll worry about curses later. Right now, knowing what our enemy is up to is our best chance for survival.”
And then he slipped into the next patch of undergrowth, leaving his crewmates to warily follow him across the channel and toward the tomb.
-----
Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but celebrate and show off a little bit. After all, the adrenaline still roared through her veins; why stop now? She’d just pulled off a Sonic Rainboom and destroyed an entire storm with it. She was entitled to a little celebration and flair, right?
Well, even if that answer was ‘no’, Rainbow still intended to do just that. She kept her speed up as much as she could, barely doing more than twitching her feathers to change course and adjust her heading as she pulled off loops and twirls and stunts. Every single inch of her body, every single hair on her coat, felt alive and awesome. This was what she was meant to do. To fly and be awesome. It was just an added bonus when it turned out that was also the best way to be helpful.
Of course, she had to remind herself that she still had a job to do. The rainboom was only to clear the skies so the moon could hit the temple, and she’d definitely done that. There wasn’t a cloud in sight, and the full moon shone down on the tomb below. Rainbow figured they’d have several hours before any new clouds came back into the area, which was plenty of time to explore the tomb and at least get a sense of where this figurine was supposed to be. At any rate, she knew she wanted to leave one of her teammates above ground to keep an eye on the moon and the clouds so that the rest of the expedition could get out before they lost moonlight over the tomb again. But on the bright side, that meant she could explore the tomb herself and it’d be more than just Rarity, Ball Bearings, and Blow Off who had to shoulder that burden.
Wheeling around, Rainbow set her sights on the tomb below. As she watched from afar, she saw the massive stone doors sliding open of their own volition, so she adjusted her course accordingly. That would be a good rendezvous point to meet up with her friends. She could already see the other three pegasi fluttering down from the cloudless night sky, and with a flourish of blue feathers, slotted into position on their right and joined their descent.
“How was that for a show?” she asked them, casually rolling over and gliding to the ground on her back.
“That was amazing!” Soft Step proclaimed. “I’ve never seen one of those in person before! It’s every bit I had always hoped it’d be and more!”
“Think you can teach the rest of us how to do that?” Stargazer asked.
Rainbow laughed and shook her head. “Sorry, you guys are great and all, but you aren’t as awesome as I am. The Sonic Rainboom is like, twenty percent speed and eighty percent sheer awesomicity. You gotta be born ready to do one!”
“I’m sure there’s a way to do it,” Stargazer insisted. “You just have to show us how!”
“Yeah, yeah, as soon as you beat me in a race, I’ll teach you how to do a rainboom.”
The four pegasi came to a stop at the top of the stairs leading down, where Rainbow caught sight of Rarity and the two stallions picking their way out of the temple ruins. Grinning, Rainbow fluttered over to Rarity. “Did you guys see that? It was awesome, right?”
“Yes, I did see it, and it was quite stunning.” Rarity smiled at Rainbow, making Rainbow return the gesture. Then her alabaster hoof roughly slapped Rainbow across the muzzle. “It was so stunning I’m sure everybody on every island could see it! The pirates, the minotaurs, even the siren probably saw it! Now everypony knows where we are!”
Rainbow rubbed her muzzle and frowned. “Relax, Rares, we’ll be fine.”
“We were safest when nopony knew where we were!” Rarity huffed and jabbed her hoof into Rainbow’s chest. “Just why on earth would you even think that was a good idea?!”
“Because the clouds weren’t breaking!” Rainbow protested. “They weren’t natural clouds, they were magical clouds!”
Rarity blinked. “Magical clouds? Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean that they were summoned by some magic or something,” Rainbow said. “Me and my team could hardly touch them. So if we couldn’t clear them out ourselves, they I figured I had to use some awesome magic to do that. And what better magic than the Sonic Rainboom?”
Rarity frowned and thought for a few moments. “Okay,” she said. “So you did what you had to do. But now we’ve likely got pirates and who knows what else bearing down on us, and we’ve got an entire tomb to explore. What now?”
“What now?” Rainbow echoed. “I mean, that much should be obvious. We go and explore.”
Rarity eyed the yawning black entrance of the tomb with suspicion and just a little bit of worry. “But how, Rainbow. We don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into. We’ve got the tomb open, so that’s a start, but let’s try to be safe and smart about this next bit.”
Rainbow shrugged her wings. “Okay, yeah, sure. I was thinking that I leave one of my team back here at the entrance to watch the storm and keep an eye on the moon. We’ll need some warning if we’re about to lose moonlight so we can get back out. I’m not sure if the temple will stay open if we lose the moon.”
Rarity nodded in agreement. “We didn’t do anything on our end to open the temple,” she said. “It opened on its own as soon as the moonlight hit it, so I would assume it will close on its own when it loses sight of the moon.”
“Right, good thinking.” Rainbow turned around and pointed out Champagne. “You’re gonna keep watch up here, okay?” she asked the Prench mare. “If you see the clouds getting close to the moon or the moon getting low in the sky, come and get us. We need as much warning as we can to leave.”
Champagne nodded. “I can do that.”
“Good.” Rarity likewise stepped forward and picked out Blow Off. “Stay up here with her, will you?” she asked the stallion. “Two sets of eyes are better—and safer—than one. If we have any uninvited guests, we’ll need to know as soon as we can.”
Blow Off shrugged. “Whatever. I wasn’t too keen on going down into the tomb anyway, so that’s fine by me.”
“Good,” Rainbow said, somewhat relieved that Rarity had made the irritating stallion stay above ground on watch. “The rest of us, let’s get going. We’re wasting valuable moonlight up here!”
Rarity stared into the darkness of the tomb with more than a little worry. Even from the top of the stairs, the structure seemed cold and menacing. Something about it made her skin crawl and her hair stand on end. She couldn’t even see inside and already she regretted opening it up.
Around her, several of her companions seemed similarly wary about venturing into the blackness at the bottom of the stairs. Ball Bearings and Soft Step hesitated near the back of the group, with the masseuse nervously chewing on her feathers. Even Stargazer trotted down the steps with caution in his hooves, his wings still a little unfurled at his sides for a quick getaway if need be. The only pony who didn’t seemed fazed was Rainbow, who advanced on the tomb with careless abandon. Rarity figured the pegasus was treating this whole experience like a Daring Do novel more than anything else, and that worried her.
“Rainbow, darling, please do wait up,” Rarity said, mustering the courage to quickly trot down the stairs and join Rainbow by her side. “There’s no point in rushing headlong into a scary tomb when we don’t know what awaits us inside.”
“We’re on the clock, Rares,” Rainbow said. Her eyes momentarily flicked up to the moon hanging still overhead. “The faster we get in and out, the better.”
“A tomb like this could hold nasty surprises,” Rarity said. “We don’t want to blunder headlong into them. That won’t do any of us any good.”
Rainbow paused at the bottom of the stairs, right in front of the gaping door. “Yeah, good point. And it’ll be harder to see anything in the dark. Can you make us a light?”
Rarity nodded and let her horn glow with energy. In short order, soft blue light illuminated the stone walls of the ancient tomb, glistening off of rocks slick with grime and moisture. Almost as soon as her light touched the darkness, however, a torrent of screeching and leathery wings burst out of the tomb, sending the small team of Equestrians screaming and ducking for cover as the swarm of bats passed.
After the screeching stopped for several seconds, Rarity cautiously raised her head. Somewhere up above her in the night sky, a thin and swirling cloud of bats slowly spread across the island, looking for insects to make up their next meal. One or two stragglers flitted out of the tomb, and then all was empty once more. Or at least, so Rarity hoped.
“I hate bats,” Rarity grumbled, using her magic to try and comb her chopped mane down into place. “Absolutely dreadful creatures. Perhaps this is a sign that we’re messing with something we shouldn’t be.”
“It was just a bunch of bats,” Rainbow said, shaking her head. Though her feathers were a little disheveled from jumping back in surprise, the pegasus didn’t seem bothered by the bats at all. “There’s nothing to be worried about. Now come on, we’ve got a tomb to check out!”
Swallowing hard to steady herself, Rarity once more lit her horn and ventured into the dark first room of the tomb at Rainbow’s side. Almost immediately, she grimaced as her hooves splashed in chilly, sloshy mud pooled across the floor an inch deep. Her horn illuminated small cracks in the stone blocks that made up the walls that had dirt and mud dripping through them. The temple was hardly waterproof, and somehow, that made the thought that Rarity was venturing below ground with tons and tons of water and mud over her head that much worse. Amazingly, though, she wasn’t the one the most bothered by it. The three pegasi with her, Rainbow included, all looked a little on edge, their eyes immediately wandering to the low ceiling above them.
“I hate caves,” Rainbow muttered. “I hate being underground.”
“Maybe I should’ve stayed outside,” Soft Step said. “I get really claustrophobic.”
“Really?” Rarity asked. “Then by all means, darling, don’t feel pressured to join Rainbow and myself. I’m sure Blow Off and Champagne will enjoy an extra set of eyes with them.”
Soft Step nodded and quickly backpedaled to the door. “Sorry, I’m just…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rarity insisted. “We’ll see you when we return.”
That left just four of them inside the tomb, but nopony else seemed like they were ready to back out like Soft Step. Now that Rarity knew there weren’t any more bats to attack her, she let her horn brighten some more until the four ponies could clearly make out the interior of the tomb.
The first room appeared to be a grand entrance of some sort. Despite Soft Step’s worries about claustrophobia, the first room was actually rather large and spacious, complete with a vaulted ceiling that Rarity assumed had to make up the floor directly above it in the temple ruins outside. Stone statues of ponies sat in alcoves along the walls, many of them wearing simple armor and carrying simple weapons like harpoons and slings. More glyphs and carvings decorated the interior of the chamber, but Rarity couldn’t make much sense of them. At the far end of the chamber, a large stone archway led deeper into the tomb, while two bat-like pony statutes stood guard, their slitted eyes seemingly staring Rarity down. It was like they dared Rarity to try and pass them, warning her that she wouldn’t like what she found beyond.
Rainbow didn’t seem to have any of those worries. Once her pegasus uneasiness about being below ground had passed, she started examining the room more closely. “This is pretty neat,” she said, walking right up to one of the statues and booping it on the nose. “Look at all these warriors and stuff. Any idea why they’d put a bunch of statues of soldiers in a tomb like this?”
“I saw a carving that showed the Polynesians’ own interpretation of Nightmare Moon,” Rarity said. “Their version gave the moon god an army of thestrals which he used to try and take over the world or something of that sort. They probably put these soldiers here to guard the temple afterwards.”
Rainbow nodded and felt around the stones some more. “Yeah, the carving on these statues is a lot better than the walls around it. The statues are newer than the tomb.”
“I guess that makes sense, then,” Rarity said. She stopped in front of the two statues guarding the entrance leading deeper into the tomb and bit her lip. “I’m worried about advancing much further,” she said. “What if the pirates are right? What if this place is cursed?”
“Nothing seemed cursed when we were here,” Stargazer said. “It was just a temple. I don’t know why the pirates would think it’s cursed.”
“Yeah, if it was cursed, I’m certain these guys would know,” Rainbow said. “They actually lived here for a little. And if they didn’t see anything, then it can’t be that bad.”
Rarity wasn’t sure about that, but she dropped it for the moment. Perhaps Rainbow was right. They’d already discussed this before anyway, and it seemed like something Squall must’ve just told her crew to keep them in line. Right now, the best thing they could do was venture deeper into the tomb and find out what it held. Besides, how much larger could it be?
“Come on, let’s see what’s past these statues,” Rainbow said, and she quickly glided between the two thestral statues standing guard to the inner tomb. Stargazer and Ball Bearings followed her, leaving just Rarity in the main room.
Rarity gave both statues a nervous look, but they remained impassive. She half expected them to come to life and attack her as soon as she walked past, they looked so lifelike. But they didn’t move when she hurriedly darted past them, and they still didn’t move as she went down the hallway.
“Get a hold of yourself, Rarity,” she quietly muttered. “You’re worrying about nothing…”
Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but feel a sense of eager giddiness as she started exploring the tomb. While the sun temple had been cool and all, this ancient moon tomb or whatever it was promised to be even cooler. Maybe it had something to do with all the decaying carvings and creepy statues that the sun temple lacked, but the tomb felt more like a set of ancient ruins Daring Do would actually visit than the sun temple did. Of course, if this was anything like the kind of southern Equestrian ruins Daring Do tended to explore, then she had to keep an eye out for all manner of cleverly hidden traps, but that didn’t really worry her too much. She knew she’d be able to spot anything before her or her companions accidentally set it off.
The hallway past the two thestral statues continued onwards for about thirty feet before it formed an intersection. Three ancient doors stood before Rainbow and her friends, with one in front and one on each side. All had been sealed shut, but the wide seams down the doors and the cracks in their stone faces told Rainbow that they wouldn’t be too hard to get open. That, and they didn’t have any weird locking mechanisms tied to them like the doors in the sun temple did.
“So, which way next?” Rainbow asked as her group finally caught up to her. “Want to take a vote?”
“I’m going to assume that going straight ahead leads further into the tomb,” Rarity said. “Perhaps it would be wise to check the other rooms along the way before we rush straight to the middle.”
“We don’t exactly have a lot of time, though.” Rainbow rubbed her chin and looked to the two stallions with them. “Thoughts, you two?”
Stargazer shrugged. “It’s probably worth it to go investigate everything while we can,” he said. “We might end up needing another way out if worst comes to worst.”
“If those bats were inside here, there has to be another way out,” Ball Bearings said. “They wouldn’t roost inside if there wasn’t a way for them to get out.”
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, good idea.” She turned her attention to the other doors and frowned. The carvings on the doors didn’t give her all that much to go off of, but the ones on her left and right seemed almost identical. She also noticed that there was a large hole in the top of the center door; bats could probably fly in and out through that. That meant another exit had to be further along the middle path, so it was likely worth it to check out the side doors first. “Let’s get this left door open,” she said, making an executive decision as the group’s unofficial leader. “Ball Bearings, you and Rares are the hornheads, see if you two can pry this thing open.”
Rarity shot Rainbow a dirty look but nevertheless stepped forward to lend her magic to the endeavor. “Be careful that I do not pry you open, darling,” she said, her blue magic joining Bearings’ around the seam in the door. “‘Hornhead’ is quite the insensitive slur.”
“It was just a joke,” Rainbow said, shaking her head. She made a startled yelp and jumped backwards when the door suddenly crumbled and collapsed under the unicorns’ magic, and Rarity accidentally flung bits of stone back at them all. The stones holding the doorframe up slid and shook, and dust and dirt fell from the ceiling as the temple’s foundations shifted now that the door they’d been resting on had been destroyed.
Rarity blinked. “That was unexpected,” she said to herself, and then turned around to Rainbow with concern in her eyes. “I didn’t hit you, did I? I swear to Celestia, that was unintentional!”
“Relax, Rares, I’m fine,” Rainbow said, brushing a little bit of dirt off her coat. “I probably would’ve deserved it anyway.” Once she was sure she was still in one piece, she turned her attention to the other two ponies. “You two okay?” she asked, to which she received a pair of nods.
Chilly air seemed to waft out of the now opened room in front of them, cold and moist. Rainbow cautiously strode forward into the room, Rarity and her light not too far behind her. The blue light illuminated a small room with a flat stone table in the middle and numerous alcoves carved into the wall. Unlike the ones that held the statues in the entrance room, however, these ones were cut horizontally and stacked three or four tall from floor to ceiling. And in each one, a bundle of rags lied still with limbs crossed over chests.
Rainbow grimaced and trotted back a few steps when she realized what they were. Rarity, on the other hoof, shrieked in revulsion and immediately backed out of the door, nearly leaving Rainbow in the dark. “Rarity, calm down!” Rainbow shouted in frustration, glaring at the retreating blue mote of light moving back down the hallway. Sighing, she gestured to Ball Bearings, and within a few seconds, the unicorn summoned forth a replacement light for them to see by.
There were probably thirty or forty mummified ponies inside of this room, with some rotting tools and equipment left on the center table. Each body had been carefully prepared and laid to rest in its alcove, and the wrappings were still in decent condition after all this time spent in an open air chamber filled with humidity and harsh tropical temperatures. That wasn’t to say all the corpses were perfectly intact or even in a good enough condition to look at without Rainbow feeling like she would lose her dinner, but it was clear this burial chamber hadn’t been disturbed in a long time.
Rainbow almost felt like a villain for opening the door and disturbing the rest of ponies who’d been down here for at least a thousand years. She felt like a graverobber when she remembered that she was looking for a statuette to steal from this place so she could simply go home.
“I’m gonna guess the other room is the same as this one,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “In which case, we probably shouldn’t bother opening it.”
“Agreed,” Ball Bearings said, brushing some dirt and dust out of his mane. “That statue we’re looking for is probably deeper in the tomb.”
Rainbow nodded in agreement, her eyes wandering to a large bust of a fanged unicorn jutting out of the far wall of the burial chamber. The stone pony seemed almost alive and menacing, and Rainbow wasn’t entirely sure that if she stuck her hoof in its mouth for some stupid reason she wouldn’t lose it. Its eyes seemed to lock onto hers, and another cold chill ran down her spine and made her flitter her wings like she was trying to shake it away.
Swallowing hard, she forced herself to turn away and trot back into the intersection. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get this door open.” She looked back down the long hallway and saw Rarity lingering in the distance, only visible by the light shining on her horn. “Rarity, get back here. They’re not zombies or anything, they’re just corpses.”
“They are disgusting!” Rarity shouted back. “I don’t want anything to deal with them!”
Rainbow growled and grinded her teeth together. “Come on, Rares, we need your magic down here! I know they’re nasty and stuff, but it’s not like we’re asking you to touch them, right?”
Rarity hesitated, but after a few seconds, the blue light started to move back down the hallway to her. “I just don’t want to have to even look at them,” Rarity said when she was close enough, pointedly looking away from the open door to the burial chamber. “The thought that I will one day look like that is not something that I like to think about!”
“Then don’t think about it, Rares,” Rainbow said, trying to calm her marefriend down. “I bet you’ll leave a pretty corpse when you die!”
“Thinking about death and how easy it is for me to catch a bad case of it in here is not helping either,” Rarity insisted.
Rolling her eyes, Rainbow hopped up enough to kiss Rarity and try to calm her down that way. Then, winking, she sidled over to Rarity’s side and draped a wing over her back. “I’ll keep you safe, then,” she said, nuzzling Rarity’s cheek. “I’ll keep the spooky dead ponies away from you.”
That at least seemed to get Rarity to relax a little. “Well, good, then. At least I can count on that.”
“Yup. Now,” Rainbow took a few steps back, just in case the next door broke apart again when the unicorns tried to open it. “Let’s see what’s behind door number two!”
Rarity widened her stance and let magic surge along her horn. She could feel the invisible fingers of reality summoned forth by her mana grasp at the rough and stony edges of the cracked and crumbling door in front of her. With a thought, a grunt, and a little bit of effort, she pulled back on the door, rewarded with the sound of stone scraping across stone. Thankfully, unlike the other door, this one stayed in one piece and didn’t crumble or break when she tried to open it. Together with Ball Bearings, she managed to force the pair of doors open wide enough for a pony to slide through before she released her telekinetic grip.
What she revealed on the other side with the light from her horn was a small room with a hole in the center of the floor. Upon closer examination, she saw it was a tight and narrow staircase descending into the earth at a sharp angle, and the light from her horn glittered across gently rippling water at the bottom. Somewhere down that staircase, water dripped and made eerie echoes, and something would occasionally make a little splash. No matter how much she brightened her horn, she could not see the bottom through the murky standing water below.
But there was something else surprising about the room they stood in. Instead of another depiction of the moon god, a statue of the sun god with his wings outstretched stood over the hole descending into the water below. The pegasus also wore full battle regalia with decorative wooden armor along with a spear in one wing and a curved sword held in the other. The statue’s face was stern and damning, as if he would condemn anypony who decided to venture under his gaze and down the hole to the water below.
Rarity suddenly had a worry about what exactly this statue could be protecting. The more she saw of this place, the less it seemed like a tomb and the more it seemed like a vault or a prison for something, like the Ponynesian version of Tartarus. And there was still no sign of the unicorn statuette.
Rainbow Dash advanced on the stairs in the floor and whistled. “That goes down for a bit,” she casually observed. “I don’t know how deep the water is, but it’s definitely higher than knee-deep.”
“Hopefully nothing is living down there,” Rarity said. “It would be just our luck that there was a shark or some other monstrosity making its home in those waters.”
“At least we’ve got guns,” Rainbow said, snatching one in her wing. “Even with Esses and the others carrying a bunch, we’ve got enough weapons of our own to defend ourselves.”
“And these things will work even when the powder is wet?” Rarity asked, holding up the one she’d carried with her throughout the night. Though she knew they were supposed to be functional with the fire gem embedded in the side, she could never have enough reassurances about their reliability.
“Yeah, we loaded them when it was dry,” Rainbow said. “The bullet forms a seal with the barrel so water can’t get behind it, and the fire gem in the side will make it shoot even if the gun is sopping wet. I could probably shoot this thing underwater if I needed to.”
“It wouldn’t be too effective, but yeah,” Ball Bearings said. “Just be careful with it. We’ve only got one each, and then the swords.”
“Hopefully Soft Step and the others won’t need any extra weapons,” Rarity said. “They might encounter pirates up there after your rainboom, Rainbow.”
“They’ve been fighting the pirates for a month now,” Rainbow said. “More than that. They know what they’re doing, and they’re armed. So long as they stay low and out of sight they’ll be fine.” Then, turning her attention back to the hole in the ground, she swallowed and took the first step. “Right. Let’s get started on this, I guess.”
Step by step, Rainbow descended into the dark abyss below them, her eyes darting every which way to try and peer through the darkness. Rarity followed close behind to provide a light, and as soon as her head dipped beneath the floor and into open air of the chamber below them, she allowed her horn to brighten and illuminate as much of the tomb as she possibly could.
Rainbow stopped and her eyes widened as Rarity’s horn brightened more and more and more of the complex around them. “Holy crap,” she whispered to herself as the walls of the tomb just seemed to keep going. “This place is… friggin’ huge!”
Rarity would have called ‘huge’ an understatement. The staircase seemed to come down right into the middle of a vast open area that almost seemed endless. Her and Rainbow stood above a central chamber than stretched out in front of them and was swallowed up by the darkness behind them. Rarity’s horn light illuminated corners and edges of walls, allowing them to pick out huge halls that branched off of the main space to the left and the right. For as bright as Rarity tried to make her horn, the illumination it provided didn’t reach the ends of the monstrous cavern they found themselves in.
“Ponies couldn’t possibly have made this,” Rarity said. “It’s too enormous. There’s no way!”
“They made that sun temple on the mountain,” Rainbow said, “and the shrine beneath our island. They seem like they were pretty good builders.”
Stargazer and Ball Bearings slowly came down the stairs after them. After some time to look around and observe the stone, Stargazer pointed a wing at the far walls. “The walls aren’t regularly cut like the tomb above,” he said. “They’re more roughly hewn. I think most of this place was naturally formed.”
“That makes sense,” Rainbow said. “I thought this place looked like a volcano that blew up from above. This might have been a magma chamber a long time ago, and the Ponynesians just found it.”
“It would certainly explain the obsidian altar we found in a shrine attached to these ruins,” Rarity said. “It would also mean that this chamber could be nearly endless…”
Rainbow Dash walked down the last of the steps, grimacing as the tepid water trapped in the chamber rose up to her belly. “Well, it’s not too deep,” she said, and immediately took wing to avoid having to wade through the water. Rivulets of briny water fell off her coat and into the pool around her, causing it to ripple and send a cascade of dripping echoes bouncing off the soggy walls of the cavern. “I’m not gonna bother walking around in it, though,” she said. “I’d rather fly.”
Rarity sighed and stuck her hoof in the water, shivering at its chilling touch. “I suppose Ball Bearings and I have to suffer through this, then.”
“I’d carry you, but I don’t have my stamina and strength back yet,” Rainbow said. “Besides, you’ll be fine. It’s just a bit of water. I’d watch out for any holes or dips in the floor, though, depending on how much the Ponynesians might have smoothed it out or not.”
“Hardly a pleasant thought,” Rarity muttered aloud. Shivering, she stepped into the water and waded through it to stand next to where Rainbow hovered. “If I slip beneath the waves screaming, you will rescue me, won’t you?”
“I’ll do my best,” Rainbow said, winking at Rarity. Then the pegasus looked down the long halls stretching out in either direction and sighed. “Friggin’ crap, this place is gonna take us forever to explore. We’ll run out of moonlight if we aren’t careful.”
“Maybe we should split up and cover more ground,” Stargazer suggested. “If we can find an end to this chamber, then we can start to orient ourselves better.”
“Good idea,” Rainbow said. “Let’s do that, but don’t go opening anything yet. We’ll meet back at these stairs in about an hour and then we’ll go from there. We want to do this the smart way.”
Rarity scoffed. “I didn’t imagine you suggesting we do things the smart way.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Sometimes the smart way is the awesome way because then you don’t die. You can’t be awesome if you’re dead.”
“I suppose in that regard you are correct.” Rarity shook her head and looked down the long, dark corridor ahead of her. “Then it’s best if we get started and see what horrible surprises are in store for us through the darkness…”
Soft Step fluffed up her wings and tried to stay warm and calm. With all the rain the past few nights, the temperature had dropped a little bit more than she’d grown used to since ending up here. While she could hardly call it cold, and it’d even be a stretch to say it was cool, the night was definitely not as warm as they had been. If this was already growing uncomfortable for her, she could only imagine how awful temperate Equestria would be for her when she returned.
She’d positioned herself near the shrine with the obsidian altar, where the ruins gave her some cover from her surroundings and a clear view of the night sky. Thanks to Rainbow Dash’s Sonic Rainboom, there weren’t any clouds in sight, and she doubted she’d see any anytime soon. Still, she knew that everypony on the islands had seen it, so she kept a wary eye out for approaching pirates.
Or rather, Champagne did. The Prench mare had been circling the skies for the past half hour, trying to spot anything moving through the dark jungle below now that she had moonlight to aid her night vision. Since Champagne was the only pegasus they had who could maintain her flight, Soft Step and Blow Off relied on her to be their early warning pony. Watching the moonlight was easy and could be done from the ground, but keeping an eye out for pirates sneaking up on the temple from any direction was much harder. Thankfully, Soft Step knew that Champagne had sharp eyesight, and she wouldn’t let them down.
The masseuse started going through the feathers on her wings, starting to preen them back into place while she had some downtime. Her green feathers were all disheveled from the frantic and exhausting flying she’d been doing earlier. Between the injury to her own wing and the wind from the storm making it difficult to fly, her feathers were an absolute mess. She’d already amassed a little pile on the stones in front of her of the ones that she’d pulled out.
Hooves trudging across the stones warned the mare that she was about to have company. Nostrils flaring with a silent sigh, she put her wing down and looked across the temple ruins to see the gray and white dappled earth pony making his way over to her. Even though she didn’t really like Blow Off all that much (none of the mares did), her training still overrode her instincts and she found herself smiling at his approach. “What’s going on?” she asked him. “Anything new?”
Blow Off shook his head and sighed, leaning against a stone pillar across from Soft Step. “Nothing new. Just more boring waiting.”
Soft Step nodded once. “That’s what I figured it would be. Honestly, I’ll take the boring waiting over having to creep around that spooky tomb down there. I can’t stand it; it makes my skin crawl.”
“I’d rather take the tomb over this,” Blow Off said. “They should’ve taken me with them. I’m not claustrophobic; I’d actually be useful to them down there.”
Soft Step’s feathers briefly puffed out in silent irritation at the blunted barb thrown her way. “I’m sorry that they gave you the more important task of keeping watch. It’s up to us to make sure they don’t get trapped in there or attacked by pirates.”
“A thankless job if there ever was one.” Groaning, Blow Off sat down against the column, much to Soft Step’s dismay. “I still don’t even understand how they think these statuette things they’re looking for are going to help us get home. I think it’s wishful thinking at best.”
“They have a good point, though,” Soft Step insisted. “Princess Luna would’ve tried to find them in their dreams as soon as the Concordia was reported missing. They could’ve just told the Princess where they were and we all would’ve been rescued a month ago. But that never happened, so the only conclusion that makes sense is that she couldn’t find their dreams.”
“So much for being best friends with royalty,” Blow Off said, shaking his head. “I bet we wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for them.”
Soft Step raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because they gave that dumb pirate bitch dreams of grandeur,” he said. “As soon as she saw them, she figured she’d get the ransom of a lifetime and live like a queen. She was so worried about getting them to her hideout as quickly as possible that she tried to run a storm to do it. And now we’re all stuck here.”
“And that’s different from them not being on the ship because…?”
“Then she would’ve simply bypassed the storm and ransomed us off at the Equestrian embassy in the Confederacy or something. The two of them were worth more than all of us on the Concordia, so she did stupid things to try and secure her payday. She wasn’t going to risk hanging out in the travel lanes to avoid the storm and running into a navy corvette or something sent to rescue them.” He scowled and kicked at the dirt. “This is all their fault.”
“It’s Squall’s fault and nopony else’s,” Soft Step insisted. “And Rarity and Rainbow Dash are trying to get us home. They’ve already done more than the rest of us in that regard. They managed to raid the home island of the minotaurs and get away safely. Not only that, but they rescued Gyro!”
Blow Off scoffed and shook his head. “Because that makes it so much better. Now I have to work with that bitch if I want to get anything done around here. Too bad the minotaurs didn’t eat her.”
Soft Step gasped. “You are unbelievable!” she shouted at him. “She’s a shipmate!”
“A selfish bitch of one, sure. I was going to transfer to another ship after this flight, I couldn’t stand being near her.”
“Because she rejected you?” Soft Step asked. Whatever friendliness she’d managed to cling onto as a masseuse had finally vanished. “Get over yourself, jackass. Just because she’s not interested doesn’t mean you can call her a selfish bitch.”
“Then maybe she shouldn’t complain about how she’s not getting tail constantly,” Blow Off snapped back. “I was only trying to do her a favor to get her to shut up. I had to spend every single day below decks with her and her whiny mouth for two years. She’s lucky I didn’t club her over the head and throw her in the boiler. That would’ve solved a lot of problems.”
“Hey, you little—!” Soft Step stopped herself before she could stand up and lunge at him. She closed her eyes and drew down as deep a breath as she could. “You two need to forget about that,” she said. “We all have to work together now if we’re ever going to get back home. We can’t be at each other’s throats like this.”
Blow Off laughed at her. “We’re never going to get home, Soft Step,” he said. “This statue quest is just an exercise in futility. Face it, we’re going to be stuck spending the rest of our lives on these islands, however short that may be. We might as well get comfortable. Besides, we’ve got a nice enough mix to make everypony happy.”
“What are you even talking about?” Soft Step asked him.
“I’m talking about mares and stallions,” Blow Off said. “There’s six stallions and six mares now that we have Rainbow and Rarity and Gyro. That’s good enough, isn’t it?”
It suddenly dawned on Soft Step what exactly the engineer was talking about. This time she actually scrambled to her hooves and took a disgusted step back. “Absolutely not! You’re disgusting!”
“I’m being practical,” Blow Off objected. “We can get our own community going here. Do you want to die out here alone, or do you want to have children and grandchildren to watch over you when you do?”
“I’d rather just go home!” Soft Step shouted back. “That’s all I want! To go home!”
Blow Off shrugged. “When another six months pass and we’re still stuck out here, I think you’ll see it my way,” he said. “We’re not going home. We’re never going to go home. Just face it and accept it.”
Before Soft Step could bark a retort at him, wings fluttered between the two ponies and Champagne touched down. Her worried look on her face told Soft Step exactly what was going on before the Prench mare even said anything. “We have a problem,” she said, glancing at the two ponies.
“What is it?” Blow Off asked, casually discarding the conversation he was on before her arrival.
“What do you think it is?” Soft Step asked him, still fuming at him.
Black Flag stopped his party at the edge of the temple ruins, where the trees and undergrowth of the forest gave the pirates enough cover to stay mostly hidden. In front of them lay columns of crumbling stone and old rubble, the sight of several fights that felt like ages ago. Flag had lost brothers- and sisters-in-arms assaulting those ruins under Squall’s command, and now he was back, despite every fiber in his body screaming at him to leave. But the Sonic Rainboom had happened right over these ruins, and that meant the survivors from the Concordia were up to something.
“See anything?” he asked his brother as the pegasus peered through the ferns at his side. “What are they up to?”
“I can’t make out anything,” Jolly Roger said. “They aren’t even in sight. They’re either deeper in the ruins or in the tomb itself.”
“They wouldn’t have gone into the tomb, would they?” Hayseed asked, worry painted on her face. “Even they have to know that it’s fucking cursed.”
“They’re stupid and desperate,” Flag said. “They might do something like that.”
“And we’re stupid and desperate just being here,” Roger retorted. “Nothing good is going to come from this. They’re going to get themselves all killed and then us along with them.”
Flag furrowed his brow and tried to peer out across the ruins. Nothing about them had changed since last he’d seen them, except for one glaring detail: a wide, gaping abyss opening up in the earth under the ruins. As soon as he saw it, he swallowed hard and rubbed at his eyes. “They actually got the tomb open,” he said. “What are they doing?”
“They got it open?” Hayseed asked, trying to peer over Flag’s shoulder. “Then fuck, what are we doing here? That fucking thing is gonna come back. It wants the tomb open!”
Black Flag backhoofed the mare hard enough to make her nose bleed. “You’re the only one who insists that she saw something in that cloud of bats that attacked us that one time. I know you can sense evil magic here, but that’s different. Nopony else saw it but you.”
“Nopony else was looking but me, you jackass!” Hayseed spit back. “I know what I saw. And if they opened that tomb up, we’re all screwed!”
“We should close it,” Jolly Roger said. “Close it before it’s too late.”
Black Flag let out an exasperated sigh and glared at his brother. “Not you, too. Yes, we should be cautious, but you’re worrying about nothing.”
“Fine, fuck you,” Hayseed spat. “Even if you don’t think there’s some sort of spirit or monster around here, then closing the tomb traps them all inside. They’ll fucking starve and die and they won’t be our problem anymore.”
The pirate captain nodded. “Now that is an actual good idea. We can slash their numbers without firing a shot. The only question now is how.”
“They cleared the skies for a reason,” Roger said. He pointed a cutlass to the stars. “They’ve got clear skies for a few hours yet. If they’re worried about losing moonlight, how much you want to bet they’ve either got a lookout keeping an eye on it or will be out of the tomb before morning?”
“If we kill the lookout then they won’t know when to leave,” Hayseed said. “The tomb will close and they’ll be trapped down there! Perfect!”
“And if they just plan on leaving before morning, we can ambush them at the entrance and maybe keep them from escaping. Then the closing tomb will trap them inside, and that’s that.”
The whole situation still rubbed Black Flag the wrong way. “I doubt it’s going to be that simple,” he said. “They have more ponies than we do, and they have to know that. That’s been true for a while now. They probably left a couple of lookouts above ground to keep an eye on the sky and keep an eye out for us. So if we’re going to move in, we need to do it smart.”
“Or fast,” his brother said, letting the moonlight flash off his weapons. “They’re slow civvies. We can jump ‘em quick and be done with it.”
“‘Slow civvies’ who have gone hoof to hoof with our experienced crew and whittled us down bit by bit.” The earth pony glared at his brother. “Don’t underestimate them. We’ve done that too much already.”
“So what the fuck are we gonna do?” Hayseed asked. “Pussy out now? I was promised a fight, and I’m gonna get it one way or another.”
“We fight smart,” Black Flag said. He turned to his brother and pointed to the treetops. “Get some air and try and spot them from afar. If you get in position to get behind them or get a kill shot on them, take it and hide. Confusion and harassing tactics are our best bet right now.”
“Easy enough,” Jolly Roger said, spreading his wings. “They won’t know what hit them.” Then, with a single flap, he was gone, disappearing into the dense jungle trees around them.
“What about me?” Hayseed asked. “Got anything fancy in mind?”
“We need a shield,” he said. “As strong and sturdy as you can make it.”
Hayseed blew air out of her muzzle and nonchalantly waved a hoof. “Shields are easy shit. Especially if it’s just stopping projectiles; I don’t need any weird spells for that.”
“You might need one,” Black Flag said. When she raised her eyebrow, he explained. “We need it to be invisible. They can’t know we’re protected.”
“And why the fuck is that?” Hayseed asked. “We should at least give them the common courtesy to let them know they’re fucked before we rape them.”
“That’s just the thing. If they know we have a shield, if they know we’re protected, they’ll try something else instead of attacking us outright.” He gently clopped his hooves together for emphasis. “If they can’t see the shield, they’ll try to take shots at us when they think they have the jump on us. That’ll burn a few of their shots before the fighting even really begins, and they won’t be able to reload them once everything breaks loose.”
Hayseed shrugged. “Alright, if that’s what you want. I can’t make it as strong if I’ve got to make it invisible,” she said. “Can’t weave the mana too thick. I can probably block one pistol shot. Maybe two. Anything more than that will make it break.”
“One or two shots should be all we need,” Black Flag said. “As soon as they attack us, drop the shield and gut them. We’ll need to take the element of surprise while we can.”
The mare nodded, and after once more checking that his weapons were readied, Black Flag took a few steps out into the moonlight around the temple ruins. “It’s do or die time, now.”
“And you’re sure there were only two? There weren’t more?”
Soft Step kept looking over Champagne’s shoulder to the jungle trees beyond, worried that pirates would suddenly burst forth from them without a moment’s notice. That Champagne had noticed pirates approaching the ruins was one thing, but her seeing only two had been what really set the masseuse off. She knew if the pirates were going to attack, they’d attack in force. So why would they only send out two?
“They emerged from the jungle a minute ago,” Champagne said. “They’re approaching these ruins right now. They aren’t even making an attempt to stay hidden.”
“What do you mean?” Blow Off asked. “They’re just walking across the open?”
Champagne nodded. “Yes. They aren’t using the trees or the shadows to move on the ruins. They’re marching right to the tomb.”
“It’s almost like they want us to shoot them,” Blow Off said. “I bet they think we’re all inside the tomb. They’ll be in for a nasty surprise when they get close.”
“But that’d just be stupid!” Soft Step protested. “There has to be something more going on.”
Blow Off shrugged. “The pirates are stupid, Soft Step. Ever since we’ve started fighting them they’ve just been making one stupid mistake after another. They started this war with the advantage, but they’ve fucked up everything since.”
“And we’re included in ‘everything’,” Soft Step insisted. “Remember when there were like, thirty of us? Remember that?”
Champagne fidgeted in place. “Perhaps we should come up with a plan,” the Prench mare said. “They’re moving on the tomb right now. Every second we waste bickering is another second they get closer.”
“Right.” Soft Step rubbed at her temples and tried to calm her racing heart with a few deep breaths. Fighting off the pirates was squarely on hers and Blow Off’s and Champagne’s shoulders, but she hardly considered herself a leader. She’d always been a follower, and now she was wishing that either Rainbow or Rarity had stayed behind to lead them. She didn’t know how to plan on her own. “Does… anypony have any ideas?”
“What were they?” Blow Off asked Champagne. “Unicorns? What are we dealing with?”
“An earth pony and a unicorn,” Champagne said. “One stallion and one mare. I couldn’t tell what they were armed with from afar.”
“No pegasi?” Blow Off asked. “You checked the skies, right?”
Champagne nodded in the affirmative. “They were clear and empty. It was only me up there.”
“It might be a feint,” Blow Off said. “Send in two obvious ponies from the front while others attack the sides. We could be surrounded if we’re not careful.”
“So what do we do?” Soft Step asked. “Should we get help?”
To her surprise, Blow Off shook his head. “No. Help isn’t going to do us any good. Even if Champagne flew back to camp as fast as she could, by the time she returned with help, the pirates would already be crawling all over this place.”
“What about the others in the tomb?” Champagne asked. “We should alert them.”
“Who knows how deep in the tomb they could be,” Blow Off countered. “Our best bet is to try and stay hidden and fight. Besides, a few gunshots should clue them into what’s happening pretty quickly.”
Soft Step’s stomach dropped. “You want us to fight them?” she asked. “It could be a trap! That could be exactly what they want us to do!”
“What would you rather do? Hide and wait?” Blow Off made her shrink back with a piercing glare. “Hiding doesn’t get us anything. An ambush, on the other hoof…”
“Ambush?” Champagne echoed. “How and where?”
Blow Off checked the pistol at his side. “That should be obvious,” he said. “They’re going for the tomb. So if we hide near the tomb entrance, we can gun them down when they’re trying to go down the stairs. They won’t have a chance to escape.”
“I see.” She turned to Soft Step. “I assume you and Blow Off will take care of that? I can go back to the sky and keep watch.”
Soft Step nodded. “I can do that. And that’s probably a good idea. Keeping an eye out for more pirates should stop us from getting surprised.”
“Take a gun with you just in case,” Blow Off warned her. “I know the pirates had a few pegasi, so you might need to defend yourself.”
Champagne nodded and snatched one of the pistols off the ground, slinging the holster around her neck and shoulder. “I will try to warn you if I see any other pirates,” she said. “Probably by shooting at them.”
“We’ll keep our ears open,” Blow Off said. “Just try to stay out of sight.”
“I’ll do my best.” Then, with a running start, Champagne spread her wings and quickly started climbing through the night sky, her shadow briefly flickering over the moonlit stones as she fled the ruins.
Blow Off and Soft Step watched her go, and then the stallion started to move. “Let’s get into position,” he said. “We need to find a good place to bunker ourselves down where we can’t be seen.”
Soft Step nodded and got up to follow him. “We’re just going to shoot as soon as we see them?” she asked. “I just want to double check that’s what the plan is.”
“As soon as they’re close enough so we won’t miss,” Blow Off corrected. “Just wait for me to act. As soon as I shoot at one, you shoot the other. With any luck, we’ll drop the two of them and we can focus on figuring out where the rest of the pirates are.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
At least, she hoped she could. Though she’d already seen her fair share of fights against the pirates, maybe even killed one, she still didn’t consider herself a fighter. Especially not when compared against a ragtag bunch of outlaws like Squall’s crew.
Her and Blow Off left the shrine behind and started moving to the stairs leading down into the tomb. They had lots of rubble and hiding places to choose from, but finding one that had a good line of sight on the stairs proved much more difficult. Ultimately, the two ponies found a nook under a collapsed archway to set up camp, and they laid out their two pistols and two cutlasses between them. Soft Step just hoped that would be enough.
It took some time, but she finally saw the two figures approaching the stairs from afar. They walked side by side out in the open, seemingly completely at ease. The moonlight shone down on their backs, illuminating their silhouettes; by their shapes and sizes, Soft Step figured that they had a unicorn stallion and an earth pony mare to deal with. The unicorn worried her the most; neither her nor Blow Off had anything to counter his magic with, and if they failed to drop him immediately, things could quickly turn very bad for them.
The two pirates didn’t even hesitate at the top of the steps, instead simply walking down them like there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Blow Off watched them from the darkness of their cover, his pistol held in his mouth, and Soft Step quietly snatched hers and settled it between her teeth. Her heart began to pound, and for some reason, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Something wasn’t right about this. There had to be something more she wasn’t seeing.
But she never got the chance to voice her concerns to Blow Off—not like he would’ve listened anyway, she knew. As soon as the pirates got within range, Blow Off fired his pistol in a puff of smoke. It momentarily blinded Soft step as it blew in front of her eyes, but she fired her pistol as well, almost on accident as the noise startled her. The weapon rattled her jaw, blew hot ash back into her face, and nearly deafened her as it bucked in her grasp. She ended up dropping it at her hooves and coughing as the smell of burnt gunpowder flooded her nose.
When she could finally breathe again, Soft Step quickly fluttered her wings to drive the gun smoke away. She immediately let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding when she saw the two pirates lying on the stairs, bullet wounds in their sides. Wiping sweat off her brow with a wing, she stood up and smiled at Blow Off.
The stallion didn’t look at her. His horrified eyes were locked on the ponies they’d just shot.
Soft Step immediately whipped her head back to the stairs and screamed when she saw the two pirates casually stand up again. Blood poured from the wounds in their sides, and they slowly turned in place to stare at her and Blow Off. It was then that she noticed their eyes burned with harsh moonlight, bright white with a tinge of blue in their pupils. Their bodies were covered in dirt and grime, like they’d spent the entire day lying in the mud of the jungle floor and hadn’t bothered to clean it up. Numerous bite marks from little fangs decorated their necks, surrounded by dried blood.
And then they laughed at her, harsh and mechanical. They cackled in unison and advanced one step at a time, disregarding the grievous wounds to their bodies. Soft Step started to panic as those otherworldly eyes fixated on her, seemingly anchoring her in place. Blow Off tensed up at her side, and when she tried to unfurl her wings and fly away, some unseen force seized up her muscles and refused to let her move.
“The tomb is open,” the two pirates said in unison, and something wrenched Soft Step’s eyes to the full moon overhead. “The seal is broken. He shall return.”
The moon seemed to grow brighter in Soft Step’s eyes, brighter and fuller. She struggled to look away, but she couldn’t move a muscle. It was even difficult to breathe. Bats screeched in the night, suddenly swarming around her, and pricks of pain covered her body as they sank their fangs into her flesh. If she could have, she would have screamed again.
But the moon was comforting. It was beautiful. And the longer she stared, the more she wanted to. Nothing else mattered anymore. It was like a white cloth cleaning her mind, wiping her thoughts and memories away...
Rainbow Dash’s ears twitched in the echoing darkness of the cavern beneath the temple. Between the constant dripping of water and the occasional splashing of blind fish in the stagnant pond, she thought she heard something that sounded like a pair of thunderclaps, very faint and very far away. Frowning, she looked back the direction she’d come, but the noise didn’t repeat itself, no matter how hard she listened.
A few paces in front of her, Rarity stopped and turned around, her legs splashing the water around her body. “Rainbow, darling?” the seamstress asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Thought I heard something,” Rainbow said. “Not sure what, though.”
“Was it a monster or vile sea vermin?” Rarity shuddered. “The stones under the water are already slippery and slimy enough. About the only way this could be worse would be if there was some aberration or nightmare hiding in these caves with us… and goodness me, I am doing myself no favors by thinking aloud about this.”
“There’s not gonna be any of that stuff, Rares,” Rainbow assured her. “There’s like, no big game down here for a sea monster to hunt. Just these little fishes.” To emphasize her point, she quickly sliced her wing into the water and flipped a pale, blind fish a couple of inches long out of the liquid and towards Rarity.
Rarity caught the fish with her magic, regarded it for a few moments, then grimaced and flung it back into the water. “I suppose you are right,” she said. “It would take a lot of these fish to sustain something big enough to eat a pony.”
They continued on to the next hallway branching off from the cavern. They’d already checked two of them, one on each side of the cavern, just to make sure that they didn’t lead anywhere else. Rainbow worried that the dark reaches of the cavern could go on forever in labyrinthine twists and turns like a never-ending maze, but both hallways they’d checked so far only went on for about a hundred feet before they ended in front of a shrine built around a statue. Both statues they’d seen so far were different and didn’t resemble either the Ponynesians’ sun or moon gods; one was a pegasus mare, and the other an earth pony mare. Each statue had been carved with jewelry and other accessories, and little relics and trinkets decorated their shrines. Rainbow figured they had to be important ponies in Ponynesian culture; the numerous mummified remains in little alcoves next to the shrines made her think they were maternal family heads of distinguished lineages or something to that effect.
But it was obvious that the Ponynesians had turned this empty magma chamber into a set of natural catacombs for their dead. They’d come across so many bodies so far that even Rarity had finally started to desensitize to them. Generations of dead seemed to fill these halls… and there was still no end in sight.
“I wonder if Stargazer and Ball Bearings are having more luck than we are,” Rarity wondered aloud. “Do you think we should just go straight to the end? I feel like we’re only going to find more of these family shrines down the side paths.”
“It probably wouldn’t be the worst idea,” Rainbow said. “There’s a ton of these side hallways to choose from, and if we spent the time to check them all out, we’ll run out of moonlight.”
“And being trapped down here with all these corpses is not high on my priority list,” Rarity said, quickening her canter a hair. “If we ended up trapped down here, we’d have to wait another month until the full moon is back, wouldn’t we?”
“Maybe more,” Rainbow said. “If the storms block the full moon again, then the temple wouldn’t even open.”
“You think they would?” Rarity asked. “You’re sure it’s not just a coincidence?”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I told you, Rares, those clouds were summoned! Whatever magic brought them here in the first place was trying to keep the moonlight from hitting the tomb and opening it up. I don’t know why, especially if the Ponynesians used this place to bury their dead, but it was important to them for some reason. Important enough that they’d work some powerful magic that’s still working however many hundreds of years later.”
“Leaving lasting spells and charms seems to be one thing they were good at,” Rarity said. “I mean, the ward around these islands, the sun magic at the sun temple, the moonlight magic here…”
“Twilight would have a friggin’ field day,” Rainbow agreed. “Maybe when all this is done with we can come back on an official government expedition or something.”
Rarity snickered. “Please, Rainbow, don’t tell me you’re already getting nostalgic for our time spent on these islands when we haven’t even left yet.”
“I’m just saying, they could be pretty great if it weren’t for everything bad about them.” Rainbow smiled and briefly indulged her imagination. “Like, if we got a crate of booze and some good food, some modern comforts like fans and actual sturdy shelter, security to not have to deal with any minotaurs that might come our way… it’d be a pretty awesome getaway.”
“Yes, I see what you mean, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, now.” Rarity shook her head and continued to wade through the water toward the far end of the cavern. “I don’t think I’ll head to the beach for at least a year when we get back home. I’d rather go vacationing up north to the Crystal Empire or so. Hopefully I won’t have lost my tolerance for cold, even temperate weather.”
“I just know it’s gonna be way too cold back in Equestria,” Rainbow grumbled. “Even if it’s the middle of summer.”
“Just as we’ve adjusted to the tropical heat on these islands, I’m sure we’ll adjust back,” Rarity assured her. “For the time being, however, I suggest we focus on the now. We do have a job to do, after all.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “It’s just taking forever.”
“I’m not sure what all we can do about that, Rainbow dear,” Rarity said. “I can only wade through the water so fast.”
“Yeah, and you’ve got our light, too.” After a moment to think, Rainbow excitedly fluttered her wings. “But I can fly! Duh!”
“What are you going to do, fly in the dark?” Rarity asked her. “You’ll break your neck on something, I’m sure of it.”
“Not if I can see where I’m going!” Rainbow said. “Can you throw a light down the cavern?”
Rarity glanced up at the mote of light resting on her horn. “I suppose I can. It’s a little more complicated than simply using my horn as a light source, but I should be able to manifest a source and move it with my mana.”
“Good, then you should do that!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Throw it down the cavern as fast as you can, and I’ll fly after it! That’ll let me get a good look at what we’re dealing with and we won’t have to spend forever wandering around down here.”
“If you think it’ll work, I’m willing to give it a shot.” Rarity closed her eyes and let mana build on her horn, and Rainbow took wing and hovered in place. “I think I’ve got it. Whenever you’re ready, darling.”
“Do it,” Rainbow said, already pivoting about and beginning to accelerate down the hall. “Let her rip!”
With a surge of magical power, Rarity flung a softball-sized orb of light down the length of the cavern. It cast pale blue luminescence on the walls as it moved, and Rainbow immediately pumped her wings to take off after it. The ball of light buzzed by numerous hallways and rocky formations, slowly but surely diminishing in size the further it traveled. But it moved fast, and Rainbow had to flap her wings more than she’d expected to stay with it.
A stone wall abruptly appeared in front of Rainbow between blinks, and the pegasus flared her wings to avoid plowing headfirst into it. The orb of light struck the wall and stuck to it, fizzling out by the second, but Rainbow was able to land in the pool of water below and quickly scan the wall before it did. Her eyes seared the ghostly images of carvings depicting the moon and a unicorn stallion into her mind, and she noticed two very large stone mechanisms sitting on either side of the carving. But before she could figure out what they were for or even how they worked, the light faded away, bathing Rainbow in darkness.
“Another light!” she shouted back down the cavern, her voice echoing numerous times. “I found something!”
“What is it?” Rarity shouted back, but nevertheless, a second glowing ball of light soon hit the wall in front of Rainbow. It let her make out the carvings and mechanisms more clearly. She saw numerous soldiers covering the wall in front of her, all of them with their weapons trained on a ghostly unicorn while a pegasus sliced his horn off with a sword. A seam in the wall ran right down the middle, and the stone mechanisms on either side were slotted into grooves on the wall and held in place with large counterweights. It was a door, Rainbow quickly realized, and it was sealed from their side, not from within.
Rarity soon joined Rainbow’s side and let her eyes wander up and down the carvings. “Oh my,” she said, letting her horn brighten a little bit to provide a better steady light for the two of them. “This is certainly something, isn’t it?”
“I think it’s the something we’re looking for,” Rainbow said. “In fact, I’m sure of it.”
“Mmm…” Rarity nodded her head, then looked back the way they came. “I suppose we should find the boys, shouldn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, already taking wing. “You stay here with your light on. I’ll fly back and find them.”
The pair of gunshots echoing through the night had surprised Black Flag. They both sounded like they came from the same place and fired nearly at the same time somewhere among the temple ruins. That worried him, because he didn’t know who shot those guns or why. Did his brother run into trouble at the ruins? But he shouldn’t have been on the ground, he was supposed to be in the air providing overwatch and trying to flank the survivors. So what were the survivors shooting at?
“The fuck is going on over there?” Hayseed growled, her horn occasionally flickering as she maintained the invisible shield around herself and Black Flag. “They finally snap and start fucking each other up?”
“I doubt it,” Black Flag said. “They’re cohesive enough to last this long. If there was any tension between them—”
A shrill mare’s scream splitting the night in two cut the pirate off. Pure terror and horror practically dripped from the cry, thick enough to stop the two pirates in place. The skies shifted and the moonlight flickered as hundreds of bats began to swarm around the temple, squeaking and shrieking as they descended onto the ruins.
“There it is again!” Hayseed cried, pointing directly at the shifting swarm of bats. “I saw it again, I know it! What the fuck is going on?!”
Black Flag squinted at the swarm of bats. He couldn’t make much sense out of their shifting numbers, but occasionally, they would align into something resembling a face or a pony. The images disappeared as quickly as they appeared, and he didn’t know whether he was actually seeing something or if that was just his mind playing tricks on him because of Hayseed’s paranoia. But wraithlike monsters or not, there was absolutely nothing natural about what was happening at the ruins.
“They’ve done it now,” Black Flag murmured to himself. “I didn’t really think this curse was real, but…”
His words trailed off as he stared in horror at the spectacle unfolding in front of him. He couldn’t bring himself to advance another step on the tomb. He simply knew that something horrible awaited him and Hayseed if he did.
“What the fuck do we do?” Hayseed asked in a worried voice. “We can’t go near that shit. We’ll fucking die!”
The stallion swallowed hard. “Whatever is happening over there is bad news. Let’s find Jolly and get out of here. I don’t want to hang around longer than we have to.”
As soon as he said that, he heard feathers fluttering down towards him. But the rhythm and noise of the flapping wasn’t that of Jolly Roger’s. Whirling around, he spotted a mare with an off-white coat landing several paces away from him and Hayseed, panic and worry in her eyes.
“A survivor?!” Hayseed barked, surprised. She immediately drew her weapons and pointed them at the strange pegasus. “You got a death wish, lady?”
The mare retreated a few steps and pitifully lowered herself to the ground, her wings outstretched but feathers fanned over the mud. Swallowing hard, she flicked her eyes between Black Flag and Hayseed. “I… I know we hate each other,” she said in a thick Prench accent. “And I know we’ve been killing each other for the past month… but please, I just saw something I can’t even comprehend, but I know we need to stop if we want to live.”
“Fuck off!” Hayseed shouted at her, advancing a few paces. “Whatever you fucks did is your own fault! I should fucking flay you for dooming us all!”
“Hayseed!” Black Flag shouted, making the mare stop. “I think we have bigger things to worry about right now. Stand down.”
The pegasus mare’s eyes watched Hayseed with worry as the pirate growled in frustration. Ultimately, Hayseed holstered her weapons and stepped back, glaring at Black Flag. “We should fuck her up now,” she insisted. “Even the odds a little bit.”
“We will not,” Black Flag said. Advancing on the cowering mare, he pointed a hoof back in the direction of the temple. “What the fuck happened over there? What did you idiots do?”
“We needed to get inside of the tomb,” the pegasus said. “We needed to get something out of it if we’re ever going to get back to Equestria. But then two of you showed up, and two of my friends shot them… but they got back up. They said something about a seal on the tomb and freeing somepony. And then all the bats showed up and Soft Step started screaming, and…”
The survivor fell into a series of trembling shakes and shudders as her words trailed off. Black Flag and Hayseed glanced at each other, and the pirate captain advanced on the survivor again. “Two of us? What do you mean?”
“There were two of you pirates moving on the temple,” she said. “But there’s something wrong with them. They… they were like zombies! I didn’t realize until I saw them get shot and stand back up, and then they did something to my friends. Something’s not right! This isn’t good at all!”
“You think she’s talking about Matchlock and Scabbard?” Hayseed asked. “We never found out what happened to them.”
Black Flag nodded. “And I think we just did.” He regarded the survivor for a moment, then took a step back. “Why did you come to me instead of finding the rest of your friends? We’re enemies.”
The pegasus nodded. “We are, but whatever happened at the tomb scared me more than you do,” she said. “I have a feeling that if we don’t work together, we’re all going to die. So we need to stop fighting each other and start fighting whatever is happening at the tomb.”
Hayseed sneered at her and drew her weapons again. “If you think we’re going to fall for that stupid bullshit—!”
Black Flag stopped her with an outstretched foreleg. “Hayseed, shut up,” he ordered her, silencing the fuming mare. Eventually, after much thought, he offered the cowering pegasus a hoof to help her stand. “I don’t like this, but I don’t like the sound of what you’re talking about even more. If there’s actually some evil spirit or something trying to get into this tomb, then we’re all going to have to work together if we’re going to stop it.” Then, sighing, he admitted, “Besides, you’re looking at two of only three of us left. If we’re going to live, then we need to work together. But if you betray us, we will drag as many of you down with us as we can.”
The mare nodded and gingerly took Black Flag’s hoof to stand. “I think we have more important things to worry about than stabbing each other in the back,” she said. Then, flashing an uneasy smile at the pirates, she slightly bowed her head. “I’m Champagne.”
“Black Flag and Hayseed,” Black Flag said, pointing to Hayseed when he said her name. “Now if we’re going to stop whatever’s happening at the tomb, we’re going to need reinforcements first.”
Champagne nodded. “I can rally the other survivors. Hopefully that will be enough.”
Black Flag looked in the direction of the temple ruins, where the bats were beginning to disperse again. “I don’t think it will be,” he said. “But it’s not like we’ve got much of a choice otherwise, do we?”
Rainbow Dash returned to Rarity several minutes later with the two stallions in tow. She’d forced them to hustle as quick as they could, not wanting to waste precious moonlight, and as a result they were practically drenched by the time they made it to the complete other side of the cavern. But the important thing was that they made it, even if they looked like drowned rats by the time they made it.
“We’re back!” Rainbow exclaimed, fluttering to a stop and hovering next to Rarity above the water. “Ball Bearings got a little wet, but that’s his fault for not being a pegasus.”
“I could drench you in water right now, but I don’t think your marefriend would appreciate it,” Bearings said.
Rarity shook her head and giggled. “Oh, no, be my guest. Rainbow could use a good dunking every now and then.”
“Heh heh… yeah, anyways…” Rainbow quickly darted further away from Ball Bearings, not wanting to get drenched and get her feathers soaked in case she needed them. She ultimately perched on one of the huge stone mechanisms locking the doors and slapped it with her hoof. “So Rares and I found this big door thingy with these big stone things that we probably need to figure out how to open because I’m willing to bet that what we’re looking for is on the other side of this door.”
“We figured it would be best to bring you here before we attempted to open it,” Rarity said. “We don’t know what could be waiting for us on the other side.”
Stargazer nodded, his body bobbing slightly as he too hovered in the air. “Probably a good idea, I’d say. We wouldn’t want to unleash something horrible without us all being present for it.”
Rainbow snickered. “My thoughts exactly.”
“But in all seriousness…” Rarity began, frowning at Rainbow. “It’s obvious these two large stone mechanisms here are locks of some kind. This door is locked from our side. I’m not sure I want to know exactly why the Ponynesians decided to do that or what they might be trying to keep inside.”
“All I know is that this place gives me the creeps,” Ball Bearings said. “There’s something just not right about any of it. And a big door like that just makes me even more certain that we shouldn’t be messing around with it.”
“We don’t really have much of a choice,” Rainbow said. “You guys didn’t see anything on your end of the cavern, right?”
Both stallions shook their heads. “Just catacombs and shrines,” Stargazer said. “Seemingly going on forever.”
“It must’ve taken a funeral procession an entire day to reach the end halls,” Bearings quipped.
“I can’t tell if this place was somewhere to bury the dead with respect or a prison to keep control evil spirits,” Rarity said. “Many of the catacombs we’ve seen down here look like they were places of worship and honor, but then there are all these menacing statues and carvings of their moon god, along with mummified soldiers and other warnings not to go further. Not to mention this wonderful carving.” She slapped her hoof against the door, pointing to the depiction of the unicorn losing his horn.
Ball Bearings immediately winced and rubbed at his own horn. “Looks like fun for the whole family,” he said. “Now I really don’t want to mess around with this door if there’s a chance I’m going to lose my horn.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Rainbow shook her head. “It looks like it was just their moon god who had his horn chopped off. And I guess his head, too, from what Rarity said about the shrine earlier.”
“I wonder if they cut off all his legs too just because they could, too,” Stargazer said.
“Anyways, we should probably start trying to open this door,” Rainbow said. “We probably shouldn’t be wasting so much time down here.”
“Have you at least figured out how these work?” Bearings asked.
Rarity shrugged and shook her head. “I spent some time studying them,” she said. “They’re very large stone weights slotted into grooves along the door that lock it in place with the walls and the floor. If we found some way to lift them up and move them out of the grooves, then we can probably get the door open.”
“Any ideas on how to do that?” Stargazer asked, eyeing the locks.
“Not exactly,” Rarity said. “Rainbow and I encountered a door in a sun temple on the minotaurs’ home island that only opened when sunlight was shined on it.” She turned around and regarded the door carefully. “I’m not really sure because I can’t sense anything, but I think this door might operate under a similar principle, much like how moonlight opened the doors of the temple earlier.”
“How are we gonna get moonlight all the way in here?” Rainbow asked. “We’re so far underground it’s impossible!”
“Actually, it wouldn’t be too difficult,” Rarity said. “There’s a straight line down this cavern from this door here to the stairs we descended, and there’s another straight line from those stairs to the open temple doors outside. We’d only need three reflective surfaces if we wanted to get moonlight all the way down here.”
“I’m not sure how you’re going to do that,” Stargazer said. “Even direct moonlight isn’t that bright. Unless you had absolutely perfect mirrors, it’d be far too faint to reach the door after being reflected three times.”
“I’m sure the Ponynesians had something down here,” Rarity said. “Maybe we just need to search the shrines some more.”
“Have you tried lifting the locks?” Ball Bearings asked. “You know, with your magic?”
Rarity blinked and regarded the locks again. “…No, I have not.”
Smirking, Bearings let mana build on his horn until he materialized a strong glow around one of the mechanisms holding the door shut. Then, with a grunt of exertion, he strained on the lock, and was rewarded with the sound of stone grinding against stone. The lock lifted a few inches out of the ground before the engineer’s magic faded away and it struck the ground with a booming thud.
Bearings chuckled at the stupid expressions on the other ponies’ faces. “Always try the simplest solution first,” he said. “That’s the first thing they teach you when you become an engineer. Overthinking things makes them way too overcomplicated.”
“I see,” Rarity said. “Well then. I guess that means we don’t need to find three utterly perfect mirrors to get this plan to work.”
“Nope,” Rainbow said, dropping into the water. “Actually I like this plan more. Stargazer, help me push from down here. Rarity and BB, work together to lift this stupid thing. Let’s see what’s behind the Door of Unicorn Horn Castration!”
The moon hung high in the sky, a giant, unblinking eye that saw all. Like a pearl in an endless black and bespeckled canvas, it was beautiful and perfect. The mere sight of it was calming and soothing. It spoke, and its children listened.
Soft Step would do anything for the moon.
There was no more pain or suffering or strife. The moon had washed all of that away. There was only the glowing, bright eye in the sky, His bright eye, watching over her. The feeling of moonlight and shadows on her coat was like ecstasy and pure joy given physical form. She would do anything for the moon. She would listen to its every word.
As her eyes reluctantly parted from the moon, she took in her surroundings. She had three siblings now. They would all fight to protect each other and do what they had to do. But something felt wrong when she looked at them. One of the stallions she thought she recognized, and something fearful clawed at the back of her mind when she looked at the other two. When she tried to remember why, her eyes would dart back up to the moon and her thoughts would be smothered by a heavy blanket. It felt like there was somepony taking her hoof and leading her away from a particularly inconvenient train of thought, and like a foal, she was powerless to resist.
Her body shuddered and a cold shiver ran down her spine. Something deep inside of her screamed and tried to claw its way out of her eyes and get away from the moon. But the moon brightened its sweet light once more, pushing that rebellious thing’s head back under the water. It struggled and fought, and Soft Step briefly convulsed, but bit by bit, it weakened and evaporated like sand in the wind. Soft Step’s mind screamed one last time in panic and sheer terror, and then she was gone, blown apart into tiny motes of being and scattered to the far corners of her own skull.
The mare’s eyes burned blue and white, and she adjusted her wings. She did not remember who she was. She did not remember her family or her friends or even how old she was. There was only one thing that mattered to her, and it lay deep within the tomb in front of her. It was why she was brought into existence, the entire reason she was born.
Like a shambling sleepwalker, the mare once known as Soft Step followed her new compatriots into the entrance of the tomb, where the essence of His moon permeated the very walls around her.
-----
Black Flag followed Champagne with more than a little worry in his gut. Though the survivor seemed earnest in her desperation for additional aid, and though what he’d seen at the tomb had convinced him all the more that she was being truthful, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that this a horrible idea. The survivors had the numbers advantage, and his only remaining cards had been the ability to hit and run and disappear into the shadows of the jungle. Now, he’d gone and given away his trump cards based on a frightened plea from a Prench mare who he was certain he’d taken a shot at before in one of Squall’s attacks on the ruins.
It still wasn’t too late, he realized. Champagne trotted through the undergrowth only a couple of feet ahead of him as she led them toward wherever the survivors had moved to. If he wanted to, he could strike her down and disappear into the undergrowth with Hayseed whenever her chose to. But if he didn’t, he just had to hope this Prench mare wasn’t leading them right into a trap.
Even if she was, he hoped that his brother would be able to see it coming. Jolly Roger never landed with him and Hayseed, but Black Flag had spotted him flying quiet circles above them several times. Even though that meant his brother likely didn’t know what was going on, it at least meant they had an eye in the sky. He just hoped that Jolly wouldn’t do something stupid and get them all killed.
At the very least, Hayseed had discreetly kept up her shield. She hadn’t said anything, but Black Flag noticed the air shimmer or flicker a few times as they walked through the jungle and rainwater dripping off of the trees splashed around them. If they ended up ambushed or attacked, her invisible shield would hopefully give them enough time to react and fight back before they fell.
The small cadre of ponies crossed a channel of water between two small islands, stopping only briefly on the other side to shake off some of the water before continuing onwards. Black Flag was starting to understand how the survivors could have disappeared and moved around the island so easily. If they used these channels intelligently, they would’ve been able to make their tracks untraceable. It would explain why he used to see hoofprints and tracks coming into and out of the jungle at odd angles all across the big island where their camp was. Perhaps, he had to admit to himself, he and his crew had underestimated the survivors a little too much.
Which brought him back to his number one concern that they were being led into a trap. The survivors were a little too clever for their own good.
Champagne abruptly turned around and held out her wings, stopping the pirates in their tracks. “This is as far as I can safely take you,” the Prench pegasus said. “If I bring you with me any farther, my friends might assume I’ve been captured and you’re forcing me to lead you to them. They’d attack without question.”
“So we’re just supposed to stand out here in the middle of the jungle while you go and rally your buddies to wipe us out?” Hayseed spat, her tail practically bristling with distrust.
“It’s not that, please!” Champagne insisted. “I just need to explain myself to them before I can get their help. It wouldn’t be good if I simply brought you two right into our camp unannounced.”
“I think she makes a good point,” Black Flag said. Nodding to Champagne, he sat down in the sand. “Go and do whatever you have to do. We’ll be right here. But don’t think we won’t know if you’re crossing us.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Champagne said, emphatically shaking her head. “There’s too much at stake to do so.” Then, extending her wings, she quickly lifted off and briefly hovered in place. “I will be back as soon as I can!”
Black Flag and Hayseed watched her leave, flitting through the trees until the foliage became too dense to make her out. Perhaps no more than thirty seconds later, another set of wings became audible, and Jolly Roger landed next to his brother. “Okay, what’s going on?” the pirate barked, cocking his head at Flag. “Why are you following this bitch?”
“Did you see anything at the temple?” Flag asked him. “Anything strange?”
Jolly quickly shuddered and glanced back the way he came. “I can’t really explain it. I was sneaking around behind the ruins when a bunch of bats suddenly showed up. There was some screaming and then… nothing. I didn’t stay long enough to figure out what happened.”
“Apparently this bitch says that her friends got turned into moon zombies or something,” Hayseed said. “And apparently, Matchlock and Scabbard were down there, too.”
“Really?” Jolly blinked. “No. Really?”
“Apparently whatever happened to that mare’s friends happened to our two missing crew members,” Flag said. “Now she’s going back to her camp to rally the rest of her survivors and put an end to whatever’s happening at the tomb. She even sought out our help.”
“And you agreed?” Jolly frowned and stalked up closer to his brother. “Are you insane? We’re just gonna get stabbed in the back when all this is over with! It could just be a trap!”
“It could be, but that mare, Champagne, would have to be a phenomenal actor for this to be a trap.” Black Flag shook his head. “Regardless, that’s what we’re doing now. But that doesn’t mean I trust her.”
Jolly nodded. “Want me to follow her?” he asked.
“If you can,” Flag said. “Just stay high and out of sight. They’ll probably shoot if they see you before Champagne can explain everything. But if they look like it’s just a trap, warn us any way you can.”
Jolly saluted and took wing. “Right. You can count on me. You two might want to find someplace around here to hide in the meanwhile.”
“Good idea.” Flag gestured to Hayseed to start looking, and he quickly bumped hooves with his brother. “Be safe.”
“There is no such thing as safe on this island,” Jolly Roger grumbled, and with a brief wash of air from his wings, ascended through the trees and disappeared from sight.
Rainbow Dash twisted and contorted herself to get her hooves under the edge of the first mechanism. On the one hoof, the enormous locks had been shaped such that Rainbow and Stargazer had a place to push from and help lift it. On the other, it meant awkwardly crouching with chilly, stagnant water up to her neck and her forehooves placed above her head and under a protrusion on the lock. It was hardly comfortable, and as an athlete, Rainbow worried that she would hurt her back from this position.
At her side, Stargazer mimicked her position, even using his long wings like extra legs to stabilize him. Rainbow couldn’t get as much leverage from that with her much shorter and quicker wings, but she was also protective of them and didn’t want to risk damaging them by doing something like that. Besides, she was still freshly healed and hadn’t strongly reconditioned her wing yet… although the Sonic Rainboom certainly put it through its paces there.
She also couldn’t believe that she’d only been flight capable for four days. It felt like it was a lifetime ago.
“Alright!” Rarity yelled, moving into position next to Ball Bearings. “We’re ready over here. What about you two?”
“Ready!” Stargazer grunted back, shifting a few more times to try and get the optimal position.
“Just don’t drop this on us, Rares,” Rainbow said. “It’ll be hard for me to sex you up when I’m flat!”
She heard an offended splash come from Rarity’s direction. “Rainbow Dash, now is not the time for this!” Rarity shouted.
“You’re right, that’ll be after. Think we can have raft sex when we’re done with this?”
“Do we get to watch?” Ball Bearings asked. He immediately yelped as Rarity slapped him across the face.
“You most certainly do not!” Rarity cried, raising her hoof and threatening to hit him again simply because once wasn’t enough.
Rainbow chuckled and shook her head. “Take it easy on the poor dude, Rares. He’s just teasing.”
“It gets lonely out on the island,” Ball Bearings protested, rubbing his smarting cheek. “We gotta find ways to entertain ourselves somehow, right?”
Rarity huffed and pointedly moved a few feet away from him. “Right,” she muttered. “In any event, can we get started on this lock, please? I’m furious enough that I might simply lift it myself if I have to deal with this pubescent behavior any longer!”
“Yeah, it’s probably a good idea if we get started on this before Rarity rips Ball’s balls off,” Rainbow quipped.
“I will rip you in half, Rainbow!” Rarity growled, shaking an angry hoof in Rainbow’s direction.
Chuckling, Rainbow tensed her legs and put some gentle pressure on the lock. “Alright, let’s do this,” Rainbow said. “On three! Ready? One! Two! Three!”
Rainbow grunted and heaved against the stone locked, gasping as she threw all the force she could muster against it. Stargazer did the same at her side, and with Rarity and Ball Bearings helping with their magic, Rainbow felt herself slowly begin to rise as the lock shifted.
“Come on!” she grunted, shifting her hooves slightly to try and get a better angle of attack. “Come on! Push!”
Inch by inch, the stone lock rose up along its groove, ancient rock grinding against itself as it moved. Rainbow and Stargazer soon found themselves directly underneath the heavy end of the lock as they continued to push, making slow but steady progress. It wasn’t exactly the best position to be in, Rainbow quickly realized; trapped between the door on her left and Stargazer on her right, if either Rarity or Ball Bearings let their magic fail, she’d be squashed flat before she could even jump out of the way.
“Just a little bit more!” she shouted, heaving and straining. “Come on! Push!”
She was rewarded with grunts of exertion from her companions, and then suddenly the weight of the lock seemed to vanish. She and Stargazer both stumbled forward as the mass of the lock pivoted about its axis and the massive stone mechanism slammed against the wall with a thunderous boom. The four ponies collapsed onto the ground, trying to recover their breath and give their sore muscles and minds a quick rest before moving onto the next one.
“That… wasn’t so bad…” Rainbow said between gasping breaths. “One down… one to go!”
“My poor horn has seen so much use on these islands,” Rarity said. “It’s a wonder it hasn’t split again.”
“I felt like mine was going to break off just from that alone,” Bearings said. He shot a weary glance at the other lock on the other side of the door. “I’m not exactly looking forward to the next one.”
“Well, we just gotta do it,” Rainbow said. She reluctantly forced herself to stand, taking advantage of the impetus to get out of the stagnant and clammy water she’d been sitting it. She shook out each of her limbs one at a time, cracked her neck, and was the first to take up position on the other lock. “Come on, let’s get this open while we’ve still got adrenaline going!”
A chorus of reluctant groans answered her, but her companions started moving anyway. In short order, they’d set themselves up in the same arrangement again, and Rainbow even pressed her head against the underside of the lock to try and use her spine for a little extra leverage. “Alright! Everypony ready?”
“Ready!”
“Ready!”
“Ready, darling.”
“Good!” Rainbow tensed her muscles again and got ready to push. “Again, on three! One! Two! Three!”
Again, they heaved and struggled, and again, they were rewarded with the huge lock lifting up excrutiatingly slowly. The four ponies lifted and hefted, and bit by bit, they finally forced the lock up and back. With one final burst of effort, they managed to tilt the lock back far enough that its own weight opened it the rest of the way.
Once more, Rainbow fell to her haunches and held her trembling limbs out in front of her. But she still managed a smile at her friends. “See, that wasn’t so hard!” she said. “Easy as pie!”
“I am going to have a killer migraine tomorrow,” Rarity grumbled. Ball Bearings merely nodded in agreement.
“Well, we’ve got the locks open,” Stargazer said. “Now what?”
“Now we catch our breath, and then we get started on the door,” Rainbow said. She casually regarded the stone door beside her and frowned. “Anypony see a door knob or anything?”
“I imagine that we simply have to give it a push,” Rarity said. “Or a pull. One of the two.”
“It’d help if the people who built this clearly labeled their stuff,” Bearings said. “Definitely not safety compliant.”
“See? That’s what I said at the sun temple!” Rainbow proclaimed. “What is with these ponies?”
Rarity rolled her eyes and let her horn glow a little brighter, and a swatch of her magic covered the seams of the doors. Her face screwed into effort and exertion, and soon the doors began to creak inwards. “Looks like we just have to give it a little push,” Rarity said. “One more time, I suppose.”
Rainbow rolled to her hooves and put her shoulder against one of the doors. “Yeah. One last push! Come on, everypony, let’s do this!”
Gyro wasn’t even sure if she’d managed to sleep or not. The excruciating pain in her back prevented her from actually resting, and though she kept her eyes closed and tried to be as still as possible, she wasn’t sure if she accomplished anything more than dozing off. She was tempted to ask Doctor Gauze for another painkilling spell, but the doctor was already sound asleep and she didn’t want to wake him. He’d already done so much for her as it was.
But of course, another brief flurry of pain had woken her up from her nap, since she really couldn’t call it any more than that. Between the constant stabbing of pain in her back and the growing weight of exhaustion clawing at her eyes, Gyro half-wished that she hadn’t had the surgery. She was miserable, to put it at its simplest. But if she could walk again when this was all done with, then it would be worth it. Hopefully.
As it so happened, her pain had woken her up just as some commotion broke out across the camp. Though groggy and exhausted beyond anything she’d ever felt before, Gyro managed to lift her head and rub at her eyes to see what was going on. The simple motion brought with it another sharp wave of pain, and it was all she could do to not double over and shake as the feeling wracked her body. But eventually, after holding her breath for several seconds, she managed to force the sensation away enough to focus on what was happening in front of her.
She saw Clever Ruse return with Champagne close behind him, and the stallion was using his special talent to project his voice and hurriedly rouse the entire camp. Champagne, meanwhile, looked like she’d seen a ghost or a monster or something; it wasn’t hard to miss her wide-eyed expression and trembling wings. Gyro immediately noted that there wasn’t anypony else with her; none of the ponies that left on the expedition were anywhere in sight apart from her. Her gut immediately sank as she started drawing conclusions, each worse than the last, each only given credibility by the expression on the concierge’s face.
“What’s going on?” she shouted from the sidelines, unable to go right up to Champagne and ask the mare herself directly. “Where’s everypony else?”
Champagne saw her and diverted her path toward Gyro. “Something bad,” the Prench mare said. “Something really bad!”
“Is everypony alright?” Gyro asked. “Where is everypony else? Was it the pirates?”
“No, it wasn’t the pirates,” Champagne said, shaking her head. “But I can’t really explain what I saw! Soft Step and Blow Off, something bad happened to them, and we really need to help them!”
Gyro frowned at the ground while the ponies of the camp slowly started to gather around Champagne. She didn’t really care if something bad happened to Blow Off, but Soft Step was a really nice mare and she really didn’t want anything bad to happen to the masseuse. But if it wasn’t pirates, then what did Champagne see?
“What’s going on?” Ratchet asked, voicing the question on Gyro’s mind as he approached the circle of ponies. “What happened to everypony else?”
“Something’s happening at the temple,” Champagne blurted. Gyro noticed that the pegasus still shook like a leaf, even when surrounded by her friends someplace safe. “I can’t explain it. There’s some evil magic or something there.”
“Evil magic?” Clever Ruse asked. “I know a thing or two about magic, but what exactly do you mean by that?”
“Breathe, Champagne,” Ratchet said. “Just breathe. Tell us what happened.”
Champagne tried to do as she was told, nodding her head and sitting down on the sand. “I was on watch after Rainbow cleared the skies with the Sonic Rainboom,” she said. “Soft Step and Blow Off were with me, but they were on the ground. I saw two pirates marching on the temple, so I went down to warn then, and then we took up positions to attack them once they got close.”
“Did the pirates get the better of you guys?” the unicorn mare, Fresh Linens, asked.
“Let her finish!” Gyro hissed.
Champagne swallowed again, her wings unfurling and folding repeatedly at her sides. “Soft Step and Blow Off shot both the pirates, but they didn’t die. They didn’t die! A-And then they stood up and all these bats showed up and attacked Soft Step and Blow Off and Soft screamed and…”
Champagne shuddered and sniffled as her chest heaved. “I don’t know what happened to them, but then they started acting like those pirates! Something’s wrong, something’s really wrong at the temple, and I didn’t know what to do!”
“Started acting like the pirates?” Ratchet frowned down the length of his muzzle. “What do you mean?”
“There’s something not right with any of them,” Champagne said. “They acted like they were possessed or something! I don’t know, I got away from there as fast as I could! I didn’t want that to happen to me!”
“What about Rainbow and Rarity?” Gyro asked. “Are they safe?”
Champagne reluctantly shrugged her wings. “I don’t know,” she said. “They were deep inside the tomb when this happened. But those… those zombies could be on them any minute now!”
“Then we need to work fast and figure out the details later,” Ratchet said. “I am not going to lose more crew to whatever this is if we can stop it.” He offered Champagne an encouraging smile and patted her shoulder. “You did good to come to us like you did,” he assured her. “Hopefully with the rest of us from the camp, we can save the others and maybe figure out what happened to Soft Step and Blow Off.”
He stepped away from Champagne and began to address the rest of his crew. “Grab whatever spare weapons you have lying around and rally here as soon as you can. I want to send everypony we have at the temple. It sounds like whatever’s happening there has to be stopped, or else we’re all screwed. And I don’t want to risk the pirates interfering with us or jumping us along the way, so make sure you stay vigilant.”
Everypony nodded and began to go their separate ways, with the exception of Gyro. The gray mare just smirked at Ratchet and managed an uncomfortable salute. “I’ll be right with you, captain, somepony just hook me up to my wheelchair and roll me at them.”
“You need to stay back here,” Ratchet said. “We’ll leave Doctor Gauze to look after you.”
“You sure you don’t need him?” Gyro asked. “I’ll be fine on my own. It’s not like I’m going anywhere, remember?”
“I know. That’s why we need to leave him here to keep an eye on you.” Ratchet shook his head. “If something happens to the rest of us, you need at least one pony to help you get out of here safely.”
“I don’t want anything bad to happen to the rest of you because you’re one pony short,” Gyro said, dismissively waving her hoof. “Go, take him.”
“I will most certainly not be leaving my patients alone at the camp,” Doctor Gauze said. “Besides, from the way this sounds, ponies might need treatment when this is all said and done with. It’s best if I stay here and prepare to take care of the wounded when they inevitably arrive.”
Ratchet nodded his agreement. “My thoughts exactly, doctor. Take care.” He turned to Champagne as the doctor left and raised an eyebrow. “Are you okay, Champagne? Do you think you’ll be able to go back out with us?”
Champagne shakily nodded. “I believe I can, yes. I’m not actually hurt, just… just scared.”
“Nothing wrong with being scared, so long as it doesn’t stop you from doing what you have to do.” Ratchet looked her over and nodded approvingly. “At least you still have your weapons. You can help us keep an eye out for pirates from the sky until we make it to the temple.”
To Gyro’s surprise, Champagne seemed to shrink back and tapped her hooves together. “Uh… about the pirates…”
Champagne flinched back from Gyro’s harsh outburst. “I… I-I…”
“We can’t trust them!” Gyro shouted, ignoring the knives in her back to try and rise up on her forelegs and meet the concierge eye to eye. “What are you, crazy?!”
“More importantly, you led them here,” Ratchet said, his voice grave. “Our safety lied solely in our ability to hide from them. Now that’s gone, too. Explain yourself, Champagne, because I really want to know why you’d endanger all of us like this.”
Champagne took a nervous step back and swallowed hard. “We can’t keep fighting each other if any of us are going to walk out of this alive,” she said. “Whatever’s happening at the temple affects all of us. The pirates lost two of their crew to whatever evil magic is coming from the temple, and so have we. If we’re too busy fighting each other instead of fighting that…”
“And what’s to say they won’t just wipe us out when we’ve dealt with whatever’s happening at the temple?” Gyro asked. She frowned at Champagne, the sand beneath her hooves sliding a bit as they carried her weight. “They’re ruthless and bloodthirsty bastards. They have no reason to work with us once that’s done and over.”
“There are only three of them,” Champagne said. “Their captain admitted it to me himself. They aren’t in a position to fight us, especially now that we have their weapons, too.”
“Did it occur to you that their captain could be lying?” Ratchet asked.
“If they were, they would’ve killed me when I met with them.” Champagne shivered and let her wings twitch several times at her sides. “One of them really wanted to, but their captain stopped her. If they had numbers, wouldn’t they just kill me and make the odds a little more even?”
“Or they could be just trying to lure us into a trap,” Ratchet said. “I don’t trust it and I don’t trust them. Working with them is going to be a mistake.”
“We need everypony we can get!” Champagne insisted. “We don’t have the luxury of choosing who to work with anymore! It’s not survivors and pirates anymore, it’s the sane and the moonstruck! And if we don’t work together, we’ll all be moonstruck like Soft Step and Blow Off!”
Gyro didn’t like it, but she could see the logic behind Champagne’s reasoning. She of course still didn’t trust the pirates, but a part of her felt bad for starting to argue with the Prench mare after all she’d suffered through tonight. Ratchet must’ve thought the same thing, because he didn’t immediately counter with a retort. Instead, it was the level and disinterested voice of Doctor Gauze that spoke up behind Gyro.
“Dealing with these moon zombies or however Champagne described them should be priority number one,” he said, striding forward and joining the small knot of ponies. “If what she’s saying is the truth, then they’re more pressing than the pirates. Best case scenario, the pirates get wiped out trying to help us with whatever’s happening at the temple.”
“And the worst case scenario?” Gyro asked.
“We’ll lose more ponies at the temple than they do and we get put on equal hoofing with them,” Ratchet said. “If we lose our numbers advantage on them, they’ll kill us all. Easily.”
“If we don’t work with them we’ll all be moon zombies,” Champagne said. “Whatever’s happening at the temple, we need to stop it as soon as we can.”
“Yeah,” Gyro said. “Rainbow and Rarity are still down there. They’re our only hope at getting back to Equestria. We can’t afford to lose them!”
After several seconds of deep thought, Ratchet ultimately yielded and nodded. “Okay. We’ll work with the pirates for now. But I want everypony to keep an eye on them. I don’t trust them to keep to their word and help us out if they see an opportunity to off us all. But we don’t have any other choice, do we?”
Champagne seemed relieved by that confession. “They’re waiting in the jungles near the channel,” she said. “We should meet up with them when we move out.”
“We will. We just have to make sure they don’t shoot us.” Ratchet turned around as the rest of his crew began to assemble around him, and he offered Gyro a nod. “We’ll find your friends and our crew and bring them back safely. You can count on us.”
“Good,” Gyro said. “Because you owe me a drink or something if you come back as a moon zombie.”
-----
Rainbow Dash grunted and heaved against the colossal stone door in front of her. She had thought getting the locks open would be the hard part, but apparently that designation had been saved for the door itself. Centuries of weathering and disuse had almost welded the doors together, and trying to push them open and slide them across the ground was nearly impossible. If the hinges the doors used to pivot on were made of iron, it was probably so horribly rusted by now that it couldn’t move.
For all their efforts, the team of four had barely managed to crack the door open a few inches. It was hardly enough to see inside, and the lights Rarity casted through the door merely illuminated a large chamber and a far wall on the other side. The chamber was similarly filled with water, and it seemed like every inch of the wall had been carved with runes and glyphs. At the very least, nothing moved or made noise behind the door, apart from the usual dripping of water and occasional splash of a little cave fish.
But that still didn’t give them much to go off of. As far as Rainbow figured, the doors had to be blocked by something on the other side, like fallen rubble. There wasn’t any chance that pushing them more was going to get them to part any wider. Everypony was exhausted, even the unicorns, after struggling against the door for so long.
“Friggin… Stupid door!” Rainbow cursed, striking the stone with her hoof. “Why won’t you open, huh? Why do you have to be like that? You’re driving me nuts!”
“It’s driving me tired,” Stargazer said, sitting against the other door. “How the ancient ponies who built this place opened it is beyond me.”
“Kind of makes you think we’re not supposed to open it,” Ball Bearings said.
“Uh, it’s a door, and doors are meant to be opened,” Rainbow said. “If they didn’t want anypony to open it, they would’ve just, like, sealed it off completely.”
“Isn’t that what they tried to do?” Bearings pointed at the locks on either side of the doorframe. “They had this thing locked up pretty tight, and now here we are opening it.”
Rainbow frowned down the length of her muzzle. “Yeah, well, like, whatever. We need what’s on the other side of this door, Ponynesians be damned.”
“That’s racist,” Stargazer commented.
“Your face is racist!” Rainbow yelled back in mounting frustration. Ultimately, however, she hung her head with a groan. “Whatever. We need a new idea. We aren’t getting through this with brute force alone.”
“You two got any magic you can work on this?” Stargazer asked. “Because us simple pegasi can only get so far.”
“Maybe I should fly at it at rainboom speeds,” Rainbow said. “I blew up AJ’s barn once doing that. That was fun.”
“I don’t think you’ll get very far with that here,” Bearings said. “A stone door is a little sturdier than a barn, I’d think.”
“You never know…” Shaking her head, Rainbow glanced at Rarity, who’d been immersed in deep thought. “Hey, Rares, you’re being awfully quiet over there. Got any ideas?”
Rarity slowly shook her head. “No ideas,” she said, her eyes watching the ripples in the water. “Or, at least, good ones.”
“Hey, there’s no such thing as a bad idea, only stupid ones,” Rainbow said.
“Forgive me if I fail to see the difference.”
“What is it, though?” Stargazer asked. “We need something.”
Sighing, Rarity glanced at the tiny gap in the doors. “I could try to teleport inside and see what the problem is.”
Rainbow blinked. “You can teleport? Since when?”
“A few days ago,” Rarity said. “I accidentally teleported myself away from the wreckage of the Concordia when it fell off its spire. I don’t know how, but I did, and it’s probably the reason I’m still alive and not gravely hurt like Gyro was.”
“Teleporting could work,” Bearings said. “We’ve opened the doors enough for you to see inside.”
“Which is what I was thinking.” Her ivory legs waded through the water until she stood right in front of the split in the doors. “I only need to move myself a few feet through this gap. That shouldn’t be too difficult, right?”
“You’re asking the wrong girl, girl,” Rainbow said. “I don’t know how unicorn magic works. It’s too complicated.”
“I don’t know how to teleport either,” Bearings said. “It’s not something they teach you when you’re training to become a steam technician.”
“Really?” Stargazer asked. “I’d imagine the ability to teleport around an engine room and get to hard to reach places would be useful.”
“Nah, because you could end up teleporting yourself halfway through a boiler or something. I’ve heard that’s a really awful way to go.”
“Exactly what I want to hear right now,” Rarity said. “But what do the rest of you think? Should I try it, or is it just going to make things worse?”
“I mean, you can teleport back if you need to, right?” Rainbow asked. “You could just jump inside, grab the statuette, and jump back out. Easy as cake!”
“Pie?” Bearings asked.
“Ew. No.”
“You lot are going to drive me crazy,” Rarity grumbled. Then, frowning through the crack in the door some more, she rolled her shoulders and took a step back. “I’m going to try it.”
“Are you sure?” Bearings asked. “We can probably find another way instead of sending you in alone.”
“Especially if you’ve only teleported once on accident before!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Who knows if you can do it again? What if something bad happens when you try it again?”
Rarity offered the pegasus an encouraging smile. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. Hopefully I’ve at least learned something from hanging out with Starlight and Twilight… even if only through proximity to them performing actual magic.” To further reassure her worried marefriend, Rarity quickly kissed Rainbow and grinned. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“Okay…” Rainbow didn’t exactly return the smile, but she didn’t exactly frown either. “Just… be careful.”
“I will.” Then pivoting to face the door, Rarity furrowed her brow in concentration. Mana built on her horn, glowing brighter as she tried to shape it into a spell that would do what she wanted. After several seconds, Rarity closed her eyes, puffed out her cheeks, squeaked once in exertion—
Rarity trembled and immediately staggered against the nearest wall, trying to right her sense of vertigo and keep her dinner down. She hadn’t exactly stayed conscious the last time she teleported, and now she was glad about that. After doing it once and not passing out, Rarity felt overwhelmed with nausea and motion sickness. She felt like she flung herself down a long hallway only to fly backwards as the ground slid away from her, and the resulting confusion had scrambled her senses. She wasn’t sure how Twilight or Starlight or any other mage who could teleport could do it without immediately feeling sick.
“Rarity?” Rainbow shouted through the door. “Are you alright? Is everything okay in there?”
Rarity pressed her cheek against the cool stone door and softly moaned to herself. “Yes, it’s… fine,” she managed. “I just feel sick and dizzy, that’s all. I’m not used to teleporting.”
“Oh.” The worried edge in Rainbow’s voice nevertheless persisted despite Rarity’s assurances. “I mean, if you’re fine, then that’s good. Just catch your breath and stuff, okay?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.” Rarity slid down the door until the cool water around her reached up to her shoulders. The cool feeling around her body didn’t exactly help her with her nausea; it made her feel like she was breaking out in the cold sweat that proceeds vomiting. But with her legs feeling like noodles, she wasn’t exactly in a position to fight it off and stand up tall.
It took a minute before she finally felt mostly normal again and could start to move about. The first thing she did was summon a mote of light to her aching horn, gradually brightening the room enough for her to see in. Little by little, the walls of the tomb beyond came into view, the blue light of Rarity’s horn sharpening the corners and runes carved into the walls. Pushing herself away from the wall, Rarity waded through the water into the center of the room to get a better look at her surroundings.
The room she teleported into had numerous statues of ponies armed with weapons gathered around the walls, but most were concentrated around the hallway at the opposite end of the door. Above that hallway, another statue of the Ponynesians’ sun god erupted from the wall and ceiling, wings raining gold spears down on the floor around it. Beyond the statue and the spears, the hallway continued for some time, vanishing into the darkness.
“See anything?” Rainbow asked through the door. Rarity glanced to the side to see the pegasus almost trying to put her muzzle through the split in the stone. “Anything blocking the door?”
“There’s a hallway leading deeper into these catacombs,” Rarity said. Then she looked down at the ground and brightened her horn to peer through the water. “There is rubble in front of the door, yes. It looks like it came from the arch above the doors and the ceiling.” She looked up and saw the remains of a larger than life statue sticking out of the wall above the doors. “And a statue that’s broken to pieces. It’s a good thing we were able to get the door open this much as it was.”
“Do you think you can clear it?” she heard Stargazer ask from the other side of the door.
Rarity eyed the rubble and shrugged. “I probably can,” she said. “It just might take a while with my horn as exhausted as it is.”
“Save your strength,” Rainbow said. “Just go and explore a little bit. It’s probably easiest if you just find the statue thingy and bring it back to us instead of clearing the door for no reason.”
“Right, I suppose that makes sense.” Turning around, she swallowed down a nervous lump in her throat and started to cross the room. “I shall let you know if I find anything.”
“Please only scream if something bad happens,” Rainbow said. “I don’t want to get worked up by you freaking out over every dead body you find.”
Rarity shot the doors a dirty look. “I have enough composure over myself to refrain from such false alarms,” Rarity said. But nevertheless, she did eye the dark passage further into the catacombs with apprehension. “That being said, I think you should find it in your heart to forgive me if I become surprised or startled by something and make a scream of my own.”
“No promises…”
Shaking her head, Rarity moved to the entrance of the hallway. Her horn illuminated a long dark passage that seemed to decline the further along it went. Perhaps about a hundred feet down, the water finally touched the ceiling, and Rarity shivered at the thought. “More diving,” she muttered to herself, beginning to walk down the hallway. “Great…”
It didn’t take long before she reached a point where she couldn’t stand and keep her head above the water anymore. After making sure her weapons were secured to her body, Rarity sucked down a deep breath and stuck her head under the water, brightening her horn as much as she could without overly exerting herself. Though the water carried with it the sting of salt, it was at least considerably lessened and dulled compared to the sharp salty concentration of the sea. There must’ve been some sort of fresh water reservoir that diluted the seawater leaking into the tomb, but Rarity swiftly decided that wasn’t important right now. What she needed at the moment was to navigate the water-filled hallway as fast as she could before she ran out of breath.
Moving her limbs in long, smooth strokes, Rarity swiftly propelled herself through the water and down the declining hallway. If she had more time, perhaps she would have examined the walls some more, but as it was, she needed to figure out what was at the end of the hall. She saw where it bottomed out just a bit in front of her, and with any luck, it would start to rise again. If not, she’d have to turn back and think of something else… but if everything was submerged underwater, there wasn’t much she could do to find the statuette from here. She’d have to think of another plan, and she wasn’t sure that they had enough moonlight for that.
Rubble lined the floor of the hallway, and Rarity used it to help quicken her swim through the tunnel. Thankfully, as soon as she reached the flat part of the hallway, she saw steps rise out of it a ways in front of her. With the promise of air ahead of her and Rarity’s lungs already beginning to ache from holding her breath, the unicorn redoubled her pace, quickly pushing through the water and making it to the stairs on the other side. Just as her lungs felt like they were about to burst, Rarity’s head broke the surface, and she sucked down several breaths of old, stagnant air. But it was air nonetheless, and she took the time to get oxygen back to her muscles and let her heart slow down again.
Of course, now she found herself in an entirely new predicament. Because of the water filling the tunnel, she wouldn’t be able to hear or communicate with the rest of her friends. If something happened to her, they’d never know about it, and vice versa. She needed to work quickly just in case something bad happened.
Rising to her hooves, Rarity shook what water she could out of her coat and regarded her surroundings. The stairs ended in front of another large, sealed door, but unlike the last one, this one was in such a bad state of crumbling decay that Rarity could see a hole in it that she could probably squeeze through. Not wanting to waste any more time, she scarpered over to the door and immediately started crawling through the hole. It was a tight fit, but she managed it fairly easily with a little bit of wiggling past the stones. Thankfully they were covered in a slime of some kind to lubricate her body, but it smelled awful and clung to the hairs of her white coat. Apart from a moment to grimace and gag, Rarity immediately pushed the sensation to the back of her mind and observed her surroundings once more.
The walls of this room seemed to be made out of obsidian and somepony had carefully scratched white lines into the surface of the stones. Between the harsh, angular architecture and the pure black decoration, the entire chamber sent an evil chill down Rarity’s spine. Statues leered at her out of the darkness, and the entire place seemed alive with a menacing energy. Perhaps most unsettling of all was the shroud of darkness protecting the heart of the room, so thick and heavy that Rarity’s horn light failed to penetrate it more than a few inches. There was obviously something magical about it, and Rarity wasn’t sure she wanted to push forward.
But on the other hoof, that was as sure a sign as any that she had to be close to her destination. These figurines were supposed to be magical in some way, right? If so, the figurine of the unicorn god of the night would be fittingly surrounded by darkness. Besides, it wasn’t like Rarity had any other options. She needed to venture into the darkness and check it out.
Swallowing hard, Rarity slowly advanced on the shroud with a hoof held in front of her in case she bumped into something she couldn’t see. “Here goes nothing…”
Black Flag paced within the shadows of the jungle. From where he stood, he had a clear view of the area where Champagne had left them to go to her camp, while hopefully remaining hidden from sight. Hayseed sat on the ground next to him, the unicorn idly playing with her cutlasses while they waited for the survivor to return. As for Jolly Roger, Flag knew he was somewhere above them keeping them safe. Where exactly the pegasus was wasn’t as important as knowing that he was up there doing his job.
“It’s gonna be a trap,” Hayseed muttered. “I’m sure of it.”
“I don’t think so, but we’re over here anyway,” Flag countered. “If they wanted to jump us, then they have to find us first.”
“That might not be too hard with how many of the rats there are.”
Flag shook his head. “Have a little faith. I think we’ll be fine. Besides, do you really think these survivors have the stones to try and stab us in the back? They’re too innocent, too lawful. It’s not in their nature.”
“Desperation’s a bitch,” Hayseed said. “All it takes is staring death in the face once to bring out the steel in some ponies.”
“That mare didn’t seem like she had a lot of steel in her,” Black Flag said. “If somepony’s going to betray us, it isn’t going to be her.”
Hayseed rolled her eyes. “Great. Glad to know there’s one less bitch I have to keep my eye on. Maybe I can focus on the other fifteen fuckers looking for an opportunity to stab us in the back.”
“I doubt they have that many.”
“Who gives a fuck how many they have? They have more than us. That’s all that really matters.” Hayseed aggressively stabbed her cutlass into the ground and let it wobble for a bit. “We might be mean and salty fuckers, but they throw enough cannon fodder at us and we’re sure to get overwhelmed.”
“They won’t try it until whatever’s happening at the temple is dealt with,” Flag assured her. “Nopony really has the numbers to waste lives on a fight while there’s apparently moon zombies in the tomb ruins. Once that’s dealt with, though, that’s when we need to start thinking about what happens next.”
“Assuming we don’t all end up like Matchlock and Scabbard,” Hayseed grumbled.
Black Flag shook his head but didn’t bother saying anything more. There was never any point in arguing with Hayseed. The mare would always find some thread to spin into a pessimistic yarn—that’s just who she was. Besides, even if he had wanted to continue arguing with her, the foliage on the other side of the clearing started to rustle, and soon enough, a small herd of ponies moved out into the moonlight.
Both Black Flag and Hayseed quietly readied themselves for whatever would happen next. But instead of fanning out and looking for them, the survivors merely turned to one another. “I thought you said they’d be here,” one said to Champagne. “You better not have led us into a trap.”
Champagne shrank back. “They’re likely hiding in the plants around us,” she said. “They were probably worried that we’d attack them. They aren’t very trusting.”
“You’re right about that,” Black Flag said, emerging from the undergrowth with Hayseed reluctantly following close behind. “We’ve been at each other’s throats since the beginning. Why think that won’t continue now?”
The survivors all shifted to face the two pirates. Most, Flag noted, watched him and Hayseed with disgust and a little trepidation. Even outnumbered five to two, with a third still hiding in the sky, Flag noted that he still seemed to command some sort of advantage over them. The survivors seemed wary of the pirates, like Flag was hiding more he could summon at a single command to overwhelm them all. If that was all the help Champagne had managed to rally from her camp, then Black Flag felt a lot better about his chances of surviving a stand up fight with the survivors if they came to blows tonight.
An older stallion narrowed his eyes at Flag. “A good question,” he said in a grave voice. “Is it because we have something more important to focus on than killing each other tonight?”
“So it would seem,” Flag responded. “When it comes down to it, I guess we have one thing in common that we can rally behind.”
“And what’s that?” the stallion asked.
“We’re not staring at the moon and babbling on like idiots.” Flag shifted a little more comfortably and even managed to crack a smile, though it was more predatory and amused than genuine mirth. “I figure something like that’s important enough to keep everypony playing nice during recess until the game’s over.”
“Right.” The stallion shook his head. “I would just like to warn you that even if we are working together tonight, we do not trust you.”
“We’d be idiots to trust each other,” Flag agreed. “But hopefully we can put aside our past differences for a few hours and go kill some moon zombies, right?”
“We aren’t killing them,” the stallion insisted. “They’re a part of my crew, and if any of them can be saved—!”
Black Flag marched forward and put his hoof on the older stallion’s chest. Everypony around him tensed, but Flag just laughed and shook his head. “Whatever they are, they’re not your crew anymore. Two of my crew got shot by two of yours, and instead of dying, they just put your friends under the same spell holding them. If we don’t cut them down where they stand, then we’re all going to join them.”
He pushed off of the older stallion’s chest and returned to Hayseed’s side. “I don’t think we have much more time to waste now, do we? We should probably get moving before the moon falls or our moon thrall friends finish whatever it is they’re trying to do. I guarantee you they’re trying to do something, and we probably want to stop it.”
The stallion slowly nodded his head in agreement. “Right. If you’re ready, we’ll move out immediately.”
“If I’m ready?” Black Flag feigned astonishment. “How courteous. Yes, me and Hayseed are ready. The better question is are you ready?”
“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.” The stallion nodded and turned to his crew. “Let’s move. We don’t have time to waste!”
The seven ponies set out as one, with Black Flag confident that his brother still flew somewhere above them to scout the land. That was one card he didn’t want to play just yet. A surprise attack from a hidden pegasus could quickly turn a betrayal into a counterattack and rout.
Hopefully he wouldn’t need it. He already had too much to worry about with whatever was happening at the temple.
-----
Rainbow Dash paced in front of the split door. Nearly five minutes had passed and she hadn’t heard anything from Rarity. She told herself repeatedly that her marefriend was just exploring, but surely she would’ve found what she was looking for by now, right? Rainbow knew she had to be worrying unnecessarily. Right?
Stargazer chuckled as he watched the mare march back and forth. “You want to take a break from that?” he asked her. “You’re likely to trip over something hidden beneath the water.”
“I can’t stop,” Rainbow muttered. “If I stop, I think too much. And I don’t need to think and worry myself.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Bearings assured her. “If something went wrong, I’m sure we’d hear it.”
“Yeah, but the silence is killing me!” Rainbow groaned and pressed her cheek against the door again, staring through the split between the two doors. The entire chamber was pitch black on the other side; Rarity must’ve already moved on and taken her light with her. But still, shouldn’t she have seen a residual glow off the walls or something? Just how deep into this tomb had Rarity gone?
“You alright, Rares?” Rainbow yelled through the door, her worry finally getting the better of her. “Need any help?”
“Like we can do anything from out here,” Stargazer muttered.
“Shut up,” Rainbow growled at him. When she didn’t get a response from the other side of the doors, Rainbow fidgeted and worriedly twitched her wings. “Rares? Rares, you there? Rares!”
The lack of a response also caught the two stallions’ attentions. Both turned in Rainbow’s direction and waited for a response that didn’t come. “Where is she?” Bearings asked. “How far into the temple did she get?”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow said. She began to prance in place and once more tried to wedge her face into the small split between the doors. “Rares, answer me, come on!”
Instead of Rarity answering them, however, the distant screeching of bats echoing up and down the catacombs caught the three ponies’ attentions. Flinching in surprise, the three looked back the way they came just in time to see several torches erupt in blue flame, casting dim light on their surroundings. Bit by bit, the lighting torches worked their way down to the three ponies at the end, a pair lighting on opposite sides of the cavern every few seconds.
All three Equestrians immediately stood up and knotted together in a small group. “That… does not look good,” Bearings said.
“Something’s coming,” Stargazer said, peering into the gradually lessening darkness. “Somepony, even!”
Rainbow likewise squinted, but the figures were so far away that she could hardly make them out. One thing for sure, though, was that they were growing closer. And with the torches lighting in spooky blue flame as they passed them, Rainbow quickly decided that she didn’t want anything to do with what was coming their way.
“We need to hide,” she said. “We need to hide now.”
Once more, Black Flag found himself trotting through the forest. He’d done a lot of back and forth tonight, and it was starting to take its toll on him. Between poor rations, being up and fighting the previous few nights instead of catching sleep, and crossing the damned islands several times, he knew he was beginning to suffer from exhaustion. Unfortunately, it started to hit him at the worst possible time. He needed his energy and focus for whatever he would encounter tonight, and that was already slipping away from him.
Whether or not the survivors felt it as well, he couldn’t tell. The seven ponies all marched in a group, and he knew that Jolly Roger still circled behind them, watching their backs. Still, the divisions were there, and plain to see. Whereas Flag and Hayseed kept to one side of the group of ponies, the five survivors kept to the other, maintaining an invisible line dividing friends and temporary acquaintances. Both sides eyed each other almost as much as they paid attention to their surroundings and where they were going.
But soon enough, they finally reached the opening to the temple, and the seven ponies collectively stopped. Flag shot the yawning entrance a worried look, a sentiment shared by everypony around him. Not only did the dark entrance to the tomb stare back at them like an infinite abyss, but blood decorated the steps leading down to it, as well as spattering the rocks just above the stairs. A steady trail of dripping, dribbling splatters moved further down the stairs from the twin pools of blood, and even bloody hoofprints decorated the dirty stone. It looked almost exactly like how Champagne had told it; two ponies were obviously shot on the stairs and collapsed but still managed to shrug it off and keep walking. No sane and normal pony could do that.
“Looks like we missed whatever happened here,” Ratchet said, frowning down the stairs. “They’re already inside of the temple.”
“That’s not good,” Flag said. “We might already be too late.”
Ratchet craned his neck back to look at the sky. “Champagne, you’re a pegasus. How much time do we have before those clouds building out there block the moon?”
Champagne raised her head and squinted at the skies. “No more than two hours, I think.”
“Then we’ll have to be in and out in an hour fifty-nine.” Ratchet started down the stairs, gesturing for his crew to follow him. “The world hasn’t ended yet, so we might not be too late. Let’s just be quick and careful in here, okay?”
“It might not be a bad idea to post somepony at the entrance,” Flag said. “Leave one of yours to stay behind.”
Ratchet shot a look at him. “I don’t want to divide our numbers any smaller,” he said. “I think we’ll need everypony.”
Shrugging, Flag just pointed up at the moon. “If we get locked down there, we’re all dead.”
Ratchet nodded and turned to the pegasus. “Your thoughts? It’s up to you.”
Champagne shuddered but tried to stand tall. “I can fight,” she protested. “I can help.”
“You’ve done enough,” Ruse insisted. “Take a break under the moonlight. Don’t worry about us. We can’t ask anything more of you.”
Reluctantly, Champagne backed down and nodded. “Okay,” she said, though her voice let a little relief sneak into it. “I’ll keep an eye out for more strange things up here. You all just be careful, okay?”
“We’ll be fine,” Ratchet said. Then, glancing at Black Flag, he nodded. “Ready to move?”
“No, but we’ll do it anyway.” Gesturing for Hayseed to follow, Flag started down the stairs. “Let’s get this done with so we can go back to hating each other.”
“I thought that never stopped,” Hayseed muttered.
The ponies started moving down the stairs and closer and closer to the dark entrance. The whole place gave Flag a bad vibe and made his skin crawl. At the very least, he wasn’t expecting a betrayal from the survivors, especially if they weakened their numbers like that. Depending on what they found inside the tomb, Flag figured there might be some opportunities to settle the war between his crew and the survivors once and for all. With Jolly Roger still concealed outside the tomb, he could easily kill Champagne and then assist in dealing with the rest of the survivors with an element of surprise. That would be how he and Hayseed walked away from this if things went bad.
But right now, he only had one major concern to worry about. Matchlock, Scabbard, and the other survivors they’d somehow ‘turned’ were inside the temple ahead of him. And it was up to him and an unlikely alliance with the Concordia survivors to put an end to whatever they were doing.
He just hoped he wouldn’t end up like them.
-----
Rainbow Dash, Stargazer, and Ball Bearings all hurriedly moved to one of the side chambers in the great cavern for want of a better place to hide. There, they crouched behind some rough debris and stones, but even then there wasn’t much to keep them safely out of sight. Their best bet at staying hidden relied entirely on being someplace the new arrivals wouldn’t look and remaining shrouded by darkness. But with their mere presence turning on magical blue lights, Rainbow didn’t know how much they could rely on the darkness.
But the one advantage they did have was the water. It was certainly cool and unpleasant this deep below the earth, but it was deep enough that if they kneeled they could submerge themselves entirely beneath the water. So that was exactly what the three ponies did, slipping beneath the murky water together and waiting with just their heads still exposed as the lights drew closer and closer.
Of course, almost as soon as they moved into position, a deep horror settled in Rainbow’s gut. If the newcomers were heading for the door they were standing around moments ago, then that meant they were going to try and get through it. And if they got through to the other side, then Rarity would be cornered and trapped by them. The seamstress didn’t even know that these new ponies—whoever they were—were coming.
“We have to do something,” Rainbow said. “We can’t let them get through that door.”
“Why?” Stargazer whispered to her. “Whoever they are and whatever magic is with them, I don’t want to mess with it.”
“Ditto,” Bearings said. “Let’s just hide here and let them do their thing.”
“But Rarity’s in that room!” Rainbow hissed. “And she doesn’t know they’re coming! If they get to her—!”
“How?” Stargazer countered. “We can’t get this door open because it’s blocked. How are they going to get to Rarity?”
“I don’t know!” Rainbow splashed in frustration. “With their spooky magic or whatever it is they’re doing! We have to stop them!”
“We can’t stop them right now,” Bearings stressed. “Not without at least figuring out who they are and what they’re doing.”
“Yeah, and those lights are getting pretty close, so shut it, both of you!” Stargazer said, holding out his wings.
Almost immediately afterwards, another set of lights close by burst to life, bathing the entrance of their side hall in a blue glow. The three ponies ducked down until only their eyes and noses remained above the water, trying to hold as still as possible and not make the water splash or ripple. The lights were followed by another set, and another, and then another, before the splashing of legs through the water finally approached right around the corner. Rainbow and the two stallions lowered their bodies another inch, trying to cower ever more into the remaining sliver of darkness they clung to yet wanting to see who the ponies were.
The very first pony Rainbow saw nearly made her do a double take. Soft Step marched across the water with a lifeless gait, her wings unfurled and limply dragging through the water at her sides. Her body was covered in little bite marks that oozed blood, and though she held her head high and shoulders square, something was off about her almost vacant expression. Rainbow nearly called out to the masseuse to ask her what she was doing, but a glance at the mare’s blazing white eyes carrying a tinge of blue in the pupils made her stop. She’d been around Twilight enough to know when some sort of enchantment or magic was in play, and the mare was definitely affected by something.
To make matters worse, she wasn’t alone. Blow Off followed by close behind, but then Rainbow recognized two of the pirates from Squall’s camp, Matchlock and Scabbard, the two Squall had sent off on patrol before her death. They all had the same enchanted look in their eyes, and they all marched down the hall with purposeful, nearly dead steps. They passed the entrance to the side hallway without incident, and Rainbow had to stop herself from letting out a huge sigh of relief. It wasn’t over yet.
Soon, the splashing stopped, along with the lighting of the torches. The cave returned to dead silence once more, and it stayed that way for several seconds. Eventually, Rainbow’s curiosity got the better of her instincts, and she emerged from behind her cover, slowly drifting through the water to avoid making a sound. Though she received alarmed looks from her companions, she pressed on regardless. She just had to see what was happening at the door…
-----
Rarity fumbled blindly through the oppressive darkness. No matter how bright she illuminated her horn, she couldn’t push the light farther than a few inches. She occasionally tripped or stumbled across rocks or cracks in the floor, and she even struggled to see her nose. Her single ear pivoted about wildly, trying to make sense of her surroundings in the complete and utter darkness.
“H-Hello?” Rarity squeaked, her voice breaking the silence like a strangled scream. She immediately flinched back at how loud that single word seemed and tripped over her own hooves. She fell to the ground with a grunt and smacked her cheek against the stone of the floor, her horn briefly illuminating it before she lifted her head and it vanished once more. Rarity realized that she’d turned herself around and disoriented herself now. Swallowing hard, she stood up and started walking once more, not even sure if she was proceeding in the same direction as before. A tiny Rarity in her brain started panicking that she’d get lost in the darkness and never find her way out. She tried to shut it up and ignore it, but its screams were very loud.
“Hello?” Rarity squeaked again. Chewing on her lip, she shook her head and carefully advanced one step at a time. “I don’t even know why I’m talking,” she muttered. “Perhaps its because I’m terrified I’ll die alone down here, wandering the darkness forever. At this point I’d almost prefer some horrifying monster to be down here with me just to stave off the loneliness.” Her mind immediately conjured several horrifying scenarios of her being ambushed and slaughtered in the darkness, either by something pouncing on her or something ensnaring her leg and dragging her away, kicking and screaming. Neither scenario did anything to slow her hammering heart.
“I’m going to be trapped down here forever, aren’t I?” Rarity whimpered. “Please, please, I don’t want to die alone, alone and forgotten!”
Her outstretched hoof bumped into something and she immediately shrieked. When she realized it was stone, however, she moved closer, carefully feeling around it to try and get an idea of what exactly she was dealing with. Her hoof glanced over a jagged edge, and Rarity flinched as it sliced the frog of her hoof open, dotting it with blood. Rarity drew her hoof back and sucked on the surprisingly painful cut, when suddenly, faint blue lines began to appear on the structure in front of her. Little by little, they formed into runes, and they shed a soft light strong enough to illuminate their immediate surroundings. Under their glow, Rarity saw what looked like another altar of obsidian, with a few drops of her blood running down a spike in the middle.
Rarity blinked. That wasn’t a spike. Was that… a horn?
A clammy breeze rushed through the chamber, sending shivers down Rarity’s spine. The shadows seemed to shift and swirl around her, almost like they were alive. The darkness momentarily lessened and something shifted through it, but then it came crashing back, stronger than ever. Everything vanished from Rarity’s sight, and she couldn’t even see the light cast by her horn anymore. She’d gone completely blind, unable to see her hoof in front of her face even when she held it the tiniest sliver of distance away from her eye.
“Is… is somepony there?” Rarity asked, trembling and cowering in fear.
YES.
The single word punched its way through Rarity’s ear and into the center of her brain like her skull wasn’t even there. She yelped and flattened herself against the ground, hooves over her head. After a few moments, she dared to open an eye again, for all the good it did her. Utterly petrified by fear, Rarity couldn’t do anything more except cower in silence with her chin on the floor.
The darkness shifted again. Rarity could feel another presence around her, even if she couldn’t see it. Whatever it was, it felt like it was everywhere and nowhere at once, both very far away and living inside of her quickly seizing heart. Bit by bit, it receded until Rarity could see the altar again. Tilting her head back a few degrees at a time, Rarity soon thought she could see the silhouette of a large equine leering down at her out of the dark, a pony given shape by even darker shadows separating it from the pitch black of its surroundings. Eyes flashed, ethereal teeth swirled in its maw, and once more, its powerful, haunting voice sliced through her very being.
There were many times in Rarity’s life where she’d come to believe that she’d seen it all. The return of Nightmare Moon was a start, but that was quickly replaced by the manic madness Discord had wreaked on Ponyville, only to fall short yet again to a changeling invasion. Rarity’s life had gotten so increasingly complicated since meeting Twilight all those years ago, and every time something new and strange happened, she wondered if it could ever be topped. As of late, she’d merely stopped setting those expectations for herself, assuming that she’d just be surprised in a few weeks.
This one, though, made a strong and horrifying case for king of the hill.
Rarity couldn’t comprehend what she saw in the vast darkness that had swallowed her whole. Across from her, on the other side of the altar, a silhouette leered out of the abyss, a shade of a large and menacing equine-like monster. Its outline would briefly give it a shape before it disappeared into the darkness again, but its eyes and its teeth remained. It reminded Rarity of the Pony of Shadows to an extent, except somehow more horrifying in the darkness beneath the tomb. Perhaps it was because she couldn’t see it very well, or perhaps it was its simple, chilling voice that cut right to the bleeding edge of her soul, but it frightened her in a way she hadn’t ever been frightened before.
And she was the sole subject of this being’s attention. It stared right at her, through her, with eyes of pure starlight and teeth made from comets. Rarity felt so small and weak next to it, and she couldn’t even refuse to listen to it if she wanted. Whenever it spoke, its words manifested inside of her. She was as powerless to resist its intentions as a leaf in a storm.
WHO ARE YOU, MORTAL?
Again, it asked the question, and Rarity whimpered in pain as her whole body vibrated with its voice. Trembling, she could only try to summon the strength and will to respond. “Ra… R-R-Rarit-t-t-ty,” she stuttered. “W-Who are—?”
YOU DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS.
Rarity immediately fell silent, her jaws gnashed together as she tried to stop even another squeak from escaping her throat. The eyes and teeth shifted, and Rarity quickly realized that it was moving around the altar, moving closer toward her. Unable to summon the willpower to move or flee, Rarity could only watch as it approached, until it stood right over her.
YOU OPENED THE TEMPLE. YOU OPENED MY TOMB. YOU GAVE ME BLOOD.
When it didn’t say anything more, Rarity swallowed hard and nodded her head in acknowledgement. “We were l-looking for an idol, a s-statuette.”
The eyes shifted; Rarity didn’t dare make contact with them, but she thought the spirit changed its look to one of curiosity. It continued to glide across the ground, and Rarity shivered and gasped as it passed right through her, sending icy sensations up and down her blood. It stopped on the other side and continued to look down at her with curiosity.
YOU WOULD UNDO THE WARDS AROUND THE ISLANDS?
That confirmed one suspicion of Rarity’s, at the very least. Her and Rainbow were right that there was some powerful magic hiding them within the islands and preventing the Princess from finding their dreams, and it seemed they were right about the figurines controlling it as well. But what she was now starting to question was just why those wards were up in the first place. And with a spirit of darkness and shadow talking to her deep in the bowels of the earth, she was starting to understand why.
YOU WILL ANSWER.
“Yes,” Rarity squeaked. “We want to go home!”
The monster stopped, turned about again to face her, and let its teeth shine in a predatory smile.
VERY WELL. THAT IS YOUR RIGHT.
Rarity blinked. Did that… thing… just allow her to leave? Her ear perked up a little, and she even managed to get her chin off the floor. “You… you aren’t going to murder me?”
NO. WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO?
“I would rather you did not, to be honest.” Rarity let a nervous smile touch her muzzle. Her conversational partner could jest, so that had to be something, right? Maybe—and she was hesitant to admit it—she wasn’t as hopelessly screwed as she thought. At first she bit back her next words out of hesitation and worry, but curiosity got the better of her. She was speaking to something that seemed to know what was what around the islands, after all. Why not try to push it for more?
Clearing her throat, she tried to make eye contact with the being. “Who are you?” she asked. “Why are you down here?”
The response she received was a darkening of the shadows around her and the shaking of the tomb. The eyes twisted in anger, and the teeth of the being parted in malice. When it spoke into her, every word was hooked and spoken with venom.
YOU DO NOT KNOW. BUT YOU WILL SOON KNOW. THAT, I GUARANTEE.
Rarity cried, tears leaking out of her eyes, as the words cut her apart from within. The shadow leered at her some more, and then its toothy maw hooked into a smile. It drifted back to Rarity once again, hovering over her, a million angry wraiths forming a the face of a monster.
ENJOY YOUR STATUE, MORTAL. WE WILL MEET AGAIN.
The air around the temple blew into a fury, tossing Rarity’s salt-streaked mane around and buffeting her haggard expression. Bit by bit, the shadows receded, and little by little, the room began to brighten. Within seconds, the darkness was gone, and all that remained was the light of Rarity’s horn, illuminating the walls and the altar of the room around her.
Swallowing hard, Rarity managed to stand. There was no more magical darkness, and she could finally see her surroundings. She saw numerous runes carved sharply into the walls in neat and orderly lines, and decorative statues holding bowls for burning incense poked out of the wall at random. The altar looked twisted and evil, jagged and menacing, sitting in the center of the room in front of her, while over it, a toothy and fanged statue of a unicorn protruded from the wall.
On the altar itself sat two things. The first, Rarity recognized as the horn she had seen earlier. It was sharp, curved, and lethal, unlike any horn she’d ever seen before, but she could still see the grooves spiraling around it like on all unicorn horns. It was also very large, on a level comparable to that of Celestia’s. Its base had been chained and bolted to the altar, and some of her own blood still decorated the sharp tip.
Behind it, however, she saw what it was she was looking for. A statuette of a unicorn holding an intimidating pose, head arched back and fanged maw wide open. It was the same size and general shape of the other statuettes they’d found so far, and she knew right away it was what she came here looking for. She immediately plucked it up with her magic and looked at it, not wanting to linger around the altar any longer.
Now she started to wonder about what she had seen and experienced. It had all happened so quickly and seemed so surreal that she wasn’t even sure if she could trust what she’d seen and experienced. But what was that monster? It refused to answer her, and it treated her with disdain, like she wasn’t worth its time.
The vicious statue of the unicorn god lunging out of the wall behind the altar gave her a clue.
Rarity swallowed hard and looked again at the same likeness carried on the statuette in her hoof.
That couldn’t have been who she’d just talked to… could it?
Rainbow Dash carefully placed her cheek against the corner of the hallway and tilted her head forward. With just the tiniest bit of her face visible down the corridor, she quickly sighted the four ponies arranging themselves in front of the split door at the end of the hall. They had all stopped moving, simply staring at the obstacle in front of them with blank expressions. As far as she could tell, they weren’t doing anything. They simply seemed to be… waiting for something.
Of course, that didn’t stop her companions from wandering down the hall after her. They both glided to a stop in the water around Rainbow and peered around the corner with her. “What are they doing?” Stargazer whispered in a voice barely audible above the water dripping around them.
“I don’t know,” Rainbow hissed back. “They seem like they’re… they’re waiting for something.”
“What could they be waiting for?” Bearings asked. “They came down here with a reason. Something’s not right about them, and I doubt they all would’ve come down together if there wasn’t foul play going on.”
“Maybe we’ll find out if we wait,” Stargazer said. “Let’s just be patient.”
For once, Rainbow was inclined to agree with the patient approach. Until she knew what these four enthralled ponies were capable of, she didn’t want to try anything. She needed more information to figure out how to dispatch the threat, and at the moment, the only thing she knew was that they weren’t acting under their own volitions.
And then the tomb abruptly began to shake. It startled Rainbow and her companions, and a squeal of surprise died a strangled death in Rainbow’s throat as she covered her muzzle with her hooves. The darkness of the catacombs intensified and lessened almost as soon as it began. Inky black shadows momentarily reached out from their recesses in the stone before falling once more in line. And on top of that, a sensation of anger and rage touched Rainbow’s mind, but it too vanished before she could truly understand what she was experiencing. Dust and dirt fell from cracks in the stone ceiling, and then everything was still once more.
“What was that?!” Stargazer hissed. “The whole ground shook!”
“These islands were part of a volcano once, right?” Bearings asked. “What if—!”
“It’s not the friggin’ volcano, idiots,” Rainbow growled at them. “If it was, we’d already be melting in lava. It’s… i-it’s something else.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t friggin’ know! Chill out!”
When the earth had finally settled once more, the four enthralled ponies at the end of the hall began to move again. They split into pairs, two and two, and took positions by the far ends of the door. Raising their hooves, they pressed them against the stone, and Rainbow saw numerous runes and carvings in the doors begin to glow with a white energy. It continued to intensify until it was almost painful to look at, and then the four ponies swiftly retreated once more, their hoofsteps and motions strangely synchronized. After retreating to the hallway, each pony raised their right foreleg, and with a shout, all four drove it into the water, sending a splash rippling out from their bodies. The runes on the door briefly glowed brighter, and with a deafening hiss and crack of thunder, the stone erupted into hundreds of tiny pieces, filling the hallway with debris and shrapnel. Rainbow thought she saw the four ponies be struck with numerous pieces of lethal shrapnel, some even ripping holes through their bodies, but other than staggering back, the four seemed unfazed.
After seeing that, Rainbow had to wonder if Soft Step, Blow Off, and the others were even still alive anymore. She also wasn’t sure if she hoped that Soft Step was dead or alive within her possessed body at this point. What was worse: to be dead and your body reanimated by some evil magic to work towards its nefarious ends, or to be alive and trapped within your body while magic possessed it and forced it to labor towards its goals, sustaining horrible injuries in the process but being unable to react to pain and wounding?
That was a question she didn’t really want answered.
But now there was a whole new problem. The door leading deeper into the tomb had been blown wide open. There was nothing stopping the four ponies from simply marching deeper into the tomb and surprising Rarity from behind. And Rainbow had the distinct feeling and worry that if those ponies mangaged to sneak up on Rarity, she’d end up joining them, someway and somehow. She couldn’t possibly stand for that. After all, she didn’t know if this enchantment or whatever it was was permanent. What would she do if Rarity ended up as one of those strange zombie ponies?
Another question she’d rather avoid thinking about.
But instead of thinking, she had to do something. But what could she do? These four ponies were obviously imbued with some kind of magic that let them manipulate the interior of the tomb much better than Rainbow and her friends could handle. And not only that, but they outnumbered Rainbow and her two companions. A three against four fight where the four ponies didn’t seem to be bothered by wounds in even the slightest bit was not something Rainbow wanted to pit her and her companions against. There was nothing they could do to turn that. They needed numbers for that, and even then, Rainbow didn’t know if that would be enough.
But as luck would have it, she heard noise and commotion coming from the staircase leading down into the catacombs as she started thinking about her plan of attack. A mass of ponies descended the stairs, six in all, by Rainbow’s count, and immediately began fanning out, grabbing the blue torches and shedding light everywhere. Though Rainbow couldn’t see who they were from this far away, she had a distinct feeling that it could only mean good things for her and her friends. The ponies quickly oriented themselves by the direction the torches had been lit, and after a moment to communicate each other, they all began galloping down the tunnel as fast as they could. Rainbow was merely relieved to see their presence; Champagne must’ve gone and summoned reinforcements after whatever had happened to Soft Step and Blow Off, and now they had the numbers she wanted if they were going to force a fight with possessed ponies of unknown capability.
But she wasn’t the only one who heard the commotion further down the cavern. The four ponies abruptly turned in that direction and started marching forward, but they stopped after a few steps. Then, two of the ponies turned back towards the interior, Soft Step and one of the pirates, leaving Blow Off and the other pirate to stand in the water-filled cavern, awaiting the assaulting ponies’ advance. With six to two odds, Rainbow hoped that the survivors would be able to subdue the two left behind in one way or another. Even if it proved challenging, Rainbow knew she could add herself, Stargazer, and Bearings to the fight, turning it into a nine against two struggle. One way or another, the survivors would win the fight that was about to come.
But what about the other two ponies advancing further into the cavern? Rainbow didn’t see any way to stop them without getting forced into a fight with the four possessed ponies before her reinforcements could arrive and help. And they didn’t hesitate, either. Without any delay, the two ponies advanced through the broken door and into the room beyond. There wasn’t anything Rainbow could do except watch. What exactly they were trying to achieve, she could only guess.
Unable to find a means to help Rarity, however, Rainbow could only hope that the unicorn would find some way to hide and stay safe from whatever it was that was coming her way.
The boom and rattle that followed it didn’t escape Rarity’s attention. Shocked enough as she was by what she’d just encountered in this offering room of sorts, she still had her wits about her enough to notice something as obvious as that. But what was it?
She turned around, frowning down the hallway leading back to the pool of water. It sounded like it came from the direction of Rainbow and the others. What exactly had happened? As far as she knew, the survivors didn’t have any explosives with them other than what little powder her and Rainbow had stolen from the pirates. It definitely wasn’t enough to make an explosion that loud. So what could have? And what did that mean for her?
Rarity quickly realized that she was basically trapped in this room. There was only one way in and, conversely, one way out. If she wanted to leave, she had to go back through the water again, back out through the door and to her friends. But now she started to worry that there might be something between her and Rainbow, or if something bad had happened to them that led to the explosion.
She looked at the unicorn statuette in her magic. Almost immediately she knew that whatever was happening at the tomb had to be tied to him for some sinister reason. But what? Why? How?
She couldn’t answer any of those questions, and she swiftly realized it’d be better if she didn’t try. One thing at a time, after all. First, she needed to see if she could make it back to Rainbow. Galloping away from the obsidian altar, Rarity quickly splashed down the steps and into the clammy water separating the two chambers. Remembering just how long it was between the two chambers of air, Rarity stood on the tips of her hooves as deep in the water as she could, tried to meditate to slow her heart, and sucked down a deep breath before venturing into the briny cold once more.
Again, the sensation of salt stung her eyes, but she pressed on regardless, confident in her sense of direction now that she at least knew what awaited her. Churning her legs, she steadily propelled herself through the water, descending to get below the depression in the ceiling before reaching the inclining hall on the other side. It didn’t take too long before she reached the low part of the chamber, but when she did, she almost gasped in surprise—a move which would’ve been her end had she actually done it this far from either air pocket.
Two ponies trudged across the floor of the hall towards her, seemingly not bothered by the salty water surrounding them. Rarity thought she recognized Soft Step, but she couldn’t pick out the other pirate at her side. Blood drifted off of open wounds on their bodies in scarlet tendrils snaking into the water, and the ponies’ eyes glowed with a harsh, white and blue light. Rarity knew without a doubt that they saw her, because their heads both pivoted slightly in her direction. They continued their synchronized march across the bottom of the hallway, and there wasn’t even the slightest spark of recognition in Soft Step’s face.
Rarity could only stare at the two ponies as they slowly walked closer to her. What had happened to them? What kind of foul magic was at play in this tomb?
She decided she’d rather not find out. Spinning about, Rarity quickly retreated back the way she came, legs flailing for something to push against in the water. Once more using the rocks and debris lining the tunnel to propel herself onwards, Rarity hurriedly retraced her steps and broke the surface of the water with several gasping breaths. As water ran off her coat and splashed across the stones, Rarity retreated to the unicorn god’s shrine and quickly started looking up and down the walls for something that would help her. She briefly considered trying to take the horn and use it like a knife, but even when she tugged on it, it refused to leave the altar it’d been bolted to. And after further consideration, Rarity wasn’t sure she wanted to take it, anyways. She had a feeling that only bad things would come from it if she did.
But what if that was what Soft Step and the other pony were coming for? After encountering that dark spirit, she wondered if maybe it was controlling the two in some fashion. If it was, then it had to be trying to get to the horn. If that spirit was the unicorn god, through some impossibility, then maybe he was trying to reclaim his own horn. Given that the carvings on the doors they’d unlocked earlier showed the sun pegasus slicing the horn off of the unicorn, and given all that she’d seen, Rarity drew the conclusion that the tomb was less of a tomb and more of a vault or prison. A prison which her and Rainbow and the others had foolishly opened in their quest for the statuette.
She wasn’t sure what was a more worrying concept, though: that the horn in front of her actually belonged to a divine being slain long ago, or it was something else whose sinister purpose Rarity couldn’t ascertain.
She heard water begin to splash and drip behind her, and she redoubled her frantic search for an out before the two ponies could get to her. But what could she do? Where could she go? As far as she could tell, the room she found herself in was just four walls, a ceiling, and a floor, all perfectly chiseled even. There certainly wasn’t another exit that she could see, and she began to panic as the possessed ponies drew closer.
Then something squeaked ahead of her. Behind the large statue of the unicorn god, a bat suddenly emerged, flapping its wings about and clumsily fluttering through the room. After a moment of stupidly watching the bat, Rarity suddenly gasped and sprinted to the statue. If the bats could get in, then they had to get out…
Her intuition didn’t fail her. Behind the statue, she saw a gap where one of the stone blocks had broken and been weathered down by a small trickle of water. Beyond that, a pitch-black cave loomed, filled with the squeaks of other bats. Though the gap wasn’t large enough for Rarity to fit through, perhaps she could pull off another telekinetic stunt. Hopefully her horn wouldn’t give out on her; she’d already stressed it so much today, and she didn’t know how much longer she could keep it up.
Hoofsteps on stone didn’t give her much of a choice. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Soft Step and the other pony crawl through the gap in the broken doors and begin marching across the room toward her. Their eyes seemed to glow brighter, and Rarity found them hypnotizing, almost impossible to look away from. Bats squeaked and squeaked around her as they began to talk in frightening, monotone voices. “The tomb is open,” they both said in unison. “Blood has been given. The seal has been broken, and he shall return.”
The horn in the room seemed to radiate vibrant energy like fingers of moonlight. As Rarity hesitated by the door, they started worming their way into her mind, chasing away stray thoughts and errant ideas before they could form into plans. For some reason, the horn made Rarity think of the moon, and all its glory, and how beautiful and perfect it was…
A flash of crippling darkness blocked Rarity’s sight from the ponies and the horn, and the spell was broken. The two possessed ponies howled in frustration, but Rarity didn’t squander her chance. Flinging basic spell components together, she quickly assembled her crude teleportation spell and fired it off without bothering to check to see what was on the other side of the wall.
Splitting pain wracking her body forced her to pass out almost as soon as she reappeared.
Black Flag came to a stop as the two possessed ponies at the other end of the catacombs began to advance. The rest of the survivors and Hayseed stopped as well, and the six tightened their ranks as the moonstruck zombies slowly marched on them. Behind those two, two more passed through the remains of a giant door and continued into the interior of the temple. Whatever they were doing, Flag knew that he and the rest of his team would have to deal with the first two before they could stop them.
Ratchet moved next to Flag, his weapons ready. “Any ideas on what to do?” the older stallion asked.
“Shoot them until they’re dead?” Flag suggested. “A good bullet to the brain ought to take care of them, even if the moon magic makes them immune to pain.”
“I don’t want to kill my crewmate,” Ratchet said, eyeing Blow Off. “We need to find a nonlethal way to take care of them.”
Black Flag raised an eyebrow and scoffed. “Nonlethal? You have fun with that. You’ll be one of them faster than you can blink.” Disregarding the look of protest on Ratchet’s face, Flag immediately turned to Hayseed. “Champagne mentioned something about bats attacking the other two before they got zombified. Now would be a good time to have a shield ready in case they try something like that.”
Hayseed rolled her eyes. “I swear, one of these days you’ll tell me to get a shield ready and I’ll actually get to use it.” Nevertheless, she imperceptibly widened her stance to a casting stance and nodded to the side. “Maybe the other hornheads can help.”
“You need a shield?” Clever Ruse asked. “A shield’s simple enough. Where do you want it?”
Hayseed looked at him, blinked, and shivered. “Right under my tail.”
“Around us would be more helpful,” Flag harshly amended. “If we can stop the bats from reaching us, then they can’t turn us.”
“What about them?” one of the other survivors asked, raising a shaking forelimb in the direction of the two possessed ponies who had already covered a surprising amount of ground. “If they can blow up a door, they can blow up a shield!”
“I’ll take care of this,” Black Flag said, reaching for his pistol.
He was stopped by Ratchet. “We can’t just shoot him,” the survivors’ leader insisted.
Flag drew his pistol and pointed it at Ratchet. “It’s us against them, you fucking idiot!” he shouted around the piece in his mouth. “You wanna take them alive, you fucking figure it out!”
Ratchet swallowed and stepped back, even as the rest of his crew reached for their weapons. “We’re armed too, you know,” he cautiously warned the pirate.
“What, you’re gonna fucking fight us right here, turn this six against two into an even match for those zombies?” Flag shoved him away and took aim at the first pony. “I always thought you were a bitch, Matchlock…”
He fired once and Matchlock’s head cracked backwards. The mare fell into the water from the force of the shot, but slowly, like a horrifying lunar phoenix, she rose from where she’d been struck down. The bullet had destroyed her jaw, but she didn’t seem impaired by it in the slightest, not even when a chunk of it fell into the water.
Fresh Linens screamed and immediately vomited. The morbid scene sent unnerving chills down everypony’s spine, and Flag holstered his pistol in frustration and reached for the next.
“The tomb is open,” Blow Off said, while Matchlock growled and gargled through her mangled muzzle. “Blood has been given. The seal has been broken, and he shall return.”
Their eyes flashed, and the unicorns of the group all immediately threw up shields at the screeching noises of bats beginning to fill the catacombs around them. But even as they did, Flag found he couldn’t look away from their eyes. They hypnotized him and his companions, and he took a few unwitting steps forward, closer to their glowing eyes. He felt like he could see the cratered surface of the moon within them and all the power it represented. Around him, the shields began to fail as the unicorns became similarly enthralled.
But then there was a yell and a blur of rainbow light. In the blink of an eye, a blazing trail of rainbow had sent both moonstruck ponies to the ground, breaking their eye contact with Flag and the survivors and ending the spell. The bats started to dissipate on their own, and Flag rapidly shook his head from side to side to try and cast off the enchantment that had slowly been sapping his willpower. Once he could comprehend what he was seeing again, he saw a blue pegasus trying to shove Matchlock’s head under the water while two more ponies quickly approached from the rear.
Ratchet immediately seized the initiative. “Now!” he shouted, galloping forward. “Tackle them down! Cover their eyes! Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact!”
With a valorous yell, the other five survivors started galloping forward, leaving Flag and Hayseed to linger behind. Together, the six ponies plus the three that had appeared from deeper within the catacombs pounced on top of the two moonstruck zombies, struggling to subdue them and get cloth covering their eyes. But the possessed pair thrashed and fought back, leveraging superequine strength against their nine assailants, lashing out with powerful legs and even snapping with vicious teeth. Flag saw Fresh Linens gasp and stumble back out of the brawl, clutching at her throat for a few brief seconds before falling down, spreading blood in the water, but soon the rest of the survivors managed to secure the upper hoof. Finally, leveraging their combined weights to force the possessed ponies to the water, they managed to cover their eyes and bind up their legs with some rope somepony was carrying, hauling the two back out of the water before they could drown.
Black Flag and Hayseed finally trotted up in the aftermath, noting that even though the two zombies were bound, they seemed to stop struggling now that they’d been defeated. They simply stood like statues and ceased resisting. Still, Ratchet shot the two pirates a disapproving look as they joined the circle. “So much for your assistance.”
“I lent my assistance by shooting my bitch of a crewmate,” Flag said. “You’re the one who wanted to take them in alive. And speaking of alive…” he pointed to where Fresh Linens still writhed in pain, her neck already painted red with blood. “You might want to get her taken care of before she bleeds out. That might’ve nicked an artery.”
“Shit!” Ratchet gestured with his head for somepony else to take a look at her, as he was too preoccupied with making sure the two bound ponies didn’t go anywhere. “Somepony get her back to the camp! Have the doctor take care of her!”
“I can do it,” one of the pegasi said, stepping out from the back of the group. He quickly hoisted the mare onto his back with soothing words and started for the stairs. “Nice timing on the arrival, you guys, but we’re not done yet. Rainbow can tell you more!” And then, spreading his wings, he took off down the hall as fast as he could manage.
Ratchet nodded and turned around to where a rainbow pegasus and another unicorn stood on the opposite side of the group from the stairs. “Rainbow? Bearings? Glad to see you’re both still alive. But where’s Rarity?”
Rainbow panted and pointed deeper into the catacombs. “Back there,” she said. “We gotta go help her. Two more of those ponies went through the door. She’s back there!”
“Then I guess we should get moving,” Black Flag said. “What do you want to do with these two?”
“I doubt they’ll go down if we club them over the head,” Ratchet said, “But they’re not resisting. Leave them with one pony and let’s press on.”
“Yeah, whatever, we gotta go!” Rainbow insisted, already taking wing. But her eyes fell on Flag and Hayseed and she fluttered back a few paces. “But what are they doing here?!” she asked, pointing an accusatory hoof the pirates’ way.
“Hey, bluebird,” Hayseed said, winking at Rainbow. “You miss us?”
Rainbow Dash glared at the two pirates standing across from her. She’d expected she’d see them again at some point before everything was all said and done, but not here, and not like this. Seeing the pirates and the survivors of the Concordia working together surprised and confused her. But even if the two factions had started working together to deal with whatever was happening in the tomb, that didn’t mean she trusted or even forgave the pirates for everything they’d done to her.
Ratchet quickly stepped forward to intervene before the situation spiraled out of control. “Rainbow Dash, we’re under a truce of sorts with Black Flag and Hayseed,” the engineer said. “Champagne rallied us all together to help fight what’s happening in the tomb after she saw… well, this.” He pointed at the two moonstruck ponies standing off to the side, still as statues apart from the casual rise and fall of their chests. The cloth around Matchlock’s head was already covered in blood, and it dripped in steady streams from her mutilated jaw into the water below. Shuddering, Ratchet looked away and focused his attention back on Rainbow. “At any rate, we’re working together now. The extra edge to our numbers will be a lot.”
“I don’t think it will mean all that much if those two get to wherever they’re going,” Black Flag said. “I have a feeling that something bad will happen when they do.”
“You have any ideas what this could all be about?” Clever Ruse asked. “Anything we can get a hint from?”
Rainbow glanced at Bearings and shrugged. “This place is a tomb and temple dedicated to the Ponynesians’ moon god, which apparently was their interpretation of Nightmare Moon. Whatever is going on here has to do with him, and from what spooky Blow Off said, ‘he shall return’ or some crap like that.”
“Is it really just their interpretation of Nightmare Moon?” Ratchet asked. “Whatever is happening out there has tangible magic behind it. Something was controlling these two, that I can tell.”
Black Flag shrugged and paced over to Matchlock. Before anypony could react, he drew his sword and split open the mare’s neck. The pirate gagged and flinched but stayed standing for a remarkable amount of time before her legs finally gave out and she collapsed to the ground, dead. Frowning, Flag sheathed his cutlass and turned back to the rest of the ponies. “I guess they can die.”
“What was that for?!” Rainbow exclaimed. “She was one of your crew!”
“She was enchanted or something. She wasn’t going to help us.” Shrugging, he added, “besides, I shot her jaw clean off. She would’ve died from blood loss. No need to prolong the agony, if there was anything of her left inside.”
Rainbow’s face screwed through several different expressions before she finally settled on begrudging agreement. “Yeah, sure, fine. Whatever. But what are we going to do about him?” she asked, her hoof pointing at Blow Off. “Is he just gonna, like… stand there?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Ratchet said. “He hasn’t attempted to break free of his restraints since we got the cover on his head. At the very least, he is still tied up, so he won’t be able to go anywhere or remove that cover from his head.”
“If you say so.” Rainbow shook her head, then worriedly looked over her shoulder in the direction of the destroyed door. Cursing, she snapped open her wings and took flight, already anxiously darting down the cavern in quick little bursts. “We gotta go!” she shouted. “We’re wasting too much time shooting the shit out here!”
She didn’t even bother to wait and see if the rest of the team was following her. Rarity was on the other side of a pair of moon zombies and she did not want to leave the poor fashionista to fend them off on her lonesome. Especially not if she had to deal with their spooky moon eyes and evil bats. Rainbow redoubled her pace when she realized that if she wasn’t quick enough, Rarity could end up like Blow Off and Soft Step. And considering she didn’t even know if it was possible to reverse what had happened to them, Rainbow didn’t even want to let it come to that. She had to stop the other two before they got to Rarity.
Now that the door had been blown apart, it didn’t provide much of an obstacle to Rainbow, and she flew right past it and into the next chamber. Apart from some pointless statues and decorations, it didn’t look like it served much purpose, and more importantly, nopony was in sight. But there was a hallway leading out of it, and flapping her wings, Rainbow flew down it as fast as she could—at least until she realized the ceiling descended until it sank beneath the water ahead of her.
Frowning, she anxiously hovered in place while she decided what to do. She could hear the splashing of her companions behind her, so she knew they’d be with her in about a minute of trudging through the water-filled cavern. At the very least, she could press on ahead and hope they would catch up. She knew it wasn’t wise to go and fight the zombies off alone, but Rarity was in there alone. Emotion overrode instinct, and after a second to suck down a deep breath, Rainbow flipped about in midair and dove for the water nose first.
She cried out in surprise when it felt like she slammed her face against glass.
Rainbow rolled onto her back and clutched at her muzzle, with her nose bleeding and maybe a little broken. She didn’t understand what had happened. She looked down at her tail and saw she was just sitting on the surface of the water, which she noticed was unnaturally still. Climbing to her hooves, she cried out in frustration and started jumping on it, but she couldn’t force her way through.
“What is this?!” she hollered and yelled. “What the crap! Let me through!”
By this point, the rest of her companions caught up with her, and they all stared in disbelief at what they saw. “Rainbow?” Ratchet asked, quickly galloping closer, the water splashing around his legs. “What’s going on? What’re you—oof!”
The stallion grunted as the water he’d been galloping through suddenly became quite solid and rigid. It was like he tripped over a step, and he fell on his chin in front of Rainbow, on top of the water. He blinked and looked down, then smacked at the glassy water several times to no effect. “What is this?”
“It looks like a barrier,” Hayseed said. “A strong one, too.”
Ruse whistled and nodded. “That’s some impressive stuff right there. Maybe I can work it into a show.”
Rainbow growled in frustration and continued to jump on the water. “Well, you’re friggin’ unicorns! Do something!”
Their horns lit up, but to no avail. After several seconds of trying, they both gave up on their magic. “Whatever put this ward here is strong,” Ruse said. “And I’m willing to bet it’s the same thing that can make magic powerful enough to control ponies like that.”
“Gah! Useless!” Rainbow continued to jump and slam on the water but couldn’t even chip it in any way. “Rarity’s through here somewhere, I know it! And now she’s all alone with those, those… monsters!”
“Maybe we can find another way through,” Ratchet said, already turning around. “We just need to—!”
A mare’s scream shook the tomb to its core, cutting him off, and darkness smothered them all.
-----
The horn called to it. It beckoned it onwards, forcing its body to move despite the damage inflicted to it. When it had once been a mare, it would have cared about the pain wracking its limbs. But now there was nothing, only a few confused motes of a soul and mind wheeling endlessly inside its skull, powerless to reassert her authority over her body, much less call herself a pony. She was simply an it now, a tool to be used as seen fit by He who wielded it, a vessel to complete a ritual.
It moved to one side of the altar, and the other tool moved to the other. There, with perfect precision, they placed their hooves on runes carved into the altar and began to chant. It didn’t know what the words were; it wasn’t the one speaking them. It was merely a tongue that waggled as commanded. Darkness oozed from the cracks in the chamber walls, pooling thick and heavy across the floor of the room.
Both tools raised their hooves and touched the shackles binding the horn to the altar. The metal glowed white and fizzled away, boiled into nothing by impossible magic. But now the horn was free, and again the two tools moved. It placed its head down on the base of the altar and spread its wings, while the other tool took the horn in its own magical grasp. It knew it had been chosen because it was once a pegasus. Now, it could become something more. It would be a vessel for His influence.
The other tool placed the horn against its head, and it was overwhelmed with a sensation of raw power and personality funneled into its skull. The tiny pieces of what was once a pony named Soft Step formed together long enough to scream, and from that nucleus of a pony, His power and influence grew. The shattered remains of a mortal were glued together with the power of a god, and the longer she screamed, the thicker the shadows fell from the walls.
When it was finally over, the mare convulsed, her wings twitching and her forehead burning from the new bone fused to it. But, little by little, she recovered, and was finally able to lift her head.
A twisted and corrupted alicorn of the night stared back at her off the polished surface of a shield on the far wall. For a second, Soft Step recognized herself beneath long limbs, dark coat, fanged muzzle, and twisted horn. For a moment, she remembered who she was, where she was, and what had happened to her.
And then her new horn flared to life of its own accord, and the mare drowned in shadow.
Rainbow Dash squinted as the three unicorns managed to pull tiny spots of light onto their horns, just barely enough to illuminate their surroundings. By the looks of exertion on the unicorns’ faces, Rainbow knew they were trying to brighten their horns, but they couldn’t manage to summon anything more than a pale glow, barely enough to even see the outline of the walls around them.
“Can’t you brighten it?” Flag growled, whirling about and staring down the inky shadows that seemed to be encroaching on them from all sides. “It’s fucking dark!”
“I’m trying, jackass!” Hayseed spat back. “It’s as bright as I can make it!”
“Then all you unicorns are doing a pretty bad job at something this simple!”
“It’s the darkness itself,” Ratchet concluded. He walked over to what Rainbow could barely tell was a wall and stuck his hoof out. She flinched back when she realized she could actually see the shadows flowing over his hoof like a waterfall of abyssal molasses. One of the unicorns moved their head lower to the ground, and there Rainbow could see the thick shadows piling up like sludge on top of the water.
“What the actual shit…” Hayseed murmured to herself.
“This night just keeps getting worse and worse,” Bearings said. Swallowing hard, he turned to Rainbow and shook his head. “We are way out of our league here. Whatever is happening is too much for us to deal with!”
“We’re dealing with god magic here,” Flag said. “It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together and see what’s going on. You idiots let some sort of elder deity out of its cage, and now we’re all going to pay the price!”
“We don’t know it’s anything like that!” Rainbow spat back at him. “We don’t know what any of this is!”
“And that’s just the problem!” Flag marched forward until he was nearly nose to nose with Rainbow. “We don’t know what you’ve done, what you’ve unleashed on these islands, and frankly, I don’t want to find out! If it is an evil moon god unicorn—!”
“That’s stupid!” Rainbow shouted back at him. “Only Luna can do moon stuff with the moon!”
“That you know of!”
“Yeah, and I’m not going to draw stupid conclusions just because some Ponynesian primitives thought they knew how everything worked!”
“And you do?!”
“Better than they do, I guarantee it!” Rainbow aggressively puffed out her chest and flared her wingtips, trying to make up for her height disadvantage against the pirate. “I don’t know what this stuff is all about, but I’m not going to believe for a second that these gods the Ponynesians worshipped are actually real without more proof!”
Flag gestured all around them with an outstretched hoof. “What more do you need, you flippant, gay jackass?! Everything about this temple has been dedicated to this moon god! All this evil magic we’ve seen has to deal with the moon and darkness! I don’t know what more you want that’ll convince you otherwise!”
“How about some solid proof instead of just making assumptions—!”
“Can we please calm down?!” Ratchet shouted, stepping between the two of them and forcing them apart. After shooting an angry glare at each pony, he pensively blew a breath through his nose and calmed himself down. “Arguing about this is not going to get us anywhere. But what we can do is get out of here and regroup. Whatever it was that Soft Step and the other possessed pony were trying to do, I think they’ve done it, because this is hardly what I’d call natural.”
“What we need to do is find Rarity!” Rainbow protested. She jumped some more on the shielded section of water and stomped her hooves in frustration. “If we can just get past this shield—!”
“If you do that, you’re gonna fucking die, bluebird,” Hayseed spat at her. “I don’t want to face whatever’s in there.”
“Because you’re a cowardly bitch who preys on other ponies for a living!” Rainbow stomped her hoof, sending a little splash of water and shadow away from her. “I shouldn’t even listen to you!”
Hayseed growled and started to stomp forward. “Want to say that to my face, cunt?”
Clever Ruse quickly grabbed the pirate mare with his magic and pulled her back into line. “We can’t get at each other’s throats,” he said. “Not now. Not while we don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
Ratchet advanced on Rainbow and rested a hoof on her shoulder. “I know Rarity’s a smart mare, and she’d figure some way out of what’s going on in there. But we can’t stay here and blindly tackle this foe head on. We need to be smart about this, and that means falling back and regrouping.”
Rainbow fidgeted and looked again at the water beneath her hooves. “But…”
“We’re not getting anywhere with this,” Bearings said, trying to help convince Rainbow to move. “Let’s get out of the temple and regroup with Champagne. We need to figure things out from there and plan our next move.”
Reluctantly, Rainbow hung her head and trudged off the barrier of water. “Fine,” she grumbled, pushing her way through the other ponies. “Let’s get back to the moonlight and actually talk about this. The sooner we can get that done, the sooner we can go find Rarity.”
-----
Power. Raw power. It was an exhilarating high that Soft Step had never experienced before. She felt like she could do anything. Whatever she wanted, whatever she desired, she could make real with her willpower alone.
But whenever she thought about things she could do as an all-powerful alicorn, it felt like a set of hooves redirected her thoughts and attentions elsewhere. Somepony or something guided her mind along a path it desired, and Soft Step was only barely perceptive of it, like an itch in the back of her mind. But right now, all she wanted to do was use her new powers for His glory and to help facilitate His return. She’d already accomplished the first part in retrieving His horn, and by melding it to her skull, she’d been granted some of His power. She would need it to undo the humiliation and curse that had persisted for far, far too long.
Her magic flowed from her new horn with a thought, a mere desire, and it startled Soft Step at first. She had been a pegasus in a past life, but now she had a horn and magic. It was fickle and difficult to control, but powerful and easy to bend to her will when she knew what she wanted. And what she wanted right now was a mirror to admire how He had altered her form to better suit His needs.
With just a thought, one appeared in front of her, a shiny obsidian surface surrounded by dripping black magic. It showed a tall mare with a deep, dark green coat, slitted eyes, sharp fangs, and a mane that seemed to drip darkness and starlight from her scalp like the oily shadows running down the walls. Her horn—His horn—was long, pronounced, and lethally sharp, curved back slightly and seemingly flitting in and out of existence with the aura of dark magic surrounding it, sucking up what little light even remained in the chamber. The extent to which her body had been twisted and modified shocked Soft Step, but it also brought her great pleasure. She was a beautiful vessel for His return, and she would do everything in her power to make it happen.
She let the mirror fizzle away and looked up at His statue looming over the altar. Everything about Him was so perfect and powerful. She felt honored to be sculpted into His image. Striding around the altar on uncomfortably long legs, she stopped in front of the statue and flared her great, dark wings, fluttering up just enough to see eye to eye with the statue.
“Your return approaches,” she said in a deep, smoky, silver voice. “We must only recover one thing and perform the final ritual. Then, you shall be made whole again, and the world will be swallowed by the dark.”
The statue seemed to whisper back to her. She could feel it in her very core. It told her what she had to do and how to do it. It told her of its plans and how they would bear fruit. And finally, it gave her a command.
Grinning, Soft Step dropped to the ground and bared her razor sharp teeth, letting dark magic build on her horn, soaked out of the shadows of the room. “Yes… an army sounds like a wonderful idea…”
Soft Step stood next to the obsidian altar in His shrine, watching one of His thralls place itself down on the stone for her. It was all that they were good for, now that the others had figured out how to counter their enthralling powers. He had already lost two of His four thralls: one to death, and the other as a vessel for His power. Now, Soft Step would sacrifice the third to expand His power and bequeath upon Him an army of His faithful.
The thrall lied down on the altar with its neck exposed and forelimbs crossed over its chest, eyes focused on the statue of its lord overhead. Its muscles twitched and occasionally spasmed as the remains of the pony within tried to break free, but it was too weak to resist. Like a wolf, Soft Step stood over the helpless thrall and let her tongue slide over her sharp teeth before she opened her maw and sank them into the thrall’s neck.
The taste of warm blood flooded her mouth and crimson dribbled down her chin. The thrall gasped and spasmed wildly as it bled out on the altar, but within a minute, it finally fell still. Only then did Soft Step release her bite on its throat and stepped back, reveling in the adrenaline-inducing smell of blood. The altar upon which the sacrifice had been made began to glow, and with its power, she gathered magic and began to cast a spell.
“Rise, warriors,” she commanded, her shadowy voice permeating every crack of the tomb’s stones. “Your wait is over. Your lord is returning, and He calls upon you to serve once more.”
-----
Gyro couldn’t sleep—not like she made much of an effort to do so anyway. Ever since Champagne’s frantic return and the sallying forth of almost everypony in the camp, she couldn’t bring herself to search for rest when she knew something big was going down in the jungle. So she’d remained awake, her eyes turned toward the interior of the island in the hopes of seeing her friends return safe and sound.
But there hadn’t been much activity from the heart of the islands yet, and she was starting to get bored. Coupled with her exhaustion from being up all night, she was starting to find it hard to keep her eyes open. At the very least, the crippling pain in her back had faded into a dull ache that only flared up if she moved around too much. It would’ve been surprisingly easy for her to sleep had she actually wanted to.
Fluttering wings snapped her back to reality before she could doze off. Jerking her head upright (and wincing at the pain in her spine), Gyro saw Stargazer land in the middle of the camp in front of her, another pony on his back. “Doctor!” he shouted, immediately trotting toward the hut. “Gauze! We’ve got wounded!”
Doctor Gauze emerged from inside his hut, looking remarkably awake for staying up nearly all night. Adjusting his glasses and blinking away any lingering bits of sleep clinging to his eyes, he trotted over to Stargazer and immediately looked the other pony over, who Gyro quickly recognized as Fresh Linens. “What happened to her?” Gauze asked, lifting the mare with his magic and shifting her to his operating table. “What’s going on at the tomb?”
“It’s like Champagne said,” Stargazer replied, sitting down in the sand after his frantic flight back to the camp. “Soft Step, Blow Off, and two pirates are possessed. Soft Step and one of the pirates went deeper into the temple while all of us ended up fighting Blow Off and the other possessed pirate. One of them bit her.” Swallowing hard, he took a step closer. “Is she… is she going to make it?”
Gauze shoved him back through the sand with his magic to clear some space around the table. “Not if you hover over me and prevent me from working,” he growled. His horn flared and numerous tools flew into his magical grasp, and he immediately set to work on Linen’s neck. Gyro noted that the mare didn’t seem to be moving or even breathing, but if Gauze had decided to frantically treat her, then she had to still be alive.
Stargazer chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds before shuffling back to the entrance of the hut. There, he stopped next to Gyro, who went back to staring out at the jungle because looking over her shoulder into the interior of the hut was becoming too painful. “What’s going on at the temple?” she asked him. “Are Rainbow and Rarity okay? Anypony else hurt?”
“We managed to capture Blow Off, and Linens was the only one who got hurt,” Stargazer said. “Rainbow’s down there taking charge right now, but we don’t know where Rarity is.”
“You don’t know where Rarity is?” Gyro’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“We found a door that we could only get open a crack, so Rarity teleported through the gap and started exploring it. She’s somewhere really deep in the tomb right now.”
“But… but she’s okay, right?” Gyro asked. If Rarity was deep in the tomb behind a door that couldn’t open and could move through it via teleportation, then hopefully that would keep her safe from anything bad sneaking up on her.
“Soft Step and the other pirate broke the door down and went through it right before we fought Blow Off’s pair.” Stargazer nervously shuffled his hoof through the sand. “She’s on her own, but everypony else was running off to get to her, hopefully before Soft Step does. She should be fine; it’s just two of them against her and seven of us, and so long as you don’t look at their eyes, they can’t even do much against you.”
Though Gyro was still worried for her friend, she at least lowered her guard. “Okay,” she said. “That’s good to hear. But what did you guys find in the tomb?”
“A lot of bodies, as one would expect.” Stargazer shrugged. “A lot of statues to both the moon god and the sun god. We’re still not really sure what the place was built for other than to house the Ponynesians’ dead, but it has a lot to do with their gods, especially that moon god.”
“And if Soft Step and the others are ‘moonstruck’, I think Champagne called it, then it has to be related to him in some way.” After a moment to think, her mind led her down an unfortunate path, and she swallowed hard. “You… don’t think that we could be doing something really bad by exploring this tomb and even just getting it open in the first place, do you?”
Stargazer sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. All I know is that it’s a lot more complicated than what we first thought. We’re messing with stuff that we don’t really understand.”
Gyro nodded and stared at the sand beneath her hooves. The grains had started casting shadows over their brethren, and when she looked to the sky, she saw the moon hanging low on the horizon, barely above the swaying trees around her. “Whatever’s going on at that temple, they need to finish it quickly. The moon’s not going to stay up there much longer.”
-----
Deep beneath the surface of the earth…
A small group of ponies wandered through the abyss. The lights they provided barely scratched at the darkness, and instead of chasing it away, they merely held it back. The water they trudged through seemed thick and suffocating, and black fog swirled around their chests, occasionally rising up far enough to obscure their vision. Even though her head was above the water, Rainbow felt like she was drowning.
“The exit was this way, right?” Straight Edges asked, his worried voice seemingly muffled by the shadows around them. “I can’t even see anything!”
“Don’t wander too far!” Ratchet warned the others. “If we lose sight of you, we might not ever find you again!”
Rainbow shivered and rose out of the water, flapping her wings and hovering above the group as best as she could. That was a scary thought, and not something she really wanted to consider. “It’s somewhere ahead of us,” Rainbow said. “Dead center of the cavern. It’s not like we could really miss it so long as we got our nightlights spread out, right?”
“This place was bigger than you give it credit for,” Bearings said. “You didn’t appreciate it all because you flew straight to the end.”
“Wish I could do that now…”
As she said that, a deep bass whine echoed through the cavern, almost like a moan. It persisted for many seconds, nearly a full minute, before it died away. In its place, terrifying stillness remained, save for the scared panting of the ponies stuck in the abyss.
“What was that?” Hayseed whispered. “That couldn’t have been good.”
“Do you see that?” Bearings said, pointing through the darkness. “There’s a light, up there!”
Rainbow turned in the direction and squinted. Sure enough, she saw a small blue light drifting through the darkness. It moved in jerky motions, but it was soon joined by another, and another. All around them, more and more of the lights began to appear, but it wasn’t until they got closer that Rainbow noticed they weren’t one blue light each, but two.
A low hiss and moan seemed to stretch out of the darkness around them, and each pony trembled in terror.
“Do… a-are those what I think they are?” Flag asked.
The first of the blue lights wandered within the corona of the unicorns’ lights. As soon as it did, Rainbow saw a skeletal muzzle, splitting, embalmed flesh, and eyes of glowing star fire, wrapped within decaying bandages.
“Run!” she screamed, already darting away from the walking corpse with her wings. “Get out of here! They’re everywhere!”
Rainbow Dash immediately flew as high as she could afford without becoming swallowed up by the darkness. It was the safest place for her to be, and she knew it. Out of foreleg’s reach of the ground, she felt marginally safer than if she’d been stuck wading through the water like the rest of her companions. But that was hardly a consolation; she knew that she was screwed if she couldn’t find the way back out.
Of all the things and hardships she imagined she’d have to deal with when stranded on a deserted island, fighting off a zombie apocalypse was the absolute last thing she would’ve expected.
And the dead weren’t just complacent to fence the survivors in and scare them witless. They moved at a steady march, only slightly held back by the thickness of the water and shadows swirling about their bodies. They surrounded the party on all sides, some much closer than others, but that was going to change soon. Unless they found their way out of the temple, Rainbow knew they were all going to die and likely join their ranks. And she had no intention of becoming a moon zombie.
“Where’s the exit?!” she screeched, trying to fight off the urge to fly forward through the darkness until she found it. She knew that the moment she lost sight of the unicorns’ lights, she’d never find them again. “We have to get out of here!”
All she received in response was panicked and confused yelling from below her as her companions tried to scramble this way and that. But apart from moving away from the closest zombies, they couldn’t make up their minds about which way to go. Instead, they ended up chaotically bouncing about the hall, retreating from one group of advancing zombies only to run into another.
Several pistols cracked off shots in the darkness, and Rainbow saw some of the zombies topple over or go flying back as heavy lead balls ripped through their bodies, but they almost always invariably stood up again. Unlike in the movies, these ones didn’t even seem to care if they lost their heads; they merely continued to march on regardless as frightening headless corpses. And given the sheer numbers swarming in around them, Rainbow knew that fighting them off only wasted time that could be spent running or looking for an escape.
“Shadows!” Ratchet shouted from below her. “Look for its shadow! Rainbow!”
“What?!” Rainbow whipped her head around in confusion. “What do you mean?!”
“The stairs!” Ratchet said, darting backwards and trying to fend off a zombie with his hooves. “Find them that way!”
Rainbow started chewing on her hooves as she peered through the darkness. What did Ratchet mean? She knew she had to figure it out quickly, because the longer it took her to find the stairs, the worse off her companions would be. They were already running out of room to flee toward, and the snapping teeth of the moon zombies were getting awfully close to their throats.
But then she saw something: blue lights, or rather, a marked absence of them. Far down the tunnel, she saw the line of glowing blue eyes, but it was interrupted in the middle by bleak, black emptiness. It didn’t take her too long to realize that the reason she couldn’t see it was because something was blocking it. And the only thing that could possibly be blocking the glow of those eyes was a staircase descending from the ceiling.
“There!” she shouted, pointing into the dark. “The stairs are that way! Come on!”
She started flying off in that way as fast as her companions could follow her through the water, knowing that they relied on her for guidance. For her part, Rainbow wouldn’t even hazard taking her eyes off the stairs; she feared that the moment she did, she’d lose them, and she couldn’t afford to get lost again. But it was still a grueling flight, for no matter how fast her companions could push through the water and oily black shadows, it seemed like the zombies continued to close around them.
But then by some miracle, she saw the ghostly reflection of a tiny candle of light on stones rising up in front of her. Flaring her wings, her hooves touched the stairs, and she quickly figured out her balance before enough light had even been shed on them to allow her to see the individual stairs. “Up here!” she shouted. “The stairs! Come on!”
She looked back in horror to see the other six ponies barely pushing through a small knot of open space to make it to the stairs. Even as Black Flag touched the first stair with a hoof, the zombies finally closed in on the survivors, flinging their blighted weight on them all. She heard struggling and screaming as the horde fell on them like a wave, and she saw somepony’s hooves slip into the water as the zombies fell upon them.
Perched on the stairs, Rainbow tried to shout encouragement down to her companions urging them up the stairs, but her eyes widened when Black Flag suddenly stopped and pulled out a pistol, pointing it in Rainbow’s direction. Alarmed, Rainbow dropped low right as Flag fired, but instead of hitting her, she heard the bullet shatter bone behind her and something fell off the stairs and into the water with a moan. Spinning in place, she saw a few zombies shuffling down the stairs from above, and she realized they likely had to be coming from the room that they’d opened on the way down. Now she was thankful that they hadn’t opened both doors, or else there’d be even more coming down the stairs at them.
But there wasn’t anything she can do now about that except try to fight her way past them. They were already starting to clog up the exit and if she didn’t move quickly, they’d all be trapped between two different hordes. So, screaming, she launched herself at the zombies, summoning memories of her fight against the changelings at the royal wedding years ago. Spinning, kicking, biting, and dodging, Rainbow gradually fought her way up the stairs, trying to fling as many of the zombies off of them and into the water below as she could manage. And though she made good progress against the largely lethargic and clumsy dead, she didn’t manage it without suffering some blows. Jagged teeth sliced at her flesh and drew blood, but with sheer determination, Rainbow soon fought her way to the top of the stairs, Black Flag at her side as she cleared a path.
And then they were through, or at least had opened up enough of a hole to make a break for safety. Wasting no time, Rainbow darted through the gap, though she lingered to see who else of her companions made it up the stairs with her. Flag galloped past her and to the safety of the open sky, and after a few moments he was joined by Clever Ruse and Ratchet. Several more pistol shots cracked off the walls just down the stairs followed by a feminine scream, and then a moonstruck corpse shambled up the stairs and howled at Rainbow. Rainbow swallowed hard and immediately took off for the opening when she realized that nopony else would be joining her.
Her blood ran cold as she fled to the open ground above. Ruse, Ratchet, and Flag were the only ones who made it out of the swarm. Bearings, Hayseed, and Straight Edges all fell somewhere in the chaos. What had started as seven ponies had dwindled to four. And Rarity still was nowhere to be seen.
Rainbow knew that if any of them survived the night, it would be nothing short of a miracle.
Bit by bit, Rarity drifted back into the painful world of the living.
For several minutes, she merely hung in a nearly senseless void, the only stimuli assaulting her brain being her own nausea and an ache in her side. Her world was a painful haze, and it prevented her from even seeing straight. Her body swayed every time she moved it, and it felt like somepony kept a vice grip locked on her flank, making her lower body difficult to move.
Wincing and groaning, Rarity managed to open her eyes. Her forelegs dangled past her muzzle, hooves resting on nothing but the open air, and the sight finally kickstarted her brain back into gear when she realized she wasn’t standing on anything. Squealing, she began to flail her legs and twist her body around, but it took her another few seconds to realize she wasn’t falling. Instead, she appeared to be hanging about fifteen feet above the ground by something, perhaps whatever it was that seemingly held onto her flank with an iron grip.
Grunting and twisting her sore muscles, Rarity managed to look back over her shoulder, only for her eyes to widen in shock at what she saw. Her skin and pristine white coat turned to stone near her cutie mark, where she’d inadvertently teleported her flank an inch deep into the stone of a stalactite hanging from the ceiling. That alone seemed to be keeping her in the air, and the cold lack of sensation near her mark started to unnerve Rarity even more than the grotesque fusion of flesh and stone at her side.
Shuddering, she let her body fall limp once more, simply trying to process her current situation. At the very least, she hadn’t teleported herself more directly inside the stalactite. If she’d shifted her teleport by another few inches, it could’ve struck deep through her body and she almost certainly would’ve died. As it was, it was only a flesh wound, but still deep enough to be problematic. And she was not looking forward to the pain that would come when she tried to separate herself from it.
While she steeled herself for the inevitable, however, she allowed herself to get a look at her surroundings. Even though her horn hurt, she forced some light into it so she could see where she was. Its blue glow revealed a twisting passage beneath the earth, rising up around strange rock formations as it turned out of sight, while below her, a pool of stagnant water waited. Over her shoulder, she recognized a flat wall that led back to the strange altar and the dark spirit about fifty or sixty yards away. She’d at least gotten some desperate distance with her last jump, and nothing had tried to kill her while she was unconscious from the exertion and pain. But now she had to get out of here and find a way back to Rainbow and her friends.
She once more regarded the stalactite embedded in her side. She didn’t want to simply tear herself off of it, because she had a feeling that would take a long and painful time. If she was going to separate from it, she wanted to do it as fast as possible so the pain didn’t linger. Thankfully, she realized she still had her cutlass and pistol on her, so she drew the former with her magic and bit her lip. Resting the tip on the line between flesh and stone, she floated the pistol to her mouth so she could bite down on the wooden body and thrusted with her sword.
The extreme pain seemed to only be made worse by the knowledge she was inflicting it upon herself, but thankfully, once she put some force behind it, the cutlass sliced cleanly through her flank. Though the pain left her shivering and trembling when she finally finished, she didn’t give herself any time to try and rest and relax. While she still had adrenaline in her veins, Rarity made two more painful cuts and yelped when she suddenly broke free of the stalactite and fell into the murky water below.
She splashed back to the surface of the small pond with sputtering gasps and quickly dragged herself out of the water. She stuffed a tiny piece of cloth she had on her into the wound in her side to try and stem the bleeding, and after making sure it was secure, she stood up again and started to limp out of the tunnel. She was free, so that was the first part finished, but now she had to find a way out while barely able to move her left hind leg. And even if she made it back to camp and her friends, she knew her struggles weren’t over yet. She still had to contend with the risk of infection, and if her wound began to fester, she might as well already be dead.
That wasn’t something she could worry about now, though. As it stood, she was trapped deep beneath the earth with only a single hope that the twisting tunnels she now found herself in led to a way back to the surface. With any luck, they wouldn’t take too long to navigate, and she could be back in front of the temple again to find Rainbow and the rest of her friends, assuming nothing bad had happened to them. What she saw of Soft Step and the other pirate worried her, especially given that they had to come through Rainbow and Bearings and Stargazer to even get to her in the first place. Were they alright? She had no idea.
Limping along, she started to cross the slick stones around her, eyes straining by the feeble light of her horn to look for anything resembling an exit.
-----
Rainbow Dash came to a stop at the top of the temple stairs, where the rest of the survivors who escaped the tomb were all catching their breath. Wheezing, she put her hooves on the stone wall and doubled over, trying to shift as much oxygen to her muscles as she could. Nopony said anything for several seconds; they were all too frightened and tired.
Champagne emerged from the darkness around them, a worried look on her face. “What’s happening down there?” she asked as soon as she saw the four ponies standing in the moonlight. “It sounds like something awful!”
“Zah… Zombies,” Rainbow said, swallowing hard and wiping some blood off her muzzle with a wingtip. “Whatever Soft Step and the others were trying to do, they did it, and now all the bodies in the tomb are coming to life.”
Champagne’s eyes shrank to pinpricks. “Oh no,” she breathed. “We’re all going to die, aren’t we?”
Black Flag coughed and looked back at the entrance to the tomb. “They haven’t gotten out yet,” he said. “And the moon’s almost set on the tomb. See? Look at the shadows.”
Rainbow pivoted her head about and saw that he was right. Within the next fifteen minutes or so, the door to the temple would lose sight of the moon, and would hypothetically close. She didn’t know if it actually would, but if Black Flag was right, then she knew what he was suggesting. “If we keep the zombies from getting out of the tomb for fifteen minutes…” she began.
Ratchet picked up on what she was saying. “We can keep them locked in the tomb!”
“How are we going to fend off that many zombies?” Clever Ruse asked. “It’s just five of us against a horde!”
“We have to try,” Rainbow said. “Even if we delay them, we can stop the entire army from getting out. If we can stop the army, then we have a chance to make it.”
Ratchet and Champagne nodded, and Champagne fluttered down to the stairs with them. “Take up a line by the entrance,” Ratchet said. “Get ready to fight.”
Instead of doing that, however, Black Flag trotted away from the doors and turned his attention skyward. Rainbow raised an eyebrow at him and stepped over. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “We need your help!”
“Getting reinforcements,” Flag said, and he stuck his hoof into his mouth and let loose a shrill whistle into the night.
Moments later, feathers fluttered and another pegasus flew down out of the skies. Rainbow stepped back in surprise and widened her eyes. “You had a pony of your crew out here this whole time?” she asked in shock.
“I didn’t know if I could trust you or not,” Flag said. “He was my backup plan.”
The other pirate scowled at Rainbow. “I don’t even want to know what you all have done for Flag to call me down,” he said. Then, turning to the captain, he raised an eyebrow. “What are we doing?”
“Holding the line,” Flag said, and he immediately turned to gallop down the stairs. Both Rainbow and the other pirate watched him go, then exchanged looks at each other.
“We need your help,” Rainbow said, already running down the stairs after Flag. “I hope you’re ready to fight!”
Gyro did her best to ignore the sounds of Doctor Gauze frantically working on his patient behind her. She didn’t want to pay too much attention to it, because she knew it’d just get her worried and worked up about something she couldn’t help with. Instead, she kept her focus turned to the moon, watching its pale glow retreat bit by bit, minute by minute. She knew if her friends didn’t make it back soon, then they could’ve very well been trapped within the tomb with those other moonstruck and enchanted ponies.
Hopefully they wouldn’t end up like them…
While Gauze was the only pony at the camp who was actively busy and working, that didn’t mean anypony else (with the exception of the unconscious Hot Coals) got any rest. Not even Stargazer had taken it easy, and had instead resorted to pacing until he’d carved a shallow trench out of the sand with his constant nervous back and forth walking. By now, excitement and anxious worrying had chased away all of Gyro’s exhaustion, and she knew she wasn’t going to be sleeping for another several hours. She definitely wouldn’t be able to sleep calmly until Rainbow and Rarity got back and she heard from them what the situation was.
As she waited, however, Doctor Gauze surprised her by trudging out of his hut. His white coat was stained with drying blood for the second time that night, and his eyebrows had knitted themselves together in a pensive expression. Swallowing hard, Gyro looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “Is she going to…?”
Gauze sighed and sat down next to her. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve done my best to stabilize her, but she’s very, very weak. The next twenty-four hours will be crucial to her survival. If she doesn’t show signs of recovery by then, she won’t make it.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Gyro asked. “She’s just… lost a lot of blood?”
“I had to stitch her carotid artery back together,” he said. “She’s suffered severe blood loss, and I’m worried that it might have given her brain damage.”
“Coals also had blood loss,” Gyro said. “But he’s not going to die, right? You’re saying that Linens’ was worse?”
“Much worse.” Gauze nodded. “Hot Coals had a deep puncture wound in his torso, but Rainbow did right to not remove the bullet until he could be treated. That stopped him from losing more blood. But Linens was bleeding profusely from her neck until she could finally be brought to me.” He shook his head. “She lost a lot more blood, and she’s straddling the line of life and death. I don’t expect her to recover.”
Gyro blinked. “But… how can you say that?”
“Because I’m a doctor.” Gauze stood up, grunted, and blew air out his nostrils. “I’ve done all I can for her, and it likely won’t be enough. But maybe through some miracle she’ll make it. Until then…” He shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully everypony else will come back to me just fine and I won’t have to treat even more wounded.”
“Hopefully,” Gyro said, echoing his sentiments. “But I have a feeling it’s not over yet…”
-----
Rainbow only had a minute at the absolute most to ready herself for a fight. The zombies and mummies moved slow, sure, but they crept forward at an inexorably constant and steady pace. Soon, they’d be on top of her and the other survivors, and soon she’d be fighting for her life. But it was something she had to do if she was going to keep everypony else safe.
It was strange to imagine herself in a stand up fight like this. The closest she had to compare to was the fight against the changelings during the wedding, but even that had been a mad and manic rush to get to the Elements of Harmony with little time to think or fight for fighting’s sake. This was different. With five other ponies at her sides, the only thing she had to do now was hold the line. No matter what, she had to repel the zombies long enough for the moon to disappear and the doors to close. But given that she had a horde slowly shambling towards the exit, she wondered if she’d even manage to hold them back for a minute.
“Can you hold them back with your magic?” Rainbow asked Ruse, already eyeing the first zombies shuffling toward the door. “That would make this a lot easier.”
“I can put up a wall,” Ruse said, his horn flaring to life, “but sooner or later, they’re going to push through it with sheer force alone.”
“It’ll slow them down,” Rainbow said. “That’s all we need right now. Just to slow them down.”
A shimmering wall of nearly translucent magic appeared across the corridor, blocking the advance of the mummies. But as their numbers grew, they threw more and more of their snapping jaws and bony hooves against the wall of magic, beating and banging on it as much as they could. Cracks began to develop in the shield, and Ruse strained more and more to reinforce it and keep it up. He kept at it for almost five minutes, but finally, with sweat pouring down his face, he could only croak out a warning to his companions. “It… won’t be up… much longer!”
Almost as soon as he said that, the shield collapsed in a shower of glittering sparks, and the zombies began to march forward. They moved about in straggling numbers as they fit through the door, which was good for them, Rainbow realized. If they’d moved as one army, then the six of them couldn’t possibly hold them back. But like this, they had a chance.
“Shoot!” Rainbow shouted, reaching for her own pistol. “Thin them out!”
Several puffs of smoke erupted from the pistols the ponies carried on them, and the heavy lead balls shattered bone and mangled the mummies marching on them. But it was barely more than a gentle shove against their advance, for they continued to close in, missing limbs and heads or not. Soon, they were within cutlass range, and Rainbow switched weapons to her sword to try and fight against them and poke them back.
Though the six ponies stood strong through the first assault, shattering limbs and heads to render the zombies incapable of moving or pressing onwards any more, Rainbow knew it was a lost cause. Little by little, they found themselves being pushed away from the entrance, everypony backing up the stairs one at a time to get a little more room against the horde. Before Rainbow knew it, they were a quarter of the way back up the stairs, and the mummies kept coming.
That was when Champagne cried out and pointed. “The moon! It’s almost gone!”
Rainbow blinked and saw that she was right. There was only a little sliver of moonlight left on the arch above the tomb doors. They just had to hold on for another minute. “Push!” she shouted to her friends, renewed vigor empowering her limbs. “One last push! Get them behind those doors!”
Her companions answered her rallying cry, and together, they fought back against the zombies, hacking and slicing with renewed vigor and trying to push their clumsy, shuffling bodies back down the stairs. They slowly advanced, inch by inch, dropping one body at a time and then immediately stepping in to fill the space before a new one could take it. The stench of blood and death reeked and nearly made Rainbow sick, but she pushed on, knowing that she needed to get to the door.
A boom of stone shook the ground, and Rainbow saw the stone doors begin to slowly move. The moonlight had finally disappeared from the face of the tomb, and now the doors were sealing. Soon, they closed enough that the zombies could hardly get through, and her companions all tightened their ranks to stop what few there were.
But just before the doors closed, however, Rainbow thought she saw something. Moving through the back of the zombies, a tall figure with a long, sharp horn tried to push its way to the front. She saw wings unfurl at its sides, and slitted eyes seemed to glow in the darkness within. It hissed at her in frustration, revealing numerous sharp, white fangs. With a flap of its wings, it lunged for the gap in the doors…
…only for them to barely slam shut in its face. The temple shook with the resounding boom, and the hissing and moaning of the mummies and zombies suddenly fell silent. With the doors sealed, even the mummies and corpses still writhing around outside on the stairs fell still and dead. Rainbow expected them to move again at any second, but they remained motionless, lifeless. Whatever had been controlling them earlier, sealing the doors had severed that magic and returned them to lifeless corpses.
Her friends immediately cheered and embraced, though the two pirates stood off to the side. But while they celebrated their victory, Rainbow could only stare at the seam in the doors and try to process what she had seen.
If it was what she thought it was, then she knew they’d only put the nightmare on hold. They weren’t out of the woods yet.
Without a horde of mummies and zombies descending on them, the night felt almost peaceful outside the tomb doors.
Rainbow Dash dropped her cutlass on the ground and fell to her haunches on a clean section of the stairs that wasn’t covered in zombie gore. After such a frantic flight and fight for survival, her body felt like it was going to simply shut down and sleep for a million years. She’d had too many wild nights in a row now, and what she really needed was some peace and quiet to rest and recover. But apart from this one moment, she doubted she’d have that luxury any time soon. What she had seen beyond the door, and even simply what was happening at these temples, left her worried about what was to come.
“Is… is everypony alright?” Ratchet asked, leaning against a wall for support. “Nopony’s hurt, right?”
“Does being bit count?” Ruse asked. “These aren’t the kind of zombies that infect with a bite, right?”
“I don’t think so. They’re raised by magic, not some sort of plague.” After a few more moments to recover his breath, Ratchet stepped away from the wall and toward Rainbow. “You alright, Rainbow? You look like you got bit some.”
Rainbow waved him off with a wing. “I’m fine. It hurts, but it’s nothing.”
“If you say so.” He lingered a bit longer, and ultimately sat down next to Rainbow. “You seem distracted. If you’re worried about Rarity… well, the tomb was in a big cavern, right? Surely there’s another way out for her.”
“It’s not just that,” Rainbow said. “I… thought I saw something, right when we were closing the doors.”
“Saw something?” Ratchet raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t see anything, but then again, I was too busy fighting off a horde of moon mummies to really pay attention to what was happening on the other side of the doors.”
“What was it?” Flag asked, approaching the two of them. “If this shit isn’t over, I want to know, now.”
Rainbow shrugged her wings, beginning to doubt that what she’d seen. It just seemed too unreal, too impossible. “I… thought I saw a dark alicorn,” she said. “Behind the zombies. She had slitted eyes and fangs and a big, curved horn to go with her big wings. She… she looked like Nightmare Moon.”
“Nightmare Moon?” Champagne asked, piping up from further up the stairs. “But that’s… that can’t be right. Can it?”
“Unless good Princess Luna decided to roleplay as her alter ego out in the middle of nowhere just to scare us, I don’t believe it,” Jolly Roger said. He flicked his wings and snorted. “You were seeing things, you dumb bitch. Freaking out about nothing.”
Rainbow glared at him and ruffled her feathers some. “I know what I saw,” she growled at him. “Something like that sticks out.”
“Then if there’s really a dark alicorn inside of those doors,” Roger countered, pointing with his wing, “how come she hasn’t smashed them open yet? Alicorns can do anything. A tomb like this would be fucking nothing to them.”
“Alicorns can’t do everything. This tomb’s magically protected and stuff. I don’t think one could get through that.”
“Oh yeah? How would you know?”
“Because I’m best friends with one, you friggin’ idiot.” Rainbow groaned and rubbed a sore spot on her muzzle, her damaged teeth beginning to ache and throb after fighting with a cutlass in her mouth. “You know what, I don’t really care if you believe me. The important thing is that we’re not zombie chow, and closing the doors seems to have stopped it for the time being.”
“What happens when the moon returns tomorrow night?” Flag asked. “This whole ordeal could start all over again.”
“Hopefully the weather keeps the moon away,” Rainbow said. “The cloud cover over the temple was magically summoned. Assuming that magic is still working, then the moon shouldn’t touch the doors tomorrow.”
“If there really is a dark alicorn inside there,” Ratchet began, “do you really think that enchantment will continue to work?”
Rainbow bit down on her lip. “I don’t’ really know,” she admitted. “But it’s working now. So we’re safe for the time being.”
“Safe?” Jolly scowled at Rainbow and opened his wings some in a display of aggressive body language. “I still don’t really know what you did or what you were trying to do, but we’re all fucked now if those doors ever open again. You fucked us all! Zombies and now supposedly a dark alicorn? We’re screwed!”
Ratchet glared at the pirate. “We’re not screwed yet—”
“I’m surprised you can even take her side,” Flag said. “How many members of your crew did you lose tonight on her stupid plan, huh? Because I just know that opening the tomb and trying to get at what’s inside was her idea, not yours.”
The aging engineer sighed and lowered his head. “Four. Maybe five, if Fresh Linens makes it or not.”
“We lost three,” Flag said. “Hayseed died screaming down there, and Matchlock and Scabbard were turned by this dark magic shit. We’ve lost seven ponies because you idiots wanted to open a fucking door. Eight, if you include that missing unicorn bitch of yours, and nine if the bleeding one dies too. Now how many of us are left? Just the six of us here? Plus however many you have back at your camp?”
“There are eight of us that can fight, altogether,” Ratchet said. “That’s it.”
Flag nodded and glared at Rainbow, and Rainbow shrank back when she realized some of that ire was reflected in Champagne’s and Ruse’s faces. “Last night, after your attack on our camp, there were seventeen of us in good shape on this island. Now you’ve halved it. And for what? Did you even find what you were looking for?”
Rainbow swallowed hard and hung her head. “Rarity might have it…”
“She’s fucking dead,” Roger spat at her. “You don’t need to see a body to know that.”
“She’s not dead!” Rainbow protested. “I know it!”
“She’s fucking dead. Get over yourself.” Flag shook his head and sneered. “You’ve fucked us all over, you colorful queer. If you were a part of my crew, I’d fucking slice you open and let the flies eat you from the inside out for this.” He shifted his glare to Ratchet. “How you ever let yourself get talked into a stupid idea by this cunt when it’s clear she has no idea what she’s actually doing, I’ll never know. But now we’re all paying the price for it, like it or not.”
He turned around and started marching up the stairs. “I’m gonna take a shit,” he growled. “Nothing would bring me greater joy than hearing that bitch scream as somepony pulls her wings off while I do.”
He disappeared over the top of the stairs, and Jolly Roger soon after took wing and vanished into the sky. Champagne, Ruse, and Ratchet lingered by the door, but they didn’t meet Rainbow’s gaze.
“Y-You guys know why we had to do this, right?” Rainbow asked him in a small voice. “You understand, don’t you?”
“I understand why you thought we had to,” Ratchet said. “But with nothing to show for it except a pile of corpses, I don’t think it was worth it.”
“We were a crew. We were friends,” Champagne said, and she wiped at her eyes with a wingtip. “Soft Step was one of my best friends. And now she’s dead. Or worse.” Sniffling, the mare turned away and galloped up the stairs, her wings fluttering and ultimately giving her the lift she needed to get airborne and escape from the carnage.
“Champagne, I…” Rainbow sighed and lowered her hoof as the mare continued to flee into solitude. She glanced at Ruse, who merely watched her with a judging glare, and hung her head. “I’m sorry,” she managed. “I… I didn’t think any of this was going to happen.”
“Neither did we,” Ruse said, walking away. “Neither did we.”
Rarity stopped for air on an outcropping of rock in the middle of the tunnels. The caves beneath the islands seemed to wind on forever and ever, and she didn’t know how long she’d been lost exploring them. Whether it had been five minutes or five hours, she couldn’t keep track of it anymore. She was tired and hurt all over, and to make things worse, her bleeding flank was starting to leave her lightheaded. It’d already soaked through her makeshift bandage, and she didn’t have any more cloth to patch it up with. Her best bet now was to make it out of the caves and get back home.
But if there was an exit to these caves, she hadn’t seen it anywhere. Occasionally she would see a twisting gap in the walls leading up into the ceiling, but she couldn’t even see the other end of it when she tried peering inside. Without seeing the other end, she couldn’t reasonably judge her distance for a teleport, and the fear of impaling herself through a tree or only emerging halfway out of the earth was too terrifying a prospect for her to risk. Her best bet was to find a natural opening to walk out of or a gap in the rocks that would allow her to see the outside, but so far, she’d come across neither.
She rubbed her sore horn, and the mere touch left her sick and in pain. She’d pushed her horn well past its limits already. She didn’t even know if it had enough juice for another teleport, should the opportunity arise. The split in the tip she’d inflicted on it two days ago was still there, and had even widened slightly with the constant magical exertion she’d forced on it since. The teleports definitely didn’t help in that regard, but at the very least, it hadn’t completely split down the middle like it had in the immediate aftermath of the Concordia’s wrecking. But at the rate Rarity was using her magic, she wondered if her horn would permanently have a split or a divot near the tip from the constant injuries it was sustaining.
She sighed and twitched her scalp around her missing ear. A month ago, all she’d worried about was returning to Equestria with leathery skin and wrinkles from too much exposure to the scalding sun. Now, merely making it back in one piece had become all but impossible. Between her missing ear, deep gouge in her flank, and splitting horn, she could already feel her status as an icon of beauty and sex appeal slipping away from her.
Her status as a living pony was also going to slip away if she didn’t get moving again, though, and that, ultimately, was more important than her appearance, if only by a little. Hissing in pain from the wound in her flank, Rarity managed to clamber back to her three hooves while keeping her fourth off the ground to not aggravate the injury anymore. Once she had done that, she resumed her painful and exhausting trek through the caves, more dragging herself along with her forehooves than actually walking. For a moment, she imagined how Gyro must’ve similarly felt when she lost the use of her hind legs, and a fresh wave of sympathy for the engineer’s plight washed over her. Trying to pogo around on one hind leg was already bad enough; she didn’t want to imagine trying to navigate these caves with only her forelegs.
The caves overall seemed like more of the same, constantly repeating themselves in slight variations of patterns. They rose and fell, were filled with stalactites and stalagmites, and even had trickling gullies of water running through little channels in the stone. Some insects crawled around the rock formations, and Rarity would occasionally hear the chittering of distant bats down a branching cave. Again, she reassured herself that if bats could get in, then they could get out. And hopefully their way out would be more than just a tiny gap she couldn’t possibly fit through or even see out of like some she’d already encountered.
But she did note that the tunnels overall seemed to be trending upwards, which was good. She’d ended up so far below the earth while exploring the tomb that the only way to get back to the surface was to start hiking upwards. And even though the inclined gradient made it more difficult for her to navigate the slippery rocks on three hooves, it was at least a sign of tangible progress. So long as she kept moving upwards, It was only a matter of time before she finally emerged into the moonlight once more.
Before she could even get there, however, she came across her first impasse. The tunnel abruptly transitioned into a sheer cliff directly in front of her, rising maybe fifty feet out of the ground before presumably continuing at the top. Rocky outcroppings and seams in the stone provided the only traction to scale the cliff face, and many of those barely offered room for more than a hoof or two. Rarity’s heart fell as she realized she would have to scale the thing on three hooves, or risk burning a teleport and hoping she still had enough energy left for another one should she need it. And she doubted her horn could take two more teleports, let alone one.
“This is exactly what I needed,” she grumbled. “As if making this far didn’t prove my endurance enough! Couldn’t I have just found an exit to these cursed tunnels without this much fuss?!”
Of course, complaining at the stone wasn’t going to encourage it to move, so Rarity sighed and trudged over to the base after a minute to catch her breath. She was running on fumes by now, and it would take everything she had left to make it to the top of the cliff. Whether an exit or a dead end awaited her at the top of the cliff, Rarity knew she wasn’t going back down. She’d either make it out of these tunnels or starve down here, but she was not going to go back towards the tomb. After the horrors she witnessed there, it might as well have been akin to suicide.
She swallowed and looked up at the cliff. Not like this prospect was any different, though…
Shuffling into position at the base, she started to carefully pick her way up the rocky seams and jutting stones, simply trying to find the best way to the top. Her progress was slow but steady at first; thankfully she already had experience scaling a sheer rock face when she followed Gyro to the piece of the Concordia’s wreckage. It meant she at least knew what she was doing, but with her crippling physical limitations, she doubted it would make up for much once the going got rough.
And get rough it did. It didn’t take long before she reached a stretch of rock with no easy outcroppings within a foreleg’s reach. Instead, she stared down a sizable gap between one platform and the next, followed by a seam in the rock that she’d have to wedge herself into and scale vertically to make it to the top. Again, the temptation to pour her all into a teleport began to weigh down on her, especially when she considered how far of a fall it was to the ground below, but she had to temper herself with a reminder that burning her last teleport now could kill her later. At least here, if she made the jump and the shimmying climb, she’d be home free. Or so she hoped.
Rarity let her injured leg touch the floor and chanced putting some weight on it. It hurt, and hurt bad, but with the desperation of the jump ahead of her, she could afford to force herself through the pain. She needed to propel with both her hind legs if she wanted to clear the gap, not just one. Trying to jump using only one leg would almost certainly cause her to fall short and end her.
Looking at her oozing wound, she swallowed hard and gritted her teeth. “Please don’t begin profusely bleeding again,” she asked it, knowing full well that the stress she was about to put on her thigh would likely cause it to do exactly that. Then, setting her sights on the opposite platform, she swallowed hard, lowered her head, and began to gallop toward the edge.
Pain knifed her in the side with every step her hind leg took, and she nearly stumbled after the first. But she only had a small amount of space to work with; by the time she took the fourth, she was already at the edge. Grunting in exertion, Rarity reared back, put both her hind legs on the stone, and kicked off as hard as she could, flinging herself across the gap.
She barely cleared the distance, and ended up scrabbling at the rocks and stones on the edge for something to hold onto. She found it in a tiny stalagmite, and hooking her forelegs around it, cried out as she hauled her body onto the platform. She immediately collapsed onto the protrusion as soon as she’d pulled herself away from the edge, panting and feeling warm blood trickle down her leg. She knew if she didn’t find something to bandage it up with soon, she’d end up bleeding out very quickly.
And she still wasn’t done.
The next stage of the ascent loomed over her, tall and intimidating. Just the mere sight of what she had to do filled Rarity with dread. Sitting up, she rested her back against the stone and put her hooves over her wound, trying to stem the bleeding as best she could while she worked up the strength and the willpower to tackle the next stage of the climb.
“Five minutes,” she grunted to herself. “Just… five minutes.”
Five minutes came and went far too quickly for Rarity. The longer she stayed seated, perched on that rocky ledge, the less she wanted to move. It was all too tempting to simply curl up and take a nap, especially given all she’d struggled through that night, and especially since it was likely approaching the sunrise. But she knew that if she stopped and took a nap here, she’d never wake up from it.
It was ultimately that terrifying prospect that sent Rarity climbing back to her hooves when she found herself nodding off. Her entire left hind leg from hoof to flank was covered in sticky red blood from the still bleeding wound in her side, and Rarity’s head was swimming. She didn’t have much time left to make it back to her friends before it was too late. She needed to move now, and that’s what she did.
Limping over to the seam in the stone, Rarity rose up onto her hind legs and shimmied into the gap. Then, placing her back against one wall and her hooves against the other, she grunted and began to pull herself up the crack. By alternating which hooves she used to pull herself up the rocks and which to carry her weight, she made slow and agonizing progress, but it was progress nonetheless.
She had to stop about halfway up to catch her breath and rest her forelegs, using one hindleg and her back to carry her weight while she was wedged into place. It was then that she realized she could hear the steady drip, drip, dripping of blood trickling down her injured leg, distorted all the more by her missing ear. Every drip was another bit of her life flowing away, another milliliter of blood closer to empty. It drove her mad, and she hurriedly resumed her climb, probably before she should have done so, not waiting for her limbs to be fully rested to continue.
And she almost paid the price for it. After shimmying up a little further, her hind hoof slipped on the stone, and she immediately jammed her other leg into the rock walls and reached out with her hooves for something to hold onto. She ended up in an awkwardly contorted position with a leg dangling over nothing when she came to a stop, her lower lip brought to the verge of bleeding as she chomped down on it. But she had stabilized herself, and she wasn’t falling any more, so she carefully maneuvered her legs and reset herself for the remainder of the climb.
A climb that would surely kill her at this rate…
But Rarity was nothing if not stubborn and determined to see her goals through. She continued onwards, her latest brush with death sharpening her senses for a few minutes, just long enough to see the climb through. Cautiously placing her hooves so she wouldn’t repeat her slip, she managed to drag herself up the last bit of the climb, ultimately flopping onto the ledge just above. Panting and panting, she took a few moments to recover her breath before dragging herself up the rest of the way. Her limbs were stiff and her muscles ached from the exertion, but she’d done it. Somehow, she’d done it. She didn’t even think it was possible, but here she was.
But she knew that didn’t mean much if she didn’t make it any farther. The light shining from her horn was fizzling and dimming, bleeding away along with her life and energy. She decided to momentarily give it a rest to save energy, and she let out a breath of air when she stopped letting mana trickle into her horn. But she blinked in surprise when she realized she could still faintly see the topography of the cave around her.
It took her several seconds for her sluggish mind to realize that if she could see inside the cave, then there was light reflecting off the stone from somewhere. And with her horn no longer casting, the only light that could possibly be illuminating the caves had to be from the moon. Once more, she dragged herself onto protesting legs and started to walk, fumbling about in the dark but lured onwards by the promise of moonlight and an escape from the tunnels.
The cave made a twist to the left, but it gradually opened up, bit by bit, into a larger cavern, the light on the walls brightening the farther Rarity progressed. When she finally rounded a corner and was greeted with the sight of the moon knifing through the leafy tops of the palm trees in the open, Rarity almost cried out with joy. Somehow, the meandering caves had taken her to the far end of the island with the mountain, and she found herself peering out of an opening in the stone from about a third of the way up and looking out over the interior of the shattered archipelago. The moon practically touched the oceans swallowing the horizon, and the sky was very faintly beginning to brighten. Soon, it would be morning, and the horrible night would finally be put to an end.
But the moon and her escape wasn’t the only thing she happened to see. Nestled into a crook of rocks with its face to the entrance of the cave, the remains of a skeleton sat, peacefully slouched over. Rarity was too tired by this point to even scream when she saw it, but when she looked at how old it was and how it hadn’t moved for a long time, she started to calm down. Though this night had taught her to expect anything, the skeleton standing up and attacking her didn’t seem likely right now. She hoped.
The remains weren’t there alone, however. Under a bony hoof, Rarity saw a green gem like an emerald resting on the stone. She carefully plucked it out with her magic and held it into the air. It had been meticulously cut and polished, so much so that it even retained its luster after all these years. If she rubbed it on her coat, she could wipe away what dust had accumulated on it and see almost perfectly through it. It was beautiful, and neither was it a small gem. It was slightly larger than her hoof, and even in gem-rich Equestria, a stone like this would have significant value. But what it was or why it was so important that this pony had died while holding it, Rarity didn’t know.
She winced as her hooves started to go numb and her stance began to sway. She was losing too much blood to linger up here. Maybe she could revisit this cave opening later if she wanted, but for the time being, she needed to bandage her wound, rest, and recover. But with the survivor camp all the way on the other side of the island, she doubted she’d be able to make it back there before she collapsed from blood loss and exhaustion.
But she was close to their original landing site some days ago. It would be a much shorter walk down the mountain and to their supplies and raft than to try to cross the archipelago. Besides, there was food and water there, and she was in desperate need of both, along with some bandages and stitches. The latter would be difficult without Doctor Gauze’s needle and thread, but Rarity knew she could find a way to improvise. Worst case scenario, she could try to fashion a needle out of some tree bark. She just needed something to carry a thread through her flesh.
Knowing that her salvation lied in moving to her supplies and not wasting time thinking and not moving, Rarity started to hike down the mountain, angling toward the beach.
Rainbow Dash perched on top of a broken column, watching the moon slip beneath the sea with sleepy eyes. With the tomb sealed once more and no signs of it opening again, the expedition had taken some time to rest, recover, and let tempers cool off before venturing back to camp. Where the other five ponies had gone, Rainbow didn’t really know, nor did she care. She was already feeling down enough as it was.
Her wings sagged at her sides, the tips hanging loosely over the edges of the broken column, and she dejectedly sighed. After the harsh words directed at her, she didn’t want to move or do anything. The worst part was that they were right. The expedition was her idea, hers and Rarity’s, and now it had gotten so many ponies killed or turned or whatever. She didn’t even know if Rarity was among their number or not. After the verbal lashing she received for her failures, she started to imagine Rarity had fallen prey to that dark alicorn, whether her worries were warranted or not. She already blamed herself for getting so many other ponies killed or worse, and if Rarity joined them, she knew she’d never be able to forgive herself.
Despondent as she was, she wasn’t going to give up until she saw a body, however. But that was the problem. If there was a body, it was either buried deep in the tomb with all the mummies and monsters, or someplace she’d never find it. What would she do if Rarity didn’t return soon? What if days, weeks, even months passed with no sign of her? Would she finally admit to herself that Rarity was dead? Or would she continue to hold out hope that she was still alive somewhere?
She swallowed through her tightening throat and laid her head on her crossed forelegs. Again, she felt the overwhelming urge to fly far, far away, curl up in a ball, and pretend that none of this happened and nopony could blame her for anything. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it, not now. She was simply too tired to fly and too lethargic from the crushing failure of an expedition to even work up the willpower to try. She just wanted to be left alone and sulk, devoured from the inside out by the spiteful words thrown at her.
Of course, that meant that she couldn’t be alone for too long. It didn’t take all that much time before she heard hoofsteps approaching from below. Frowning, she tried her best to ignore them, even when the pony cleared his throat in an effort to get her attention.
“How are you feeling, Rainbow?” Ratchet ultimately asked her when she did not respond. “You alright?”
“Go away,” Rainbow grumbled, burying her nose into the crook of a foreleg. “I don’t need this right now. Just let me be.”
But Ratchet would not let her be. She heard him sigh and sit down at the base of the pillar; she was glad he wasn’t a unicorn or pegasus that could figure out some way to get up to her and bother her from even closer. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you friggin’ sorry?” Rainbow muttered.
“For lashing out at you,” Ratchet said. “For all of us lashing out at you. I spoke with Ruse and Champagne. They… regret what they said to you.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Rainbow grumbled, noticing that it was still only Ratchet beneath her. “It was nice of them to tell me in person.”
“They’re keeping an eye on the pirates. Now that we’re not tearing through a tomb, I don’t know what Flag and the other are going to do. But I don’t want them slinking off into the wilderness on their own.”
“Uh huh.”
She heard the older stallion sigh and scratch at his neck. “Nopony blames you for what happened down there. Tensions were running high, and of course the pirates were going to chew you out like that. They’re pirates. We were never on friendly terms with them to begin with. You especially, given what I know about your time with them.”
Rainbow Dash remained silent, her eyes still glaring at what was left of the setting moon.
“So again, I’m sorry, and I’m sorry on Ruse’s and Champagne’s behalves, at least. I know you’re worrying about Rarity, and rightfully so. But none of us could have expected what we’d seen down there, and so we reacted accordingly.” After a moment of silence, he added, “At least it was for a good cause.”
“Was it?” Rainbow asked.
“It’s better than what we were doing before.” Rainbow raised her head a little, just enough to look down and see Ratchet sitting with his back against her column. “We were in a war with the pirates, just fighting and senselessly killing each other for no reason. We were dying for nothing. At least tonight… well, those who died, they died trying to get home. They died for a reason. Don’t underestimate that.”
“They still died.” Rainbow frowned and went back to staring at the moon. “Just because they died for something else doesn’t change the fact that ponies are dead because they tried to do what I wanted them to do.”
“They wouldn’t have done what you wanted them to do if they didn’t believe in you.” Ratchet shifted below her, and Rainbow was certain that he was looking up at her. She didn’t want to check and show that she was actually interested in what he had to say. “You couldn’t have forced any of us to help you with this temple business if we didn’t think you were onto something. All we were accomplishing here was surviving in the barest sense of the word. We didn’t have much hope that we were going to last a month, let alone make it back to our families.”
“Some of them won’t be making it back to their families,” Rainbow muttered. “We won’t even have bodies to give them.”
“Rainbow Dash.” There was a marked shift in the stallion’s tone. Once supportive and apologetic, it had taken on a firmer, no-nonsense candor. It was enough to make Rainbow raise her head and look down the column, where her eyes met Ratchet’s. “I understand that you’re blaming yourself for this,” the engineer said. “Blame yourself all you want. But don’t mope. We don’t need mopers here, on this island. Mopers aren’t going to get us home. We need strong and determined ponies, like the Rainbow Dash who led us out to this temple in the first place in the hopes of getting home.”
He nodded back toward the temple. “What happened down there shouldn’t have happened. Nopony could have predicted that. But here we are, beaten but still standing. We lost a few, and we won’t forget them. But we owe it to them to make their deaths worth something. Otherwise… what was the point? Of any of this?”
Rainbow Dash didn’t respond. She could only watch him with a speechless look.
Shaking his head, Ratchet stood up and stretched aching limbs. “I’m going to go rally everypony for the march back to camp. There’s nothing we can gain by standing out here any longer, and we need to get our sleep while we can. Come tomorrow night, I don’t know what will happen. But I don’t think we’ll be safe trying to sleep through it until we know for sure that we can. Now you can either walk back with us, or fly back on your own. You know where the camp is.”
Then, nodding once, he turned away and walked back through the ruins, towards the jungle surrounding them. Rainbow watched him go, watched him vanish behind some toppled stone, and swallowed hard. He was right, after all. Though tonight had been a disaster, what was she going to do about it? Wallow in her misery? Or continue leading the charge?
It didn’t take her long to spread her wings and drop out of the column, flapping them a few times before touching the ground. Then, groaning, she set off after Ratchet, ready to rejoin the crew once more.
When Rainbow trudged back into the survivors’ camp, she felt a little weight disappear from her shoulders. To even be standing at the fringes of the camp was a miracle she didn’t think she’d live to experience again. After the chaos and horrors unleashed upon them at the tomb, the fact that Rainbow had made it back to the camp in one piece almost seemed like a dream, too good to be true.
But it wasn’t perfect. The return to the camp was hardly the triumphant parade she’d been envisioning when she set out for the tomb early that evening. Instead, it was merely six ponies limping back to the camp, covered in scars and wounds, and heads hanging low in defeat. Neither was there any fanfare for their arrival. The camp had been emptied out when Champagne summoned reinforcements, and now many of those ponies lay dead beneath the earth, surrounded by mummies and other horrors. The failure of an expedition had sapped what few numbers and resources the ponies on the islands had left, even if it did reshuffle alliances from ‘pirates and survivors’ to ‘living and dead’.
Stargazer was the first of the survivors at the camp to meet the routed expedition. Though he at first enthusiastically flew over to the six ponies upon seeing their safe return, that enthusiasm harshly died when he realized nopony else followed. “What happened down there?” the pegasus asked. “Where’s Blow Off and Soft Step and the others?”
“We couldn’t save them,” Ratchet said, walking by the pegasus and into the center of the camp. “We weren’t ready for what was down there.”
Stargazer blinked in surprised and followed the six at a distance. The expedition crew sat down around the dead fire pit, staring at the burnt wood with a whole mixture of expressions. They ranged from dejected and defeated like Rainbow’s and Champagne’s to angry and anxious like the pirate brothers’. Confused and concerned, Stargazer approached the group but stood off to the side. “What do you mean?”
Before Ratchet could start to explain and recount the night’s events to Stargazer, Rainbow grunted and stood up, leaving the fire pit behind. Instead, she moved towards the doctor’s hut, spying the gray figure sprawled out in front of it with her eyes shut. Though Rainbow thought Gyro was asleep at first, she quickly noted that the mare’s ears were up and active, and her face betrayed her discomfort even more than her twitching and fidgeting hooves. Once she got within ear shot, a blue eye opened, and Gyro grimaced as she raised her head.
“Rainbow?” the mechanic asked, rubbing at her eyes. “You’re back?” Her face momentarily brightened upon seeing her friend, and the corners of her lips curved up. “Holy crap, with all the shit I was hearing from Stargazer and Champagne, I thought you’d all be moon zombies serving some god named Lenny or something. Glad to see I was worrying for nothing.” When Rainbow didn’t respond and Gyro noted the absence of a white unicorn at her side, her smile began to falter. “…Right?”
Rainbow groaned and sat down on the sand across from Gyro. “We failed,” she said. “We didn’t even get the statue and… a-and a lot of ponies died.”
Gyro swallowed hard. “Died? Not like… turned into moon zombies or anything like Soft Step?”
“Died,” Rainbow reiterated. “All the corpses in the tomb got up and started attacking us. Only the six of us got out of there alive.”
“And… Rarity?” Gyro nervously shifted a little closer to Rainbow, even if it aggravated her back. “Where is she? Stargazer said she’d gone to explore deeper into the tomb, and…?”
“I… don’t know.” Rainbow sighed and laid her head down on crossed forelegs. “Yeah, she went to explore the deeper parts of the tomb, but we weren’t able to get to her. We tried to follow her through after we subdued Blow Off and one of the pirates that’d been hypnotized or whatever, but there was some stupid friggin’ magic blocking the way. And then there was this really thick magical darkness that made it almost impossible to see, and when we tried to backtrack our way out of the tomb, we got attacked by mummies. It was awful.”
“But you don’t know what happened to Rarity, right?”
“No.” Rainbow’s hackles momentarily bristled, but she took a deep breath and calmed herself down, smoothing the feathers back down on her wings. “We weren’t able to get to her, but Soft Step and the other possessed pirate got farther into the tomb than we did. I don’t know what happened to her or what happened in there, but whatever it is… it’s not good. Really not good.”
“It… can’t be the end of the world though, right?” Gyro tried to prompt her.
“It probably is,” Rainbow said, and Gyro’s face paled in surprise. “I saw a horrific dark alicorn try to attack us right before the tomb doors shut. It was like Nightmare Moon all over again. If something like that happened in a tomb like this… if Rarity ran into something like that… how could she have possibly survived? And even besides that, how are we going to survive?”
“Nightmare Moon?” Gyro blinked and tried to find something to do with her mouth rather than just let it hang open in shock. “There’s no way. That’s impossible!”
“I would’ve thought the same thing last night,” Rainbow said. “But I know what I saw. We’re messing with stuff we don’t understand. Whatever is going on here, we’re in way over our heads.”
Gyro shook her head and stuttered a few times, failing to form any words. “But… how? Nightmare Moon is—was—Princess Luna! How can there be another?”
“It must’ve been locked up deep inside the tomb,” Rainbow said. “And we opened it like idiots. That’s how all this started. Now we’ve just doomed ourselves and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“There can’t be nothing!” Gyro protested. “There’s always something we can do. Always! If you really think there’s a nightmare alicorn on the loose, then we have to stop it! I mean, you’ve fought Nightmare Moon before, right? You’re experienced!”
But Rainbow limply shook her head. “Not alone,” she said. “I had all my friends with me, and the Elements of Harmony. It took all of that to defeat Nightmare Moon. But here? I’ve got nothing.” Swallowing hard, she managed to barely keep her voice from cracking as she added, “Not even Rarity.”
Gyro chewed on her lip. “I’m sure she’ll be fine, Rainbow,” she assured her. “She’ll be fine.”
“That’s what everypony keeps telling me,” Rainbow said. “Even myself. I just… I just hope you’re right.”
“I know I’m right,” Gyro said, managing a small smile. “You think even a super evil dark alicorn of angst could take Rarity down? She’d probably berate its fashion sense until it gave up and found somewhere quiet to cry.”
The quip made Rainbow smirk a little. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she said. Yawning, she added, “I just wish that I knew for sure she was alright. I wanted to hang around the temple and look for her, but…”
“She could’ve gotten anywhere,” Gyro concluded.
“Yeah. She could be on any of these islands if she found a way out. There were a bunch of caves and stuff down there. There had to be a way out someway.”
“Maybe we’ll see her in the morning,” Gyro said. “It’s all we can do, right?”
“That and sleep.” Rainbow’s jaws stretched wide in another tremendous yawn. “I… need to get some sleep or I’m gonna be a moon zombie, too.”
“That’s how they get you,” Gyro said. “Gotta be careful about that.”
“Yeah.” Groaning, Rainbow shuffled her feathers and curled up by Gyro’s side. “Night, G.”
Flag sat in the corner of the survivors’ camp, well away from everypony else. Once they’d had a moment to relax and reorient themselves about the fire, he and his brother had split off from the others and claimed one of the now unused huts at the edge of the camp. It gave them privacy, and they knew that none of the other survivors, save maybe Ratchet, would try to bother them.
But while Flag mostly kept his thoughts to himself and inwardly reflected on all that had happened that night, Roger restlessly paced in front of him. Once he’d been going for half an hour, however, Flag decided to intervene for his brother’s sake. “Try lying down and sleeping. You need the rest.”
“How are we supposed to sleep in a place like this?” Roger asked, maintaining his pacing. “We fall asleep, they slit our throats in the night and we’re done.”
Flag sighed and rolled his eyes. “They’re not going to do that.”
“They’re not going to do that?” Jolly incredulously stopped and turned to face his brother. “Are you out of your mind, Flag? We can’t trust these ponies! We’ve been fighting and killing each other for so long that it’s impossible!”
“We’ve also figured out there’s a lot more going on here than just pirates and survivors,” Flag growled at him. “It’s the living against the dead. And right now, the dead are winning, and we’re only on time out.”
Jolly Roger sneered and went back to his pacing. “It’d be too easy for them to just get rid of us in the chaos. I was expecting a knife in the back that whole fight on the tomb stairs.”
“Then you’re not seeing the bigger picture.”
“The bigger picture?” Once more, Roger came to a stop and fluffed out his wings. “The bigger picture is that we’re fucked! We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, Flag. We’ve got these mummies on one side and a bunch of ponies that could kill us whenever they want on the other. In case you forgot, it’s just the two of us, now. That’s it. No Squall, no Hayseed, no nothing. And how many do they have? Six? Eight?”
“Enough,” Flag muttered.
“Yeah. Exactly. Enough to get us killed!” Roger pulled a knife out of its sheath and started playing with it using his feathers. “I say we just slice ‘em down, one by one, while they’re sleeping. You and me, we can clean this place out easy.”
Flag glared at his brother. “We will not do that,” he insisted. “These ponies are the only allies we have left.”
“These ponies will be the death of us!”
“Then if it comes down to it, I’d rather die by a knife in the back then the jaws of a snapping moon zombie.” Flag stood up and moved deeper into the hut, where he reclined on a pile of bedding. “I’m throwing my lot in with them. We’ll figure out how this all shakes out when we’ve got a way back to Equestria. But if you start causing shit, I’m not gonna bail you out.”
He flopped down on his side and shut his eyes. “If you’re gonna keep pacing, then keep it down. I’m exhausted.”
-----
Rarity’s vision was blurry and her hooves felt lifeless and heavy by the time she finally made it down to the beach. Walking in a straight line had simply become impossible for her; her tracks zigzagged and twisted all across the sand, sometimes taking her as high as the sparse grasses at the base of the mountain or as low as the water’s edge. The only thing that kept her moving was momentum, momentum and sheer determination, but even that was starting to fail her. The moment she fell over, Rarity knew, she’d never be able to stand again.
She shivered, and her teeth chattered in her jaw. Even though she knew it was still a warm night in the tropics, her blood loss left her feeling cold and clammy. Assuming she ever made it back to her supplies, she knew she’d want to start a fire to keep herself warm. But wanting to start a fire and actually starting a fire were two wildly different prospects. She didn’t even know if she had the strength in her to do that.
She also didn’t know if she had the strength in her to survive the night.
Rarity stumbled and only barely caught herself before she could fall into the sand, using the knee of her foreleg to prop herself up. She felt like her whole world was spinning around her, and the hazy hands of death started to creep in from the corners of her vision. It took all of her effort just to stay in that position and not completely collapse into the sand.
“Mmrff… mmmmfffffff!” Rarity grunted at herself through a throat as dry as the sand beneath her. “Come on… stand, Rarity! Stand up!” She groaned and her legs trembled as she tried to find the strength to stand up, but she couldn’t even get her weight off of her knee and back onto her hooves. She gasped for air after several seconds of effort, and her legs suddenly gave out on her, sending her toppling into the sand. Sediment slid into her open mouth as she lied on her side, gasping for air, feeling like she was suffocating even as her lungs heaved and hyperventilated. Her heart fluttered in her chest, rapidly increasing its beating while her pulse began to fail. Pins and needles climbed up her extremities and even began to penetrate her face and her core, and she started shivering profusely.
Her eyes spotted trees further along the beach, so close, yet so far away. She knew that her supplies rested beneath them, with lifesaving food, water, and bandages. But she was far too weak to reach them. Even keeping her eyes open seemed impossible. The only sensations she had left were the feeling of cool sand under her body and warm blood decorating her flank.
Bit by bit, Rarity felt her body begin to shut down. It started with her heart, which began to twitch and flutter weaker and weaker. Darkness forced its way over her eyes, completely stealing her sight from her. Her heaving chest started to slow as her lungs tried to get oxygen to her dwindling blood supply, a blood supply that was quickly becoming insufficient to keep her body functioning. Without anything to stitch up her wound immediately after cutting herself free from the stalactite, Rarity had simply run out of time as her life escaped through the hole in her flank.
As she slid further and further into the void that awaited her, Rarity thought she could hear singing in the distance. Sad, melancholy, slow singing. It was like a lullaby for the soul, a soothing farewell for her final rest. It calmed the lethargic worries of her mind, and soon the song was all she could hear, all she could experience. It flowed over and into her like water, and she submersed herself in its cool feeling. She thought she could hear it drawing nearer, but even thinking had become impossible.
Rainbow woke up as a ball of feathers and fluff, happy and warm. The sun shining down on her from above made her feel wonderful, and she was so contented that she didn’t want to move. Sometimes, life could be a joy out on a deserted island—especially when she had the warm body of the pony she loved curled up next to her.
The pegasus groggily shifted, not wanting to open her eyes for fear that the bright sun would chase away her rested feeling. She rubbed her cheek against a warm coat and sighed. Her wing tickled Rarity’s side, and when she flinched, Rainbow snickered to herself and cracked an eye open.
A gray face with blue eyes and white mane gave her a confused look. “Rainbow?”
Rainbow’s eyes snapped open and she jumped, her other wing sending sand scattering as it swiftly extended. Gyro held up a foreleg to shield herself from the pegasus’ startled reaction, and she angled her body away, shying back from Rainbow’s limbs. When Rainbow had finally recovered and withdrawn a few paces, Gyro raised an eyebrow. “You alright, Rainbow? I’d come over there myself and check on you, but I still can’t move my legs yet.”
The weight of the world suddenly crashed back down on Rainbow. Her warm and rested body turned into an avalanche of aches and bruises, her broken teeth scratched at her gums, and the hollow dread that had settled into her gut after the previous night’s failed expedition crawled its way back inside. She remembered all the ponies they’d lost, all the ones that had died, and most painfully, how Rarity wasn’t with them anymore. She looked around the camp, hoping against hope that maybe, maybe, the seamstress had returned while she slept, but there was no white unicorn in sight. In fact, there was hardly anypony in sight. It looked like it was just her and Gyro, as best as she could tell.
“Rarity didn’t…” her voice trailed off, losing the will to finish the question. She already knew the answer even before Gyro sadly shook her head.
“Nopony’s wandered back from the jungle yet,” Gyro said. “Me and Gauze have been keeping watch all morning, but there’s been nothing. Nothing at all.”
Rainbow’s heart fell, and with it, her body. She practically collapsed back into the sand, awkwardly coming to a rest on splayed limbs. “She’s… she’s probably fine, then,” she said, more to herself than to Gyro. But she didn’t want to dwell on that for too long; it’d just bring her more worry and misery than she had the capacity to deal with. Quickly seeking to change the subject, she took note of the lack of activity around the camp. “Where is everypony? Is it just us?”
“Nah. Doctor Gauze is out somewhere taking a shit. One of those pirates—Jolly Roger, I think? The subordinate of the two.” When Rainbow nodded, Gyro shrugged and continued. “Yeah, anyway, he and Stargazer went off to check on the tomb, make sure it was still closed and stuff. Everypony else is mostly lying low and sleeping off the madness of last night.” Gyro yawned and shook her head. “Which doesn’t sound like a bad idea, honestly.”
Rainbow blinked and checked the sun. “It’s like, nearly noon. Didn’t you sleep?”
Gyro shrugged. “You try sleeping when ponies were performing surgery on your back and then don’t even have painkillers to give you afterward.”
“Point taken, I guess.” Rearranging her legs into a more comfortable sitting position, Rainbow tried to focus on the feeling of warm sand under her flanks. With the sun shining overhead and blue skies stretching from horizon to horizon, it seemed like it was almost a perfect day over the islands. Colorful birds chirped and filled the lush trees with noise and life, and there was even a gentle wind drifting through the jungle to keep the worst of the tropical humidity at bay. Add to that the distant crashing of waves on the beaches, and it was the makings for a perfect day.
It was a lie.
Rainbow knew what horrors were buried deep beneath this island. She knew that there were mummies and zombies and a dark alicorn simply waiting to break free. The only thing between the survivors and the dead was a stone door that Rainbow didn’t know whether it would open or not come nightfall. And there was no way of knowing for sure whether or not it would open. If the door only opened to the full moon or any moonlight, or if the clouds would return that evening or not, Rainbow didn’t know. But it wasn’t exactly something she wanted to sit around on and find out later.
Gyro seemed to see the gears turning in Rainbow’s mind, so she raised an eyebrow at her. “What’re you thinking about?” she asked.
“Our next move,” Rainbow said. “We can’t just sit around here all day and do nothing. We’ve gotta prepare for whatever happens tonight. Because the way I see it, if the tomb doors open again tonight, and all those mummies and that dark alicorn fly out, then we’re screwed. There’s nothing we can do except run and hide—and these islands aren’t big enough for us to hide forever.”
Gyro nodded her head in agreement, and she began to purse her lips as she also puzzled over their next move. “What if we just ran?” she asked. “Ran as far away from here as we could?”
Rainbow blinked. “I, uh, don’t think you’re going to get very far with your legs like this,” Rainbow said. She nodded back towards Gauze’s hut, where two ponies lied inside, still unconscious. “Neither can Coals or Fresh Linens.”
“That… wasn’t what I meant.” Gyro shook her head. “Just because all us earth ponies got is our four hooves, doesn’t mean we can only think about running with them.”
“Oh.” Clearing her throat, Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “So, like, what did you mean then?”
“I meant the raft,” Gyro said. “We can take that and go back to our own island. We can even get the others out of here, too.”
“But we don’t even have the statuette thingy from here,” Rainbow said. “We can’t leave without it, or we’ll never go home.”
“That figurine is probably way below ground in the caves with the mummies and the alicorn,” Gyro reminded her. “I don’t think we’re ever going to get it. So we should probably cut our losses and get out of here before we all die.”
Rainbow chewed on her lip, fighting with herself. On the one hoof, Gyro was right. If they didn’t have the statuette, and if it was still deep inside the tomb, then they were never going to get it. They should just cut their losses now and not risk any more lives by abandoning these islands as fast as they could. But on the other hoof, she hated losing, hated giving up, and leaving these islands empty-hooved would be exactly that. Plus, running didn’t guarantee their safety, it only delayed the inevitable at best. Without those figurines, they weren’t getting home, and if the alicorn ever got out of that tomb… then they were dead anyway. It was a lose-lose situation, with one option short, quick, and painful, and the other a drawn out, slow death.
“I… need to fly,” Rainbow said, dodging out of making a decision or offering a suggestion at the moment. As much as she liked to play the role of leader, she wouldn’t make a decision like that without consulting everypony else first, Ratchet especially. What she needed right now was a quick flight around the island to clear her head. She always thought better when she flew, and now, she needed it the most.
Right after a quick break for a drink and some food, first.
Rainbow didn’t stray too far from the survivors’ camp during her flight. After all, she had things she wanted to discuss with everypony else when they were all back, and she didn’t want to wander too far away in case she was needed. As it was, she simply sought out thermals over the islands, rode them up as high as they would carry her, and then circled back down to find another.
But at the very least, the constant rising and falling really helped to clear her mind out. Flying high like this, she could forget about her worries for a little bit and just focus on beating her wings and reading the air currents. It pushed the stress out of mind and buried it somewhere to be dealt with later, and it also proved remarkably effective at alleviating her physical pain as well. Now that she was out in the skies stretching and exercising her muscles, she started to feel so much better and rejuvenated, like she’d just received a new lease on life.
From this high above the islands, Rainbow couldn’t help herself but try and use her altitude to spot a white coat prowling amongst the sands and trees down below. She could see the shape of all the islands in the tiny, shattered archipelago, but that didn’t mean she could see to the ground in detail. Like she’d first noted when she’d arrived upon these islands days ago, the density of the trees and foliage made it nearly impossible to glean more than a superficial look of the terrain. Whatever there was on the ground, apart from the open stretches of the beaches, was impossible to see through the jungle. If Rarity was down there, Rainbow had no way of telling from up above.
That worried her, especially because of what it meant for Rarity. If Rarity was hurt out there, if she was stranded somewhere, they’d only be able to find her by combing through the jungle on hoof. And with how thick the jungle was and how sprawling the islands were, that could take them days to find her. Days that they didn’t have.
What were they going to do? Only now could Rainbow really ask herself that question. The situation was bleak and grim, that much was certain. There wasn’t much they could do in terms of finding Rarity, especially if she could have ended up anywhere on the islands. If she didn’t find her own way back to the camp, then there wasn’t enough time for them to go looking for her. And if the doors to the temple opened tonight, they needed to be off of the islands and somewhere safe to wait out the storm. So what were they going to do if Rarity wasn’t found by then?
Rainbow slowly came to the horrifying realization that she’d have to leave Rarity behind in order to save everypony else if it came down to it. Wasting the lives of the rest of the survivors in the vain hope of finding her marefriend wasn’t a trade that she could live with. But could she live with the opposite? That she’d abandoned her marefriend, one of her closest friends and a key member of her Ponyville friends circle, and left her to die? What would the others think? Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, all the others—what would they think of her if they knew she’d left Rarity to die on an island just to save her own hide?
What would Loyalty think of herself?
Again, it was a lose-lose situation, and there wasn’t a good way out of it. Her only hope lied in miraculously stumbling across Rarity before it was too late. But that implied receiving a miracle, and she wasn’t sure that she’d be so lucky. They’d certainly seemed like they had no luck left after everything that had happened the past few days.
Sighing, Rainbow started to drift down from her flight, now that she’d worked up a decent sweat. Though the exercise had cleared her mind, she’d already started refilling it with doubts and worries—simply flying around on her own wasn’t going to be enough, she swiftly realized. She needed to talk with the other ponies and formulate a plan. A plan was the only way that they had a reasonable chance of accomplishing what they needed to. It was their only chance of salvaging something good from the horrible situation they’d all found themselves trapped in. And hopefully they’d be back soon so they could plan before it started getting too much later. Judging by the position of the sun in the sky, it had to be in the waning stages of the early afternoon. They only had, at best, six more hours before night fell and the moon began to shine.
When she was about a hundred feet above the islands, Rainbow veered off to the side and plummeted straight down, aiming for the deeper waters just off the coast. Like a bird diving for fish, she pierced the water like a fuzzy blue torpedo, letting the cool and briny surf wash away the sweat and heat from her body. She hung limply under the water like a pony suspended in in the emptiness of space, her lungs only filled with enough air to keep her neutrally buoyant. Engaging her protective third eyelid, Rainbow surveyed the swirling sands around her, noting a few crabs skittering about here and there below her, checking cracked shells for any meat to scavenge. On her left, the sand rose up to the beach, but off to her right, it continued to drop into nothingness, rapidly declining into the ocean floor.
Once her lungs started to bother her for air, Rainbow used her wings to push herself back to the surface. Breaching it with her snout, she quickly exchanged a few breaths, then resumed marveling at the underwater world around her. It teemed with life off to the southeast, and through the green haze of salt, Rainbow could pick out the colors and twisted formations of coral in the distance. Fish and rays swam all about the deeper waters, and Rainbow realized that, if it ever came down to it, they could take the raft and go out fishing in some of these deeper waters to supplement their food supply. It was definitely something to think about now that she was looking at bringing more ponies back to her home island. They’d be tripling the number of ponies on it, and she doubted it could support all of them for very long without more supplies of food to draw from.
But eventually, Rainbow decided to call off her quick break of playtime and return to the camp. Emerging from the water, she widened her stance, held her wings out to her sides, and shook them violently, flinging water off her body and feathers in an attempt to start drying off. At the very least, the hot sun would finish that for her, but it felt good to dive back in the water and relax for a moment. Now that she was back on land, however, she knew she once more had to turn her attention back to what really mattered—survival.
And so she trotted back through the jungle towards the survivors’ camp, not wanting to waste any more time than she already had.
Gyro watched the camp slowly come to life from her post by the doctor’s door. As ponies slept off the horrors they’d witnessed last night, they started to move about, checking on supplies and other necessities around the camp. But nopony spoke about what they’d seen, or even about much of anything, really. It was like the survivors of the expedition wanted to believe that if they didn’t talk about it, the nightmare could remain just that: a nightmare.
It couldn’t last forever, though. That much, Gyro knew for certain, as certain as the simple fact that the camp was half as lively as it was the day before, even at its peak. The signs that she was living in a defeated camp without even the tiniest spark of hope left were all around her, plain as day, from the looks on the other ponies’ faces, to the two figures behind her in Doctor Gauze’s tent. Coals was still unconscious, and she didn’t even know if Fresh Linens had died or not. Her chest hardly seemed to move, if it moved at all, and she’d lost a lot of blood from the bite to her neck. Not even Gauze had seemed too hopeful about her condition; when she asked him about it earlier, he’d simply shaken his head and fetched a clam shell to help her drink.
As for herself, Gyro could feel she was getting better, but she didn’t feel better. The pain in her back had settled into an uncomfortable ache a while ago, and it only really spiked her with pain if she tried to twist or move too suddenly. The tingling in her legs intensified throughout the morning, to the point where it was almost unbearable now, but she could feel the dullest sensation whenever she poked at her flank. Her hoof even twitched with some effort, and after a few hours, she could wiggle it ever so slightly. That she even had the ability to move her legs proved that the miraculous surgery had worked. Janky as it may have been without the proper tools, Doctor Gauze and Rarity had saved Gyro from living the rest of her life a cripple. Hopefully, she could walk by the end of the week. It was already hard enough to keep herself from trying to stand and test her spine before it was even ready.
The camp seemed to come to life when Rainbow returned, because Rainbow’s mere presence tended to have that effect on a group of ponies. By the look of her feathers and her mane, she’d been in the sea somewhat recently, and the sun had dried the water away, caking her coat in salt and sand. It also left her looking bedraggled and thinner than usual. Her ribs and bones poked through her coat just enough to be oddly noticeable, though she didn’t look anywhere near as bad as Gyro herself had looked at the end of her imprisonment at the sun temple. Malnutrition and the lack of a varied diet was beginning to take its toll on the athlete, but she moved with a fire and determination that seemed completely at odds with her thinning body.
Stopping right in the center of the camp, Rainbow shook out her sandy wings and looked around the campsite. “We need to have a talk,” she announced, her voice just loud enough to be heard throughout the camp. “It’s about time we figured out what we’re gonna do next. We don’t have a lot of time to make a plan, and since planning really isn’t my thing, I need you all to help me.”
Her voice summoned the other ponies of the camp, and they stopped whatever meaningless distractions they’d occupied themselves with to move toward her. Soon, she had a small circle to talk with, and she thoughtfully shifted over a bit so Gyro could participate as well.
Awkward silence held over the group for a few seconds, so Gyro decided to clear her throat and get things started. “Your flight help you think things out?”
“Eh, kinda,” Rainbow said, shrugging with her wings. “I certainly had a lot of time to think. And that’s why I think we need to figure out what our next step is.”
“What are our options?” Ruse asked. “How do we recover from what happened last night?”
“We don’t have a lot of options,” Rainbow said. “Basically, only two: we either post here and continue trying to find the statuette, even find some way to contain the mummies and stuff, or we retreat to a safer island and buy ourselves some time. I think we should do the first one.”
The two pirates scowled at her and one another. “Doesn’t sound like two options to me,” Black Flag said. “Sounds like a good idea and a bad idea. Staying’s only gonna get us all killed.”
Rainbow fidgeted in place. “There’s a chance it won’t,” she said. “We don’t know if the door will open again tonight.”
“Stargazer and Jolly Roger reported that there wasn’t any noise coming from the tomb today,” Ratchet said, glancing at the two pegasi. “Everything seems dormant and still on the other side. For the time being, at least, we don’t have to worry about anything breaking out.”
“It’s not going to last, though,” Jolly Roger insisted, casually inspecting his feathers. “When that door opens tonight, we’re all gonna get raped if we’re still here.”
“But we don’t know if it will open,” Rainbow said. “And even if it does, if we leave tonight, we’re basically giving up. We’ll never get home. We need that statuette that’s down there.”
“It’s better to live and hide than die screaming,” Flag insisted. “If we leave, there’s a chance we’ll be able to escape this madness here.”
To Gyro’s surprise, the normally quiet and observant Doctor Gauze spoke up in the pirates’ favor. “There’s no sense in staying around here. At the very least, I need to get my patients off of this island. If these mummies you’re talking about break free, then they will all die. We can’t be expected to carry them to safety when they start overrunning the camp.”
“I can move on my own,” Gyro insisted. “Just get me my walker thing and I’m mobile enough.”
Though Rainbow seemed to be thankful for Gyro’s indirect support of staying, it wasn’t enough to silence the others. “Leaving sounds like the best idea,” Champagne said. “You said you were from a tiny island to the northeast, right? Maybe this alicorn will look us over.”
Rainbow blinked and tried to sputter out a retort. “B-But we can’t just give up now!” she exclaimed. “Didn’t you hear me? We’ll never get home if we don’t leave these islands with a figurine!”
“All you want,” Flag began, advancing on Rainbow, “is to find your marefriend. That’s it.” He stopped in front of her and jabbed a hoof into her chest. “And you don’t care how many of us get killed trying to find her, so long as you do.”
His accusation threw a harsh silence over the camp. Everypony’s eyes looked to Rainbow, who in turn glared at Flag in stunned silence. “That’s not true,” she eventually managed, though Gyro noted it took her some effort to get the words out. “I don’t want anypony to die.”
“But you don’t want us to leave until you find your marefriend,” Flag concluded. When Rainbow didn’t respond, he scoffed and looked at everypony else. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in hanging around an island filled with mummies and a supposed Nightmare Moon knockoff just to help Rainbow find a corpse to jerk off.”
“Fuck off!” Rainbow shouted at him, pushing forward until she was chest to chest and nose to nose with the taller pirate. “You’re lucky that we’re even working with you instead of ending this crap once and for all! You assholes beat me for your enjoyment for a day and a half, and I put that aside in favor of trying to work together!”
“Does that mean we’re supposed to owe you or something?” Jolly Roger spat, joining his brother. “Fuck off, bitch. We don’t owe you anything.”
“Enough!” Ratchet shouted, forcing his way between the three. When they’d backed up a few paces and stopped bickering, he took a deep breath and glanced around the circle. “Rainbow’s right. We won’t ever get home if we leave these islands without the statuette. But if we stay here, we will die when those doors open again. We need to go someplace safe if we want to even stay alive until the next day.” He shook his head and turned an apologetic glance to Rainbow. “I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash, but I can’t risk the rest of my crew in the tiniest hope that somehow Rarity is still alive out here. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of them.”
Gyro watched Rainbow try to swallow that pill, and she felt bad for her. “I can’t leave anypony behind,” Rainbow said. “It’s just who I am.”
Ratchet tried to pat her shoulder, but Rainbow shrugged his hoof away. “I wish there was something I could do, but I can’t risk anypony else on this. We should just retreat to safety and figure out what to do next. You said there’s an island you haven’t been to yet, right?”
Rainbow reluctantly nodded. “To the south. But I’m not leaving without Rarity. Not until… until I know.”
“Then fuck it, we’ll leave, and you can come along later,” Flag said. “We’ll take your raft, and you fly back whenever you’re done. Or don’t. I don’t give a shit.”
When Rainbow didn’t say anything, Ratchet slowly nodded his head in agreement. “I… think that’s the best thing we can do here. Let’s focus on loading up on our supplies and preparing to leave. That’s about all we can do.” As the circle slowly began to break up, Ratchet turned to Rainbow. “Maybe you can go and make sure your raft is still available for us?” he asked. “If Rarity didn’t make it back to this camp, perhaps she went there, where the rest of your supplies are. You haven’t looked there yet, have you?”
Rainbow shook her head. “Not yet.” Sighing, she turned around and walked away, stretching her wings. “But it’s a place to start looking.”
Gyro wanted to say some words of encouragement to her, but Rainbow simply took off and flew into the sky, leaving them all behind.
Rainbow’s brief flight across the islands passed in mostly thoughtless silence. The refusal of Ratchet and the rest of the crew to help her find Rarity stung. Though Flag’s rejection didn’t surprise her, she had hoped that she could at least count on the survivors to help her out. But as soon as Ratchet drew the line in favor of Flag, she knew she was the only pony who cared about what had happened to Rarity and could do something about it. The rational part of her didn’t blame Ratchet at all for his decision—had she been tasked with the safety of the other ponies in her crew, she wouldn’t want to risk their lives to help find a pony who had only just shown up the day before—but that didn’t make her feel any better. If anything, it only made her feel worse. Why was Rarity’s life not as important as everypony else’s? Why should they give up on her just to keep the others safe?
Rainbow felt like she was the only one who saw the big picture. She of course didn’t want anypony to die, especially after the horribly botched expedition the night before. But if there really was powerful dark magic at play here, their only bet on surviving it was to risk everything to find these statuettes and get home. Only then, through attracting the attention of the princesses, could they actually deal with whatever curses they’d unleashed in exploring the tomb. There was no way they could do it on their own, and if they didn’t get home, something would eventually kill them. The thought that they were living on borrowed time at best left Rainbow worried and uncomfortable. Where she had once hoped she could be home in Equestria a few weeks after the airship crash, now she started to fear that she’d be dead on the islands in a similar amount of time from now, and nopony back home would ever know what happened to her.
And that went doubly so for Rarity if nopony ever found her…
After several minutes of climbing and gaining altitude, Rainbow realized that she had no idea where Rarity and Gyro had parked the raft after making landfall. She knew it was somewhere on the far side of the island, likely around the big island with the mountain on it, but she hadn’t bothered to actually ask Gyro where it was before she took off. Rarity had likely hidden it under some trees or somewhere covered to keep it out of sight, much like they’d done on the minotaur island, but that would only make it harder to spot from the air. After all, the mountain itself was covered in lush trees right down to the beach, and Rarity could have hidden the raft under any one of those clusters. Rainbow soon realized that she needed to drop down closer to the sand and fly along the beach so she could see under the trees.
Working her way around the north face of the island, the first thing Rainbow saw was the shattered remains of the airship wreckage she’d briefly stopped at on her way further into the island a few days ago. Wood and debris lied strewn up and down the beach, with planks and metal even sticking out of the shallow waters of the swash zone, and large chunks of the hull still recognizable where they’d ended up. She could tell by the lay of the land that the wreckage had been picked over considerably, or at least visited, by ponies shortly after it had fallen. And with a stirring breeze occasionally lifting a tingle or clattering of metal and wood out of the jungle below her, Rainbow remembered Rarity’s ambitious project that had ultimately saved her life and ended Squall’s. It was thanks to her that she was able to fly high now without worrying about being seen or attacked by pirates.
All the more reason she needed to return the favor.
Swooping low over the beach, Rainbow dropped down nearly to sea level, her hooves skimming the tops of breaking waves while she kept her eyes angled inland. It was her hope that she’d be able to see the raft parked beneath the trees if she flew around the beach at this angle, and thankfully, there wasn’t a whole lot of beach for her to cover on this side of the island. It was about as much coast as on the east side of their home island, maybe a little bit more, and Rainbow knew she could survey the entire thing in about five minutes, maybe less. With any luck, it wouldn’t take her that long to find the raft, supplies, and potentially, Rarity herself.
She didn’t have any luck the first few minutes; there was only sand and trees, but definitely no raft, supplies, or white unicorns. But after a few minutes of flying, she noticed two things near simultaneously. The first one was a rectangular platform of wood hauled out of the surf and into the sand beneath a copse of trees with a few bags and jugs around it. The second, as she flew over the beach to investigate the raft, was a trail of mottled blood splotches on the sand, long since dried to brown and slowly dissipating to the shifting sands. Had Rainbow waited another few hours, she doubted she would’ve been able to see anything. There probably wouldn’t have been anything left to see from the fickle winds.
The raft and the supplies could wait, Rainbow decided; the blood could not. Wheeling about with a twist of her wings, Rainbow quickly spun away from the raft and landed on the sand in front of the largest bloodstain. The sand around it was shifted and disturbed, at odds with the mostly flat beach around it, like somepony had struggled and fallen where the blood now lay. Rainbow raised her eyes and noted a mottled trail leading back along the sands, very faint and difficult to follow, but there nonetheless. Whatever had left the blood here had walked quite a distance, but had collapsed and bled out all over the beach.
But where had it gone? There was no body; only blood on the sand. Yet the beach was anything but devoid of clues. In fact, the next ones were very obvious once Rainbow took the time to look around. Enormous hoofprints decorated the sand around the bloodstain, and some kelp that’d been stripped for fibers poked out of the sand, along with a needle that’d been made from a fishbone. The needle was also stained with drying blood, and all signs pointed to a large something that had slid across the beach from the bloodstain to the surf. But whether it had pushed the sand in as it came from the sea, or out as it ventured into it, Rainbow couldn’t tell.
Then her eyes fell on the next piece. An arrangement of shells had carefully been placed in the sand, and only after Rainbow glanced at them for a while, did she realize that they made a rough arrow, pointing toward the sea. When Rainbow spun around and landed at the tail of the arrow, she saw that its head pointed toward the southeast. Rainbow frowned and examined the arrangement. Who had made it? Who had made it, and why?
Whatever it meant, Rainbow very quickly figured out it pointed toward the only remaining island they had left to explore. Whoever had left the arrangement wanted to draw attention to it. But what did they want?
The breeze pushed the sands some more, and caused something to flicker in the edge of Rainbow’s vision. Blinking, she moved forward and snatched it out of the sand. Holding it in front of her face with her wingtips, Rainbow saw it was a purple hair, faintly salt-streaked, but still as beautiful as the mare it had come from.
Swallowing hard, Rainbow held the hair close to her chest and stared off to the southeast.
Rarity’s world was a blur. There was no other way she could describe it, were she even cognizant enough at the moment to make an attempt. She didn’t know if she saw colors or heard them, and if the tickle across her flank was fuzz on her eyes or the sound of blood in her mouth. There was simply no way for her sickly and weakened brain to process the feeble sensations her body sent back to it.
But occasionally, she had moments of lucidity, snippets of something that might be memory. Green scales at dawn. Water washing her coat, pouring down her throat, filling her deflated veins with something to pump. The taste of something that wasn’t blood or saliva in her mouth, something that reminded her of food. Then, visions of crystal, refractions, echoes, and music.
Music. So much music. There was never a moment where there wasn’t music. It filled her mind, dominated it, protected it. It pulled her spirit back from the brink before it could teeter off the edge and plunge into the infinite black on the other side. It filled her flesh and set her hairs quivering like piano strings. She had the vague feeling it was pulling the discordant pieces of her being together like a conductor guiding the sections of his orchestra into one great crescendo, but she had no idea when the buildup began nor any idea when it would end. All she knew was that it was comforting.
And then she was lost to the crystal melody again, unable to do anything except experience song in its purest form.
-----
Rainbow Dash returned to the survivors’ camp in a daze. Her mind tried to play through every possible scenario, considering what she had seen. Her feathers still clutched at the purple hair, like she was afraid that if she let it go, she’d lose Rarity entirely. That single purple hair was all she had left of her marefriend, all she could salvage from a stain of dried blood on the sand.
What had happened to her? She’d done a little more looking around the beach before returning to the camp, but hadn’t been able to come up with an answer. Somehow, Rarity had escaped from beneath the earth, but she’d been badly wounded and losing blood. She’d tried to make it to their supplies on the beach, but she’d collapsed before she could reach them. Then, sometime after her collapse, something took her and left an arrow pointing across the sea. Whatever had taken her was intelligent enough to leave a message, and it wanted other ponies to know where they’d gone. Or at least, that’s what Rainbow thought. If the shells had been placed there in another way or for another reason, then the southernmost island was just a red herring, a false lead. But why would it be anything other than a pointer, a message left to ponies who would come looking for Rarity?
“Rainbow!” It was Gyro, her voice snapping Rainbow out of her listless wandering and confusion. While the rest of the ponies around the camp were focused on gathering their supplies for the exodus, Gyro remained motionless near the doctor’s hut. Rainbow had a feeling the mare would’ve come galloping over to her as soon as she’d landed, but with still being bedridden as she was, that was simply an impossibility.
“What’d you find, Rainbow?” Gyro asked once the pegasus moved closer. She frowned, her gray muzzle momentarily scrunching, and she saw how Rainbow’s feathers played with a thread she could hardly make out. “You’ve got something in your wing, but you’re standing too close for me to see what it is. Farsighted, remember?”
“Rarity,” Rainbow said. “She was at the beach.”
“She was?” Gyro gasped, noting the obvious absence next to Rainbow. “She’s not…?”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow admitted. “She wasn’t there when I found one of her tail hairs. I only knew she was there because of it and the blood.” She shook her head. “She escaped the tomb somehow, but something happened to her. She was hurt. Really hurt. And now I don’t know what happened to her.”
Gyro bit on her lip and looked away. “She didn’t… wander off someplace else, did she?”
“Not on her own, I don’t think,” Rainbow said. “Something took her across the ocean. Whatever it was, it left an arrow pointing at the only island we haven’t been to yet. I don’t know why or if we’ll even find Rarity there, but it’s the only thing I have to go off of.”
“But why would something do that?” Gyro asked. “What would even do that? Just take her and disappear with only a simple message to leave behind?”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow said. “And I don’t even know if it was a good thing or not. Rarity might have been dying and they took her someplace safe to heal her. I just… I don’t know.”
She flexed her wings and turned around, eyes focused on the southeast. “But I do know that I’m going to find out. I’ll grab some supplies and fly over there as soon as I can. If Rarity’s there, I’ll find her. I promise you that.”
“You’re just going to fly over there? Alone?” Gyro shook her head. “You should at least take a party with you. After we get everypony moved safely to our home island, then you can use the raft to bring a bunch over to the south island.”
“No.” Rainbow adamantly stomped her hoof. “I’ve gotten enough ponies killed with my stupid plans. I’m going to do this alone.”
“You’ll get yourself killed if you go alone. And we can’t afford to lose you.” Sighing, Gyro added, “Don’t blame yourself for it, Rainbow. Going by yourself isn’t going to accomplish anything except put you in even more danger. If something happens to you over there, nopony else will know about it.”
“If something happens to me over there, nopony else will go down with me.”
Gyro rolled her eyes. “Whatever it is, it can wait. At least a day. Help everypony get back to our island, and I can help them get settled in. Then you can talk about this trip of yours some more. In the meanwhile, at least use the time you have to think about it first, okay?”
Rainbow frowned down the length of her muzzle, and ultimately gave a noncommittal shrug. “I don’t make any promises.”
“Yes, I know, because you’re you.” Gyro managed to turn her exasperation into a chuckle. “I get it, Rainbow, I do, just… one thing at a time. We owe it to the rest of these ponies to at least help them get situated after relocating and everything. We’re their only bet for salvation.”
Ultimately, Rainbow shrugged and sat down across from Gyro. “I… guess. I just… I hate waiting.”
“It’ll just make your reunion all the more sweet,” Gyro insisted. “Then when you meet again you can smash your filly bits together and stuff. Hopefully she won’t cuntblock you by sleeping through your reunion.” She glared back at the hut, where Hot Coals still remained oblivious to the world. “One way or another, I’m gonna ride his dick into heaven when he wakes up.”
“You think he’ll still be interested?” Rainbow asked. She immediately winced and realized she’d said the wrong thing when she saw the look of worry flash across Gyro’s face. “I-I mean, I’m sure he will, it’s just… I think you two have a bunch of catching up to do before you get to that.”
“Yeah…” Gyro sighed and put her head back down on her forelegs. “That we do. Hopefully it’ll be a good talk. At this point, I’d just love the chance to talk to him at all. Anything would be good.”
“Do you talk to him?” Rainbow asked. “Like, even though he’s unconscious and stuff?”
“I did a bit,” Gyro admitted. “Don’t know if he heard any of it. But… it’s nice to imagine.”
Her eyes drifted across the camp, and Rainbow followed them to find Ratchet moving a crate of rations out from under a simple shelter. “You should probably report in to the head honcho,” Gyro said. “Let him know the raft’s in one piece. He can get a team over to recover it if you show them where it is.”
Rainbow nodded and stood up. “Good idea, I guess,” she said. Then, nodding to Gyro, she set off across the sands, her feathers still toying with Rarity’s tail hair.
Soon, she hoped. Soon, she’d be reunited with her beautiful seamstress. She just hoped it would be a happy reunion and not a burial.
Rainbow wandered over to Ratchet with a renewed spring in her step. Though she wasn’t happy to retreat from the archipelago like this, she knew that the sooner they did, the sooner she could set about finding Rarity. She had a location and the barest hint of a hope that Rarity was alive there. As far as she was concerned, that was all she needed.
The survivors had pooled all their resources in one location for easy management and distribution. They ended up having a lot more than Rainbow had thought; there were at least two large crates of rations that they must’ve salvaged from the ship’s galley when it went down, along with some building materials and whatever metal they could get their hooves on. The metal especially interested Rainbow. With all the nails they’d salvaged from planks, they could afford to build much more secure and sturdy structures than what she’d managed back on their home island. It was a shame to realize there was so much more on the island they could salvage, but they didn’t have the time or the capacity to collect it all and bring it back. They only had one raft, and Rainbow figured it would still take two trips to get everypony back along with their very valuable supplies.
Ratchet waited for Rainbow to get within earshot before clearing his throat and making eye contact with her. “Well?” was all he asked, a vague question that seemed to ask a lot of things about Rainbow’s brief flight to the other side of the islands.
“The raft’s in one piece, along with the rest of our supplies,” Rainbow began. “We can get it back in the water and get it moving if you get a team out there, but we need a unicorn strong enough to lift and move the thing with their magic.”
“How heavy is the raft?” Ratchet asked. “Do you think Ruse could manage it?”
Rainbow shrugged. “It’s really heavy. But Rarity was able to lift it mostly on her own, though it was very exhausting for her. I think Ruse can do it if he sets his mind to it, and others can help him move it if he just picks up most of its weight.”
“Good to hear, then,” Ratchet said with a nod. “I’ll let him know and get a couple ponies together to go with you and recover the raft. If we can get it here in the next hour, we can start making our way back to your island. I imagine that will take several hours just to cross the sea.”
“Unless you use a unicorn to push it along again.” Rainbow smirked at Ratchet’s confused look. “Gyro helped Rarity figure out how to cheat physics, and we were able to get here from our island in about an hour. Maybe less. I don’t have a watch.”
“Interesting.” Ratchet glanced around the camp, and Rainbow knew what he was about to ask as soon as his throat bobbed. “I… suppose Gyro will have to explain it to Ruse or Gauze. You didn’t find Rarity when you went looking for the raft, did you?”
Rainbow sighed and shook her head. “Not her, but traces of her. She’s not on the island anymore, that much I can say with confidence.”
“Not on the island?” Ratchet angled his head. “But how?”
“Something took her to the southmost island,” Rainbow said. “It left an arrow pointing in that direction. I’m going to find her.”
“Now?” Ratchet asked. He emphatically shook his head. “We need you here, Rainbow. We need your help.”
“I know.” Rainbow let her wings sag a bit. “I owe it to you guys to help. Which is why I’m waiting until after you all get moved to the safety of our island before I go looking for her. Once that’s done, Gyro can get you all settled in and point out where stuff is. Maybe she’ll even be able to walk you around by then,” she added with a hopeful smile.
“Wouldn’t that be something,” Ratchet agreed. “But flying over there on your own? That sounds dangerous.”
“Which is why it’s gotta be alone,” Rainbow said. She pointed to her wings, extending them to their full blue glory. “I’ve got wings. I can get out of there if shit goes south.”
“Aren’t you going south?” Ratchet teased, and Rainbow rolled her eyes. But then Ratchet’s voice took on a more serious tone. “Your wings didn’t help you against the pirates, Rainbow. Just… be careful about that.”
Rainbow winced, and she felt out the sore spot on the back of her head from where one of the pirates had knocked her out. She still didn’t know which one had done it, only that it wasn’t Squall. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know at this point. “I was careless,” she said. “It’s not gonna happen again. Especially not when there’s more than just my life on the line.”
“Then in that case, I guess I’ll wish you the best of luck,” Ratchet said. “If you do reconsider and want backup, I’m sure you’ll get some volunteers. Champagne might even be able to accompany you, since she can fly as well.” He glanced over his shoulder to where the two pirates milled about in the shade, taking a break from assisting in tearing down the camp. “I’m not sure if you’d want Jolly Roger, though, but splitting up those two might be best for everypony involved.”
“You really think they’re gonna try and stab us in the back?” Rainbow asked. “I thought we were moving past that, finally.”
“I don’t know,” Ratchet admitted with a shrug. “But it never hurts to stay safe. Until we’ve worked with them for longer than half a day, I’m not willing to put my complete trust in them.”
Rainbow had to nod her head in agreement. “That makes sense. I’m just hoping that we can work together soon and not each be watching for a knife in our back.”
“That’ll depend on them.” The older stallion glanced down at the crate near him and slapped a hoof against the side. “Maybe sharing our rations with them will earn us some trust. Food is a good way to make friends.”
“Heh. Maybe you can tell that to Princess Twilight when we get back home. I’m sure she’d love to hear all about it.”
“If we get back home,” Ratchet muttered.
Rainbow shook her head “When,” she insisted. “Don’t give up on this yet. One way or another, we’ll find our way home.”
“I really hope you’re right, Rainbow,” Ratchet said with a shake of his head. “I really hope you are.”
Once Ratchet had put together a team to recover the raft, Rainbow led them across the islands to retrieve it. Everypony moved with haste, cantering through the jungle at an anxious pace. Though it was still the afternoon, nopony wanted to be around when night finally fell, for fear of what might come out of the tomb when it did. Though Rainbow had noticed clouds building up on the horizon, she didn’t know if they would do anything to shelter the tomb from the moon after everything that had happened the night before. They didn’t seem as strong or thick as they had last night, and she wondered if her Sonic Rainboom had damaged the spell summoning them in some way.
By the time they made it to the raft, the bloodstains on the beach had all but disappeared. With the tide coming in and the wind steadily picking up, the only thing Rainbow could notice was the splotch of brown on the ground from where Rarity had fallen. She was able to show Ruse and Champagne the shells left on the beach, however, and how they pointed off to the southeast. Though the island itself wasn’t visible from the beach, all Champagne had to do was fly up about a thousand feet before she could see it just over the horizon. They both agreed with Rainbow upon Champagne’s return that Rarity had to have ended up on that island somehow. The ’how’ still eluded them, and none of the likely answers Rainbow could think of had all that pleasant of implications.
The raft proved to be more of a challenge to lift than Rainbow had originally anticipated. Though Ruse’s magic was strong, and likely stronger than Rarity’s in terms of sheer power, the raft was half-buried in the sand from the wind and the tides, and it proved difficult to dig out of the beach. At the very least, the supplies of food and water were still in decent shape, so the three ponies were able to get drinks when they needed it and take a break to eat some fruit. To Rainbow’s surprise, she learned from the other two that they hadn’t done much scavenging of their own islands due to the fighting with the pirates, and they hadn’t ever had star apples or sugar apples before. Rainbow warned them that the two fruits were basically the only things that grew on the island they were heading to, with the exception of some grass and lots of coconuts, and that they better get used to it.
But once they finally started digging out the raft, it wasn’t too difficult to get it in the water. Ruse’s magic was strong enough to heft it off the beach, and Rainbow and Champagne pushed against it to get it out to the water. The sandy logs held fast to each other and lifted up upon the waves, leaving Rainbow relieved to see that it was still in good condition for the trip back. The last thing they needed was the raft breaking apart when it began to move across the ocean, but thankfully, it looked like it would hold. They just needed to test how much it could carry before it risked going under the waves.
Next came the difficult task of trying to explain to Ruse exactly what Rarity had done with her magic to propel it across the water. Rainbow didn’t really understand how it worked, but between her explaining the basic principle and Champagne and Ruse puzzling it out, the ventriloquist finally managed to get the raft moving. By pushing the water down in front of the raft and raising it up behind, they managed to manipulate gravity into moving the raft forward and toward the camp on the farthest island. Unfortunately, turning was another matter entirely, and Ruse’s attempt to turn it ended up flipping the raft and flinging all three ponies into the water. At the very least, Rainbow realized, was that the raft was almost exactly the same on one side as it was on the other, the only difference being the vines jutting out of the logs to tie things down were now under the water. But no damage had been done to the raft, and after they finally brought it to the shore, Ruse quickly flipped it over so that it was once more right-side up.
After taking a quick break at the camp to rest up for the journey ahead, Ratchet divided everything into two groups, as there were too many ponies and too much material to move back to the other island in one go. The first group consisted of the bulk of their supplies, as well as Gauze, Gyro, Fresh Linens, and Hot Coals. Ratchet insisted that they needed to get to the other island first, as the rest of the survivors could afford to wait for the raft to return, and could fight and stall for time if it desperately came down to it. Though Rainbow assured them it wouldn’t take too long for the raft to leave and come back, it would still take longer than two hours.
Once the raft was loaded up, and after checking that it wouldn’t sink when pushed across the open ocean, Rainbow took wing and started flying off to the northeast, giving Ruse something to follow while guiding it along. Rainbow also simply didn’t want to sit on the raft with them; there wasn’t any room, and she didn’t need to add her weight to the already very burdened platform. They pushed off in the late afternoon, and by the time they reached the other island, it was nearly dinner time.
But the important thing was that they had reached it, and Rainbow helped as best she could with getting everything off the raft. Once it was finally empty, Gauze and Ruse had a brief argument about who should take the raft back to the islands to pick everypony else up. Eventually, Gauze won out, arguing that Ruse needed to rest his horn and couldn’t afford to tax it any more in making two more trips with the raft. That left him in care of Gauze’s patients, and Rainbow agreed to stay behind and help him care for them and move everypony to the far side of the camp. While Gauze disappeared back to the west with the raft, Ruse and Rainbow carried Hot Coals and Fresh Linens through the jungle, leaving Gyro behind for a bit on the west coast of the island.
When they returned to her camp, Rainbow was happy to see that everything still seemed in good shape. Both their shelters were standing, and all their supplies were right where they’d left them, including the pegasus statuette tucked away safely in the large hut. Rainbow and Ruse agreed to put Coals and Linens in the smaller hut, figuring it would make a good medical center for Gauze to use, while most everypony else could stay in the much larger hut Rainbow and Rarity had built earlier. Rainbow then went back and recovered Gyro, and the three ponies sat around the camp, waiting for Gauze to return with everypony else.
It wasn’t until the sun had nearly set that Gauze returned. Ratchet led everypony out of the jungle, carrying what few supplies they had left to bring, and started organizing ponies around Rainbow’s camp. This time it was Rainbow who sorted things out, and over the course of the next hour, they’d gotten most everything organized. With the patients in one hut, the survivors in the other, and the pirates deciding they’d rather sleep under the trees instead of in a confined hut with everypony else, they had things squared away by nightfall. At that point, the only thing they had left to do was rest and wait out whatever would happen that night. Though the clouds started moving in, they were patchy and weak by the time they reached the new island, and everypony anxiously waited for something to change, for death to find them, some way, somehow.
But for better or for worse, Rainbow couldn’t figure out if anything had happened by the time the sun began to rise again. Nothing changed, and as the first rays of sunlight hit the island, they were all still standing.
For how long it would last, however, she had no idea.
Though Rainbow Dash had stayed up almost the entire night to watch out for signs of activity from the other island, she hardly allowed herself to sleep and rest beyond a quick nap for a few hours. There was too much to do, to much to prepare for to allow herself to sleep. Though she knew she’d regret it later, she was already regretting wasting time on sleep in the now. The sooner she got up and about finding Rarity, the sooner she could put her troubles to rest.
After about four hours of sleep, Rainbow’s body roused itself and forced her awake. Yawning, the pegasus wandered out of her shelter to see a few ponies sitting around the camp. Most of the ponies who had helped her keep watch, like Ratchet and Flag, were nowhere to be seen, instead choosing to make up on their lost sleep. Only Gyro, Roger, Champagne, and Ruse sat out in the open, with the occasional sign of life from within Gauze’s new medical hut at least betraying that the doctor was awake and active. And not only that, but a familiar, colorful macaw was perched on Gyro’s shoulder, nibbling on her ear in a constant plea for head rubs.
“There’s my favorite buddy in the whole wide world!” Rainbow exclaimed, lying down by Gyro’s side. Chirp chirped and spread his wings, hopping from Gyro’s shoulder to Rainbow’s and rubbing his head against her cheek. Rainbow chuckled and tickled the bird’s head with a wingtip, then winked at Gyro. “And Gyro. I guess you’re cool, too.”
Gyro laughed and ‘punched’ Rainbow’s side. “If you’re gonna be like that, then Chirp’s my favorite feathered friend ever.” She smiled at the macaw, who was busy playing with Rainbow’s mane. “We were having a good thing until you decided to ruin it.”
“Ello,” Chirp said, proudly fluffing his feathers. “Rainbow!”
Rainbow blinked, then grinned at the macaw. “You learned how to say my name? That’s awesome, little dude!”
“He’s been saying it all morning,” Champagne said, seated across from Rainbow. “It’s his favorite word, I think.”
“It better be his favorite word. I’m his favorite pony, after all!” Rainbow nuzzled the bird’s chest feathers some, then turned to the rest of the ponies gathered around the circle. Her eyes fell on Ruse first, and she smirked and raised an eyebrow. “You’re not tired? At all?”
“Mostly sore,” the ventriloquist said. “I only need four hours of sleep to feel great. I got five last night.”
“I wish I had your superpower, damn,” Gyro said. “I can sleep for eight hours and still be exhausted.”
“It’s why I take naps.” Rainbow fluffed her wings and dragged over a basket of fruit. “How’re the legs, G?”
Gyro shrugged and feebly kicked with them. “Mostly useless, but that’s an improvement over totally useless. At least my back doesn’t really hurt anymore. Maybe I’ll be walking again soon.”
“Hey, that’s pretty good!” Rainbow smiled and slapped Gyro on the shoulder, causing Chirp to momentarily spread his wings to keep his balance. “Keep at it, girl, and you’ll be better in no time!”
“Maybe I’ll be able to go the rest of my stay on these islands without getting crippled again,” Gyro said. “It’d be nice to like, not have to be bedridden every month.”
“You better hope you get your legs working soon.” Rainbow’s ears flicked over to the side, where Jolly Roger finally looked up from the very edge of the circle. “You might need them sooner than you think.”
“Glad to see you’re being a part of the conversation,” Rainbow said. “It’s about time we start getting along and working together, right?”
“It’s a start,” Champagne said.
Roger glared at the two of them. “Fuck off,” he muttered, and he returned his attention to the block of wood he continued to whittle down with a knife.
Champagne’s ears flattened. “…or not.”
“Don’t mind me,” Roger said, much to his own surprise. “I’m just a pirate with a stick up my ass, so I’m taking it out on other sticks.”
Rainbow saw Ruse’s pale magic flicker off of his horn, and she immediately covered her muzzle and started chuckling. Jolly Roger dropped the block of wood and brandished his knife in Ruse’s direction. “You think you’re funny, you piece of shit? How about I give you a new hole in your neck to try speaking out of?”
“Why don’t you put that thing down before you hurt yourself,” Rainbow said, glaring at him.
“I think I know how to use this better than any of you,” Roger growled at them, twirling the knife about in his feathers. “Back off.”
“You’re only here because we need you,” Gyro reminded him. “Not because we want you here. Remember that, asshole.”
Rainbow sighed and shot Gyro a look. “Come on, G…”
“I’m not wrong, am I?” Gyro matched Rainbow’s look with one of her own. “Don’t tell me you actually enjoy his company. At least his brother’s not as much of an ass hat.”
Jolly Roger sneered at the two of them, but ultimately sat back down and went back to whittling down his block of wood. “We’re only here because we can’t deal with all that shit you unleashed on our own. Once that’s done with, then we’ll see who’s on what side of the knife.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Great to know that we’re all happy and cooperative here…”
Standing up, she yawned and stretched her legs. “I’m gonna take a trot around the island with Chirp. Maybe check in and see how everything else is doing. Sometimes minotaurs would come here, and if they’ve rebuilt their boats enough to be active again, that’s gonna be a problem.”
“Rebuilt their boats?” Champagne’s eyebrow climbed up her forehead. “What do you mean?”
“It’s… a long story, and I don’t feel like explaining it.” Backstepping a few paces, Rainbow pointed a wing at Gyro. “G can tell you all about it. It’s not like she’s going anywhere.”
“Fuck you too, Rainbow,” Gyro grumbled.
“Love ya, G.” Then, spinning in place, Rainbow nuzzled Chirp and quickly shrugged her shoulder to get the macaw flapping his wings and flying. “Alright, Chirp, try to keep up!”
Rainbow kept her run across the island at a reasonable gallop. Though she wanted to run from one end to the other to get her blood going and wake up some more, she also didn’t feel the need to overly tax herself by galloping full bore through the jungle. She’d exhausted and damaged her body enough two nights prior; what it needed was a reasonable amount of exercise to loosen up, but not enough to hurt her muscles or joints any further.
Chirp followed along at a decent clip, often circling Rainbow as she ran through the jungle. At times, the macaw would lag behind her, but at others, he’d slowly work his way across her shoulders until he was the one leading, not her. He never flew too far ahead that he’d have to wait for her, and he never lagged too far behind, his colorful wings more than capable of keeping up with Rainbow’s gallop. Together, the two feathery friends crossed the island, until once more, Rainbow found herself perched on the south hill.
She decided to pause and take a quick break here, to rest her legs and prepare her sore wings for a brief flight. The trees and plants around her were still heavy with fruit, and many were budding new flowers, attempting to make up for the fruit Rainbow and Rarity had first plucked from their branches upon discovering the hill so long ago. Far down below, the crystal blue waters of the lagoon practically glittered in the morning sun, and Rainbow just knew that they’d feel pleasant and warm if she decided to wander down to the shore and stroll right on in. She filed that thought away for later; maybe she could take the rest of the survivors down there in the afternoon and at least show them around.
Part of her cursed herself for even thinking about that. Why was she wasting so much time? Rarity was out there, far to the south, and here she was getting some leisurely exercise. Didn’t she have more important things to do? Shouldn’t she be flying south as fast as she could, trying to find Rarity before it was too late?
She growled at herself in frustration. Yes, she wanted nothing more than to fly south as soon as she could, but she also needed to prepare herself. Gyro was at least right in that regard, and Rainbow knew just how disastrous rushing in headlong to something she wasn’t prepared for could be. She remembered when Fluttershy and Zecora had nearly died when they caught Swamp Fever because of Fluttershy’s insistence and determination on finding a cure instead of resting and taking care of herself first. A wise pony would see the lesson in that and at least wait a day before venturing south in search of Rarity.
But did Rainbow even have a day? Did Rarity have a day? If Rarity died tonight and Rainbow found her body tomorrow, could she forgive herself for waiting that extra day?
The answer to that was a solid no. This couldn’t afford to wait. Rainbow knew she needed to get across the sea as soon as she could, and then start the hunt for Rarity.
But she could at least be smart about it. Again, Gyro was probably right; going over alone was a bad idea. And Rainbow had worked with Champagne enough while opening the tomb that she felt like she could trust her to handle herself. After all, it was Champagne that had brokered an alliance with the pirates, and Champagne who rallied the rest of the survivors to the tomb when things started to go bad. If Rainbow was going to have anypony watching her back while she was over there, it was the Prench mare. She resolved to go ask Champagne about it and start preparing supplies for two when she returned to camp.
In the meanwhile, she finally decided to spread her wings and begin to climb. Galloping off a steep drop, Rainbow let her wings catch the air like wind filling a sail before she started flapping them, beginning her ascent. Chirp soon flew off to a nearby tree as Rainbow gained altitude; the macaw did not seem interested in flying too high above the treetops, leaving Rainbow to continue her flight alone. But Rainbow didn’t mind so much; just the feeling of air under her feathers was enough company for her.
She circled out and around the island, searching for thermals and updrafts that would carry her higher. Since it was still morning, the thermals were fairly weak, and Rainbow had to do most of the climbing herself. But she worked at it at a steady pace, never pushing herself too hard, trying to save her endurance for the flight that would matter most. It took her nearly half an hour to slowly climb up to a comfortable cruising altitude, and even then, she had to flap her wings every few seconds to keep her height.
But she was about two thousand feet above the island now, and she could see much of the surrounding ocean. She could spot all four islands and island groups from up here, though not in very much detail. First, her attention turned to the one she’d just left the day before, but she couldn’t tell if anything had changed. The mountain there didn’t let her see into the interior of the archipelago, so she couldn’t see the rest of the islands, but they seemed the same from afar. Not that Rainbow would’ve been able to pick out tiny details from this distance, but the mountain didn’t seem to be swarming with mummies, so that was a plus.
She shifted to the right, her eyes wandering over the tall peak of the minotaurs’ island. If she squinted and looked carefully, she thought she could see tiny canoes prowling the waters around it, but she wasn’t sure. There certainly wasn’t anything in the waters closer to her home island, so that was good. She figured she didn’t have anything to worry about in terms of the minotaurs, at least for the time being.
And then she finally turned her gaze south. The south island remained secretive, refusing to offer anything more than a simple green blur on the far horizon. As far as Rainbow could tell, there were no mountains or hills; the island seemed very flat, though she couldn’t get a good estimate of how large it was from where she flew. But there were no peaks poking out above the trees, no curves or bumps to the earth. Just a line of green palm trees on a sandy beach, obscuring whatever hid behind them. Rainbow didn’t even know where the Ponynesians could hide a temple on that island, but if they could bury a massive tomb in caverns deep below the earth, there had to be a place for it somewhere. All she had to do was find it.
And somewhere out there, a white unicorn waited for a rescue.
Rainbow hardened her gaze and tilted her wings down, beginning her descent. “I’m coming, Rares,” she murmured to herself. “Just hang in there. I’ll find you soon.”
When Rainbow finally came back down to earth, she aimed right for the dead center of the lagoon. After fluttering her wings a few times to slow her momentum, Rainbow tucked them in against her sides and splashed down into the water. The shallow waters of the lagoon were barely more than shoulder deep out here, and she could stand on the sand beneath them while comfortably keeping her head above water. Though the water was warm, it was still colder than her body temperature, and as such was like a soothing salve for her sweaty wings.
Using her wings like life rafts, Rainbow let the gentle waves of the shallow lagoon rock her back and forth. With her legs curled against her belly, Rainbow hung in the water, floating and bobbing with the currents. It was a peaceful way to cool down after a flight, especially when she knew she had another long flight ahead of her not too far from now. And the act of relaxing on the surf brought forth happy thoughts about getting Rarity back to their island, dealing with whatever curse or madness they’d managed to unleash, and then relaxing on the beach, waiting for help to find them.
Unfortunately, that would never happen if Rainbow didn’t go about rescuing Rarity in the first place, so she decided to cut her rest short and trot back onto the beach. She was wary of sea urchins as she did so as well, knowing that the little devils liked to prowl across the sand looking for scraps of food, and she didn’t want to repeat her poisoning experience with them again. She could spy a couple of the spiny balls under the water, and she stayed well clear of them as she emerged back onto the shore.
Shaking water off her coat, Rainbow spied Chirp sitting on a nearby tree, preening carefully. The colorful macaw seemed happy and content to just be sitting on the swaying palm fronds, and Rainbow smiled up at him. “Hey, Chirp!” she said, and the bird’s head shot up at his name. “C’mon, let’s get back to camp!”
“Rainbow!” the macaw squawked back at her, and Rainbow giggled as he swooped down off the tree and perched on her back. Then, humming to herself, Rainbow trotted across the sands and around the edge of the south hill, using the east coast of the island to guide her back to the camp.
Rainbow didn’t even know that she’d be relieved to see the camp still standing after she left it, but thankfully it was. It was also a lot more active than when she left it; nearly everypony had emerged from their huts to sit out on the warm sand, the pirates included. Though they kept mostly to themselves, outcasts as they were, Rainbow was happy to see that they at least involved themselves in preparing food for lunch. Of the two, Black Flag definitely seemed more amiable toward interacting with the other survivors, while his brother remained obstinate and stubborn, clearly only involved with the group because of Flag and his rank. While relations weren’t exactly friendly between the pirates and Ratchet’s crew, Rainbow was at least happy that they could cooperate now that they absolutely needed to.
“What’s for lunch?” she asked, announcing her return to camp with a question. “Something good, I hope? Me and Champagne are gonna have a long flight ahead of us.”
Champagne blinked and looked up, the potato she was peeling momentarily forgotten. “We… are?”
“Yup!” Rainbow sat down next to the Prench mare and slapped her shoulder. “You and me, we’re going to the south island tonight. We’re gonna go find Rarity and bring her home!”
“Tonight?” Gyro frowned at Rainbow. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“A better idea than waiting until tomorrow,” Rainbow insisted. “Wherever Rarity is, she’s out there somewhere on that island. We gotta find her and bring her back as fast as we can before something bad happens to her.”
“Do any of the rest of us have a say in the matter?” Ratchet asked.
Rainbow blinked. “I mean, yeah, of course you do. Champagne’s a member of your crew, not mine, though by now, I’d like to think we’re all one big family and stuff.”
“Speak for yourself,” Flag muttered, throwing some carrots into a pot.
Ratchet nodded at Rainbow. “Then I’d like to suggest waiting at least a little bit longer. You did a lot of flying yesterday, and it’d be bad if you flew off to the south before you were ready.”
“No offense, Ratchet, but I think I’m a better judge of my wings than you are, dude.” Rainbow held up her hooves. “I’m more than ready to go. All I need are some supplies and I can make the flight. I would go alone, but I know Gyro would feel better if I took somepony with me, so I’m taking Champagne. She’s the only other pegasus.”
Jolly Roger coughed hard from Flag’s side and glared at Rainbow.
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Only other pegasus I trust who would actually be open to flying south with me.” She shot a pointed look at the pirate before refocusing her attention on Ratchet. “It’s up to her, really, but I know she can handle herself, and the company would be pretty swell, too.”
Ratchet raised an eyebrow and looked at Champagne. “Well, Champagne? Like Rainbow said, it’s up to you. Don’t feel pressured to join her just because she’s Rainbow Dash.”
“I mean, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t,” Rainbow said, smirking. “I thought every pegasus wanted to fly with the fastest flier alive.”
“Well, I…” Champagne swallowed and shrugged. “Yes, I can do it. We cannot leave a pony behind, right?”
Rainbow immediately broke out into a grin and hugged the mare. “Hah! I knew you were awesome! That’s exactly what I wanted to hear!” Then she stretched out the mare’s wings and got a good look at them. “How’s your distance flying? We’ve got a lot of sea to cover.”
“Uh… enough, I think?”
“Eh, it’ll do.” Rainbow released Champagne’s wing and turned back toward the group. “Well, there we go. I’m thinking we’ll leave after dinner. We need some time to rest and pack supplies, and then we’ll have fresh energy after eating to make the trip. We’ll land on the island, take a quick look around, and make camp if we have to. If everything goes well, we’ll be back with Rarity by dinner tomorrow!”
Gyro scoffed and shook her head. “With our track record, I seriously doubt everything is going to go well.”
“You just had to say it,” Rainbow grumbled.
Champagne blinked and uncomfortably pinched her wings together. “Now I’m having second thoughts…”
“It’ll be fine,” Rainbow assured her, kicking back in the sand and letting the warmth pierce through her coat. “At least Gyro didn’t say that everything would go alright and things are starting to look up. Then we’d definitely die out there!”
“Do you want me to say that?” Gyro teased. “It’s worked so well for us in the past.”
“I’d… rather you didn’t,” Champagne said. Then, taking a deep breath, she went back to peeling her potato. “Tonight is going to be an experience, I can tell.”
“Heh. You got that right, sister.” Rainbow winked at her. “But what would be the fun in it otherwise?”
By the time dinner snuck up on the survivors, Rainbow Dash had already packed some makeshift bags full of food and water for her and Champagne. Their trip was going to be a long one, and even if the island had ample supplies of both, Rainbow knew that her and Champagne wouldn’t be in the mood to start scavenging for supplies once they landed. It was better to have things on hoof and ready for when they needed them instead of trying to find something that might not even be there. Rainbow really wished she could have gotten a better scope of the island in her flight, maybe by flying higher; simply knowing the size of the island would’ve given her a good clue as to how much food and water she could expect to find on it.
As it stood, she could only prepare as best as she could and hope that luck would be on her side. Flying off to the island was a gamble, and it could be a costly one; she knew there was a good chance that something could kill her and Champagne, and if they died, then that would leave the rest of the survivors with even fewer numbers. She also didn’t like leaving Flag and Roger on the home island with the others, but it was a risk she was going to have to take. Taking Jolly Roger along would just be a liability, and his refusal to cooperate could end up getting them all killed. It was better if he stayed on the home island where his temper could be somewhat controlled by his brother and hope for the best.
Rainbow found herself sitting next to Gyro as she worked on her dinner. The rations the other survivors brought over had greatly improved their meals; just eating something that wasn’t fruit or bread left Rainbow twitching in ecstasy from the first bite to the last. She never appreciated how much of a luxury having the ability to choose what she wanted to eat was until now, and though she didn’t consider herself a picky eater before, she knew when she went back to Equestria she’d never turn down something different or new if it was offered to her. A solid month of eating nothing but star and sugar apples had left her taste buds traumatized.
She could tell that Gyro was annoyed with her, though. The engineer was hardly her lively or crass self, and she ate her meal in relative silence. She would occasionally pipe up and offer a few remarks to the conversation around her, but she didn’t speak much to Rainbow herself. For some reason, the gray mare’s disapproval stung her, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to leave in peace of mind if she left it unaddressed. So while the rest of the crew shared stories and laughter, Rainbow finished her meal and poked Gyro’s side. “I get enough of this stuff from Rarity to know you’re upset, G.”
“Upset?” Gyro glanced at Rainbow, but sighed and shook her head. “Not upset. Just… worried. Worried about you and your thick head.”
Rainbow smirked. “My thick head’s been pretty useful at keeping my brains intact. You wouldn’t believe just how many wipeouts and crashes I’ve had while flying around.”
Gyro rolled her eyes, but Rainbow noted she at least seemed a little amused by the joke. “I don’t doubt that, Rainbow. But I don’t really think I need to restate what I think about this whole expedition of yours.”
“Me and Champagne can look after ourselves,” Rainbow said. “Besides, if it’s just the two of us, we can sneak around without being discovered.”
“I still think you’d do better if you had more ponies with you,” Gyro said. “You could even take Stargazer. He’s not doing anything.”
Rainbow blinked. “Oh. Yeah. Forgot about him.” She glanced across the fire to see the pegasus talking with Ratchet. “He wasn’t at lunch, so I missed him. It’s… been hard to keep track of who lived and who died,” she admitted with a frown.
“Stargazer likes to pretend he’s nocturnal,” Gyro said. “He was still sleeping at lunch.”
“But still, he’s probably better off here.” Before Gyro could say anything, Rainbow discreetly gestured across the camp with a wingtip. “Flag and Jolly are still gonna be here. We can’t afford to thin our ranks too much, because we still don’t know how much we can trust them. Besides, leaving Stargazer here will give you guys a pegasus to deal with any of Roger’s shenanigans. If he gets up to something, it’ll probably be a good idea to have somepony who can fly on our side.”
“I… guess.” Gyro crossed her forelegs and lifted her eyes to the sky, where the setting sun had started to paint it with oranges and yellows. “I’m still more worried about you and Champagne than all of us. We can handle ourselves. We’ve got numbers, supplies, and weapons. But the two of you don’t know what you’ll find over there. It could be anything. And if you’re gonna be contending with something that’s intelligent enough to leave a message, it could also be cunning enough to set up a trap. That could be all this is: a trap to get more of us caught.”
“We still have to check it out either way,” Rainbow said. “Trap or no trap, I need to… to find out what happened to Rarity. I won’t be able to sleep easy until I do.”
“Will you be able to sleep easy if you don’t like what you find?” Gyro asked her, cocking an eyebrow.
Rainbow sat in thoughtful silence for several moments. “It’ll be better than not knowing,” she eventually said in a small voice. “That would tear me up inside even more.”
Gyro nodded her head once and, shaking her head, shifted across the sands just enough to bump her shoulder against Rainbow’s. “I don’t doubt you’ll find her,” Gyro said. “Just make sure you come back to us in one piece. We can’t afford to lose anypony else.”
“I will,” Rainbow assured her. “I will. And I’ll bring both Champagne and Rarity back with me. Maybe even another statuette.”
“You still think we can get off these islands?” Gyro asked. “Even after what happened on the other one?”
“It’s not going to stop me from trying,” Rainbow said. “I’ll try until the very end. One way or another, I don’t intend on sitting around here forever. We’ll get home… or we’ll die trying.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to the last one,” Gyro said. “But so long as there’s still hope…”
“There’s still a chance.” Then, standing up, Rainbow quickly nuzzled Gyro’s ear and waved at her. “I guess I should get Champagne now. If we wanna hit the island before sundown, we’ve gotta leave now.”
The air was just beginning to cool by the time Rainbow and Champagne took flight. It annoyed Rainbow that she’d waited this long, because now all the thermals that would’ve given them easy lift were dying, but making sure they were adequately prepared for the flight was more important. She also knew it wouldn’t be a fast flight, but hopefully with the pressure differences between the sea and the land, they’d have a nice tailwind to push them toward the south island once they were halfway there. It would help ease the strain on their burdened wings, carrying all the extra supplies as they were.
They had the light of the setting sun for the first leg of the flight, but soon the colors of the world began to bleed away, replaced by the stars above. As night beat on, the horizons closed in on them, the ocean and sky melding into one shadowy globe, a dome encasing them in darkness. Thankfully for the two fliers, there was plenty of moonlight and starlight for them to see their way, and the sandy shores of the island stood out in the darkness like a pale strip of white in the middle of a black sea. It also provided enough light so the two pegasi wouldn’t lose track of each other in their flight. Rainbow wished they had candles or some other means of carrying light with them, but without that, she could do nothing but make sure she didn’t outpace Champagne too much. Though Champagne was an adequate flier, she was neither a fast nor a strong flier, and as such Rainbow knew it would be all too easy to accidentally leave the Prench mare behind.
To make sure that didn’t happen, she comfortably settled in by Champagne’s side, leading just slightly off her nose so the drafts off her right wing created favorable air currents for Champagne’s own flight. “You got the breath to talk?” Rainbow asked. “It’ll make the flight go by faster.”
“I do,” Champagne said. “I’m not overburdened by our supplies, they’re simply bulky and inconvenient.”
“Yeah, I feel ya,” Rainbow said, momentarily shaking mid-flight to try and adjust the makeshift bags across her back. “These things definitely aren’t high grade flight bags!”
“At least we have bags,” Champagne said. “It would be worse without them.”
“You got that right.” Rainbow let a friendly smile decorate her muzzle for several seconds. Eventually, though, she switched back to small talk, her desire for entertainment quickly chasing the silence away. “So, like, you’re from Prance, right?”
Champagne nodded; Rainbow barely saw it out of the corner of her eye. “Yes, I am.”
“But I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak Prench,” Rainbow said. “You just use Equiish all the time.”
“Nopony else understands Prench,” Champagne said. “What is the point in using it?”
“I dunno, it’s just weird.” Rainbow flew on for a few more wing strokes before she elaborated. “Not, like, Prench is weird and all. I just meant that I would’ve thought I’d hear you speak Prench at some point.”
“Est-ce que ça, ça compte?” Champagne asked.
Rainbow smirked. “Heh, yeah, that’s pretty cool!” Grinning, she flew a little closer to her. “Say, ‘Rainbow Dash is awesome’ in Prench, now!”
Champagne smiled back. “Rainbow Dash n'est pas aussi impressionnante qu'elle pense être.,” she said.
“Rainbow Dash n'est pas aussi impressionnante qu'elle pense être!” Rainbow proudly echoed to the best of her ability. “Impressionnante! That’s the Prench word for ‘awesome’, right?” When Champagne nodded, Rainbow grinned some more. “I’m gonna have to tell that to Rarity! She loves Prench!”
“Is she fluent?” Champagne asked.
“I mean, probably! She’s a fashion designer, isn’t that like the mandatory language for them or something?” Rainbow shrugged midair, not exactly letting Champagne pose an answer to her question. “Anyway, she uses Prench words and stuff all the time, so she at least knows the basics.”
“Then I’m all the more interested in rescuing her,” Champagne said. “Saving the only other pony who understands Prench is more than worth my time and effort.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t try to corner you when we first all met and everything,” Rainbow said. “She loves to show off like that.”
“I wouldn’t have considered Rarity to be a show off,” Champagne said. “At least, not when placed next to you.”
Rainbow chuckled. “Oh, well, yeah, of course, because I love competing and stuff. But Rarity does it more sneakily. She likes to show off without making it look like she’s showing off. That’s why she’s always trying to make better and better dresses and stuff.”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah, it’s weird. If you’re gonna show off, why not be proud about it?”
Champagne chuckled. “Perhaps there is more to savor in acting humble and innocent while reveling in the dismay of those you’ve beaten.”
“Okay, seriously, where did you learn your Equiish?” Rainbow asked. “It’s really good. You probably speak it better than Applejack.”
“I took classes in Mareis before I joined CelestiAir,” Champagne said. “Being bilingual is very important when serving on a luxury liner like the Concordia. It’s why I was able to become a concierge, and not a cleaning mare or member of the wait staff like Fresh Linens.”
“I bet the pay’s better, too,” Rainbow quipped with a wink.
Champagne returned the laugh. “It was, yes. I expect a hefty bonus from CelestiAir after all the suffering I’ve endured before I serve on my next ship, though.”
Rainbow blinked in surprise. “You’re actually thinking about serving on another airship? After this crap, I don’t think I can ever travel on one again!”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Champagne asked. “I’m still young enough to need a job. Working as a concierge on an airliner has been a wonderful opportunity for me. I’d happily go back and serve aboard another ship when this is all over with.” After a few seconds, she laughed to herself. “Though perhaps, I may avoid transoceanic flights in the future.”
“Heh, ain’t that the truth.” Rainbow shook her head. “The next time Cloudsdale needs somepony to go to the Confederacy and talk to the griffons, they can send somepony else. The Wonderbolts too, for that matter. I’ve done my time in the sand.”
“I didn’t know that you worked for the weather companies,” Champagne said. “I thought you were a Wonderbolt full time.”
“The Wonderbolts are only in season half the year,” Rainbow said. “I get too bored otherwise. I know some ponies on the crew like to take half year vacations, like Fleetfoot and her obsession with the Caymare Islands, but I just like to do stuff, keep me occupied.” She flapped her wings a few more times, her eyes locking in on the island in the distance. “What about you? Is airship stuff like, all year round for you?”
“Oh, goodness no,” Champagne said. “Every five months I get a month off to go and see my family in Prance. I’m flying the rest of the time.”
Rainbow whistled. “That’s still pretty long, if you ask me. I don’t think I could be away from home for that long.”
“We’ve been away for a month and a half so far,” Champagne said. “I don’t want to say get used to it, but…”
The blue mare chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll be home soon, though. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried,” Champagne said. “So long as you’ve got a plan, I don’t imagine it will be all that long before we’re back in Equestria.”
The flight went on and on. Rainbow hadn’t nearly appreciated enough just how long the trip would be with Champagne accompanying her; she was used to the speed her own wings could carry her, and that was considerably faster than the progress she was making. But at the very least, she was making progress, even if it felt like the island was never getting closer. The south island, isolated from the other three by a stretch of open ocean and sheer distance, would be within her reach before too much longer.
If nothing else, the flight gave her time to get to know Champagne better. The more she talked with the Prench mare, the more Champagne’s Equiish impressed her. Champagne was more than just a friendly face aboard an airliner; she was a mare with her own hopes and dreams just like Rainbow. It was a reminder to Rainbow that surviving this whole ordeal wasn’t just about her and Rarity; it was about everypony else who also found themselves stuck on the ride with no end in sight.
At the moment, the Prench mare had ended up on the topic of her family. Rainbow had learned that she was from the city of Lion, notable for its large griffon population, and pegasi were practically a miniscule minority in the town. Her family managed all the weather for the town with two other pegasus families, though they at least had griffons to help them, even if the griffons considered weather management beneath them. A life spent managing weather wasn’t for Champagne, however, and she had soon decided she wanted to see the world beyond her town. A flyer in the paper and a few months in Mareis had earned her her ticket aboard the airliner Titan, and then to the Concordia three years later.
“I wonder if my mother has even heard about my disappearance yet,” Champagne said, continuing an earlier train of thought. “Lion is not the most connected town. It’s a rural village a three day’s walk from the nearest city. News takes some time to reach it.”
“But wouldn’t CelestiAir inform your family?” Rainbow asked. “They’d be a pretty heartless company if they didn’t.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Champagne shook her head and shrugged. “They’d have to ask around a bit before they found my family, though. My father likes to move the house all the time. Sometimes it’s hovering right on the edge of town, and sometimes he puts it over the forest when he feels like some isolation from the town would be good.”
“Heh. I like to do that with my home, too.” Rainbow smirked at the thought. “Sometimes I like to put it right over Sweet Apple Acres and mess with AJ. If I put it just right, it stops the sunlight from hitting her window, and then she wakes up late, and then she’s grumpy the rest of the day. It’s kinda funny.”
“I would imagine. Not all of my family likes it when my father moves the house on a whim. It irritates my coltfriend to no end.”
“You have a coltfriend?” Rainbow asked. “How do you manage that when you’re gone so much?”
“We keep in touch,” Champagne said. “I send him a postcard and a trinket at every port we stop in. It’s one way to let him know I’m still thinking about him.” Her eyes fell to the seas below. “If he’s heard the news by now, he’s probably worried sick. I don’t imagine anypony back home has any idea what happened to our ship.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, nodding in agreement. “They probably think it was lost in the storm. They wouldn’t know about the pirate attack or anything. They couldn’t.”
“Then we just have to survive to tell them all about it, right?”
Rainbow chuckled tapped her wingtip against Champagne’s. “I like the way you think, girl. That’s the spirit.”
Her eyes once more wandered to the sea below them, and finally, she noted, they were nearly upon the south island. With the small tailwind at their backs, they had finally made up for some of the time they’d lost while flying at a slower pace. Now, the next step was finding a good place to land and make camp.
A thought that Champagne immediately voiced. “We should start descending now,” the Prench mare said. “My wings feel like they’re going to fall off.”
Rainbow nodded, but she didn’t tilt her wings down. Not yet, at any rate. “Land on the beach if you need to,” she told her. “I wanna get a feel for the island first. Maybe find some obvious place to start looking for Rares.”
Champagne nodded, and she adjusted her wings so she began to slowly descend. “I’ll wait for you on the beach, then,” she said. “Find me when you’re ready.”
“Yeah.” And then, instead of gliding to the ground, Rainbow began to flap her wings more vigorously, picking up altitude and speed that would allow her to better survey the island.
It didn’t take her very long to note that the island seemed completely different from the other three she’d been to. Whereas the other islands were largely solid masses of land with mountains or some elevation to them, the south island was not. In truth, it was an atoll more than an island, with a rough, ring-shaped mass of sand, silt, and vegetation around a body of water. Some stones rose up out of the center of the atoll, but there was little to be seen there except for the largely still and sheltered waters within. The trees lining the ring of the atoll were thin enough that Rainbow could mostly see right through them, and she could tell with the moonlight she had that they weren’t hiding anything. Unless there was only a tiny, concealed entrance to a subterranean structure, there wasn’t any temple or shrine hidden on the island.
So where could Rarity be?
It wasn’t the first time that Rainbow wondered if she was mistaken in jumping to the conclusion that something had taken Rarity to the south island. But she knew that this island was important because it was on the Ponynesians’ map. Where else could Rarity have gone if not here? The seamstress was around here somewhere, she just knew it. What she didn’t know was where that somewhere was.
And she knew she wasn’t going to find out while it was this dark out. Her best bet laid in searching when the sun came up the next morning. With some more light and time to search the island, she was certain she’d find some clue leading to Rarity’s whereabouts. But while it was this dark out, even with the light of the moon and the stars to help her, she knew she wasn’t going to find anything useful out here. The best course of action, as much as she hated to admit it, was to make camp and wait.
But she was at the island. She’d accomplished that much. For the time being, she started to descend to the beach, already spotting Champagne sitting on the white strip, waiting for her return. With luck, it wouldn’t be too long before she found out where Rarity was come morning.
So long as she was right in assuming Rarity had been taken here. If she wasn’t… she didn’t know how she would ever find the seamstress again.
Gyro’s dreams were uneasy that night. She woke up no fewer than three times, convinced something bad had happened to Rainbow or Rarity. Each time, it took her several seconds to remember where she was and what was happening. Each time, the feeling of palm fronds under her belly and cool sands by her hooves reminded her that she was home, or as much as Rainbow’s and Rarity’s sandy island had become home for her. If she looked around the camp, she could spot calm activity and watchful eyes. Nothing bad had happened—not yet at least.
That all changed by the time morning rolled around. Gyro didn’t notice it at first, because nopony talked about it, but it became increasingly clear as the sun continued to rise that something unfortunate had taken place. There was a subdued silence that gripped the camp, spreading from pony to pony without anypony saying a word. It wasn’t until Gyro noted that Gauze had disappeared from the camp to take a walk and a small knot of ponies had assembled outside of his hut that Gyro finally got an idea of what was happening.
“What’s going on, Ratchet?” she asked from a ways across the sand. “It’s not Coals, is it?”
To her relief, Ratchet shook his head, albeit slowly. “No,” he said, moving over to her. “Linens died last night. The doc said he’s amazed she even made it that long.”
“She’s… dead?” Gyro craned her neck to the side, where some of the survivors had started carrying the mare’s body out of the hut. Gyro averted her eyes when she caught sight of pale skin beneath the mare’s coat; she didn’t want to look at that. “I thought she was going to make it after she clung on this long.”
“I thought so, too,” Ratchet admitted. “But Gauze said that there wasn’t much he could do. She hung on remarkably long for a unicorn; maybe an earth pony like us would’ve been able to take it. But he didn’t have any of the tools he needed to keep her alive. He couldn’t feed her and could hardly get her to drink. Eventually she just… gave out.”
Gyro sadly pawed at the sand in front of her. “That’s another pony who won’t make it back home to see their family,” she said. Her eyes wandered to Ratchet’s, looking for an answer in her boss. “Who else is gonna die before we get home?”
“I don’t know.” Ratchet sighed and sat down next to Gyro. “I just know that we’re probably not done with it yet. We’re going to lose more before this is all over, as much as I wish that we wouldn’t.”
Gyro nodded. “Think we can bait the mummies and the minotaurs into fighting each other?” she asked. “Maybe they’d thin things out a bit for us.”
“Doubt we’ll be that lucky.” Sighing, Ratchet lifted his eyes skyward and stared off into the blue for several seconds. “We can only hope that Rainbow and Champagne come back with Rarity. Once they do that, then we can figure out what our next course of action is going to be. Because I know that just sitting around here waiting for the end isn’t going to get us home.”
“Yeah,” Gyro said. “If help was going to find us, it would’ve come across these islands by now. We’re on our own, and until we find some way to let the outside world know where we are, we aren’t getting out of here.”
“At this point, we might as well start throwing messages in bottles into the ocean,” Ratchet said. “Maybe somepony would find those and figure out we’re still alive.”
“We don’t have any bottles, paper, or corks,” Gyro said. “At least, not that I’m aware of.”
“The pirates had some rum on them. We moved that over.”
Gyro’s ears shot up. “Somepony should’ve told me about this earlier,” she said, now eying the crates around the camp with sudden interest. “I haven’t had a drop of booze to drink in well over a month now and I need something to drink.”
Chuckling, Ratchet stood up and patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll go fetch a bottle for you,” he said. “Just remember that it’s not even past eight yet.”
Gyro smirked back at him. “Professionals don’t wait, Ratchet. Gotta get started early.”
-----
Rarity finally began to stir from her rest, the last notes of a lullaby still bouncing around the inside of her skull. They were nothing but soft echoes now, but every reverberating note carried with it a dash of peace and bliss. It was difficult to even try to wake up, but by now, her body felt strangely itchy and ready to go, like she’d spent the last month in bed and now needed to run ten miles just to use some of her excess energy.
Groaning, Rarity tried to feel around herself, her vision too blurry to make sense of any of her surroundings. She was lying on something soft—that much she could tell. Next to it was something that felt like polished stone, cut at a perfectly even and flat plane. There was light around, but it was dim and flickering, likely cast by a torch. And whenever she moved, she felt sick and nauseous.
It took her some time to realize that she could still hear music, and it wasn’t coming from inside of her head. It was a slowly moving melody, gradually rising and falling with perfect pitch, not a single note out of tune. But it was faint and far away, seemingly echoing through wherever Rarity had ended up.
Bit by bit, she opened her eyes and let her vision sharpen until she could see clearly. It didn’t take her long to realize she was definitely not on the beach anymore. There wasn’t even a trace of sand on her; somehow, between passing out and waking up, she’d gotten a bath in fresh water that’d cleansed all the salt and sand off of her body. Her wounds had even been tended to, with dried seaweed and kelp covering her flank and several of the other injuries on her body. Out of curiosity, she pulled one of the pieces off of her chest, noting that it only covered a fresh scar. The remains of her ear were in a similar state; what had once been ragged and damaged tissue had been healed into smooth scar, with some of the excess skin pruned back to flatten it out. And she could already feel that the wound in her flank, the gaping gash that had nearly killed her, was much more solid. It had to have been stitched back together somehow—but who had done it? Who had cared for her?
Rarity grunted and sat upright, though it took almost all of her effort just to do so. She was both thirsty and hungry; whoever had taken care of her wounds hadn’t addressed either of those issues very much. Or maybe it was just a side effect of her recovering from near death. She figured she would need a lot of calories and nutrients to make up for all she lost through her blood. Water especially would be vital in helping her feel better… but there was none to be seen.
Rarity’s eyes wandered around the room. She’d been placed in a makeshift bed in a small chamber of polished stone. There wasn’t much in the way of decorations, but the entire place just looked nice with the expert craftsmareship that had gone into shaping it. The wavy bands of color in the rock reminded her of some kind of marble, and the room had been lit with torches that gave off a white flame. Rarity also noted that there weren’t any windows in the chamber, and there was only one door.
A door that was cracked open, with the gentle notes of music flowing through it. It didn’t take long for Rarity’s mind to put the pieces together. Whoever had saved her, whoever had cared for her, was through that door. And right now, she was lost and confused. If she wanted answers, then they were the pony to talk to.
Hissing, Rarity rolled out of her bed and stood up. Her whole body was stiff and sore, and her first few steps were little more than limping, toddling stumbles. But she pushed through it with gritted teeth, and soon she was at the door, her hoofsteps echoing across the smooth walls of the chamber. Her magic sparkled and popped to life with a thought, and apart from the wince of pain it gave her, it seemed to work perfectly. That was good, at the very least. She’d been resting for long enough that her horn had recovered from all the stress she put it through.
Her telekinetic grip opened the door, which was a lot heavier than she thought it would be. It revealed a short hallway down the side, barely long enough to even be called a hallway, that opened into an enormous chamber. Eyebrows furrowed, Rarity slowly advanced down the hallway, noting that the music seemed to be coming from the chamber. The song was beautiful, even if it carried no words. Just the notes and melody alone seemed to move her hooves, and soon Rarity found herself standing in the chamber, staring at the sights before her.
The chamber was not natural… yet there didn’t seem to be a way that it was forged by ponykind. A huge, vaulted dome greeted Rarity, with a ceiling maybe a hundred feet above the floor, and the walls and ceiling carefully carved with a level of precision and engineering know-how that seemed to be completely at odds with what tribal ponies would be capable of. The floor of the chamber, what little there was, only stretched in a circle around the edge of the dome. The center was filled with water, vibrating slightly with the music that filled the entire dome. But none of that mattered to Rarity—she didn’t even check to see if there was another door or a way out—because her eyes fell on the source of the noise, lying on its side by the edge of the water.
Emerald, fish-like scales, translucent green fins, a powerful tail, and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth as large as Rarity’s hooves—if Rarity hadn’t known what she was looking at, she would have screamed and fled in a hurry. But even though she knew she was looking at a siren, indeed the same siren that had visited her island before, she did not feel any safer. The creature was enormous and frightfully powerful; standing this close to her made Rarity feel miniscule by comparison. The haunting music that softly billowed from the siren’s great lungs seemed to pierce every fiber of Rarity’s being, and she could only stand at the edge of the domed chamber, frozen in place, the melody preventing her from escaping.
A draconian eye opened in Rarity’s direction, and the music abruptly stopped. Rarity squeaked in fear and fell to the ground, futilely cowering behind her outstretched hooves, for all the good they would do her against a creature of such power and might. The siren’s scaly eyebrows rose, and she turned in place, lowering her head to look at Rarity from her own eye level. When she breathed, Rarity felt like a torrent of warm, damp air was trying to blow her away, and she tensed against the ground to try and anchor herself in place.
And then the siren smiled, revealing all of her dozens of lethally sharp teeth. “You’re awake?” she asked, her melodious voice nearly deafening yet holding a colorful alto despite the creature’s sheer size. “I thought you would still be recovering!”
When Rarity realized she still wasn’t dead, she lowered her hooves and looked up at the siren’s enormous head. It took her several tries but she finally found her voice. “You… did you… did you save me?”
The siren grinned, but between her scaly lips and her fangs, it had the exact opposite of its intended effect on Rarity. “I did.”
Though still frightened by being in the mere presence of such a powerful and dangerous creature, Rarity slowly lowered her guard, though she made sure she had an emergency teleport ready in case she needed it. Swallowing hard, she tried to smile at the creature, but it came across as more of a grimace. “Then… t-thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” the siren proudly sung, and she put her cloven hooves on either side of the short doorway. “When I found you, I didn’t know if you would make it. It took a lot of magic to patch you back together. But I did, and you’re here!” She leaned in closer, her scaly nose nearly filling up the short hallway as Rarity stumbled back into it. “I’m Melody. Melody Glow, if you want the full thing, but I prefer Melody.” Melody’s lips continued to part as she widened her excited smile. “Who are you?”
“Ra… Rarity,” Rarity managed, still trembling a bit in fright. “And I… I have to be dreaming…”
“Dreaming? You’re not dreaming.” Melody’s toothy smile remained frightfully large and terrifying, even though Rarity knew the siren was trying to make it friendly. “You’re alive, and you’re awake. You had a close call there, but you’re all better now!”
Rarity still didn’t feel like she could trust her eyes, or her ears, or anything, for that matter. The longer she stared at this impossible situation, the more she convinced herself that she had died and gone to some kind of strange purgatory. None of this could be real, could it? A colossal stone dome, a tiny marble bedroom, an enormous and friendly green siren—none of this could remotely be reality.
But then again, she’d talked with a dark spirit, maybe even a literal god in the tomb. Was a friendly siren rescuing her and nursing her back to health really that hard to believe? It wasn’t like Melody had come out of nowhere; her and Rainbow had heard and even seen the siren before. They knew that at least one siren, maybe two, prowled these waters, and if they liked to sing at night, then why wouldn’t Melody be able to find Rarity dying on the beach?
Melody’s eyes softened, and she cocked her enormous head to the side. “You are feeling better, aren’t you? If you don’t feel good, you should go back to bed and sleep it off. It’s probably not good for you to be moving around so much if you’re still sick.”
Rarity managed to shake her head. “No, it’s not that. I’m… just thirsty, is all.”
“Thirsty?” Melody blinked and slapped her hoof across her forehead. “Oh! Right! I forgot ponies need fresh water. You can’t just absorb water from the ocean, right…”
Melody backed away from the doorframe, giving Rarity some much desired space for her fraying nerves, and slid halfway into the water. Closing her eyes, the green siren opened her mouth and began to sing, her voice gliding between octaves and notes with ease and grace. The emerald gem in her chest began to glow, and the very rocks of the dome seemed to hum with her music.
And then Rarity’s eyes widened as the world began to change around her. A goblet of stone rose from the floor, the rock moving as if it was molten glass, stopping at Rarity’s chest height. It solidified with a few cracks, and then the water around the siren began to shimmer. Rippling waves rose out near the fins on her legs, glittering like crystal before dribbling into the bowl. A steady stream of white powder fell out of the water like dust, coalescing on the floor in a small pile. Only when the goblet was full did Melody’s voice fade away into a trailing note and the water returned to its pool around her.
Rarity blinked in surprise at the bowl full of water in front of her, then the pile of powder off to the side. “Did you… did you just create freshwater and a bowl with nothing more than your voice?”
Melody smiled back at her. “A siren’s magic comes from her voice. We don’t have horns like you do, so we use our songs.”
“What about those… antenna on your head?” Rarity asked, pointing up at Melody’s head.
“Oh, these?” Melody brushed one with a cleft hoof. “Those are just for navigating and sensing the environment when I’m swimming. When you’re out in the open sea, it can be very easy to get lost if you aren’t paying attention.”
“That would make sense.” Rarity swallowed and glanced back down at the bowl of water in front of her. If Melody had spent all this time and effort to save her life, then surely this wasn’t some kind of trick. Besides, she couldn’t help herself; she was practically dying of thirst. With barely any restraint, Rarity plunged her muzzle into the bowl of water and sucked down several gulps of brilliant, perfectly refreshing fresh water.
Melody looked on and tapped her hooves together. “I pulled all the salt and sand out, right?” she asked. “I haven’t practiced that song in a while.”
Rarity took the time for one last gulp before she bothered answering the siren. “Darling, it was more than perfect,” she said, happily wiping away some excess water from the hairs around her muzzle. “It was exactly what I needed.”
Her praise made the siren beam a little brighter. “Great! Happy to help! Do you need me to make more? I’d be happy to do that. Or what about food? Are you hungry?”
Rarity abashedly smiled at the barrage of questions. Despite the siren’s great size, her demeanor reminded her of an excitable filly rather than a dangerous and cunning creature of the sea. “If you have some food, I would take that as well. I haven’t eaten in… how long have I been down here?”
The siren thought for a moment. “Well, I found you on the beach three nights ago. So, that long.”
“Three whole days?” Rarity blinked in surprise. “Why, Rainbow and the others must be worried sick!”
“I mean, it was actually closer to two days, two and a half,” Melody said. “It was the middle of the night when I first found you, and this morning was the third sunrise since then. But those are just details, I mean.” The siren furrowed her scaly brow. “What I want to know is what you were doing on the archipelago’s beach, all bloodied up like that. Or even, where you came from! I haven’t seen a pony in… well, ever!”
“You… you haven’t ever seen a pony before?” Rarity was dumbstruck by that little piece of information. “But… you’re a siren! Don’t you see sailors all the time?”
For the first time since meeting her, Rarity saw Melody’s face turn into a sullen frown. “No,” she said. “Nopony ever comes to these islands. There’s only the minotaurs, and they’re not very nice. The last time there were ponies here was several hundred years ago.”
Rarity nodded along, but a thoughtful frown twisted her lips. “Do you know anything about the ponies that used to live here?” Rarity asked her. “Anything at all?”
“Some things, yeah,” Melody said. She blew an annoyed breath out of her nostrils. “I’ve had lots of time to look around and learn things. Do a little exploring and stuff. I’ve only been stuck here for like… forever.”
“Stuck here?” Rarity cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
Melody abashedly flattened the spines on her head and neck with her hoof. “It’s… a long story. But suffice it to say, there’s some sort of powerful magic keeping these islands isolated, and coupled with siren longevity… I’ve been stuck here for eighty years now? I think.” She frowned. “Yeah, eighty sounds right. It’s hard to keep track when I can’t go on the annual migrations with the others.”
“Eighty years?” Rarity echoed. She felt bad for the poor creature; no wonder she seemed so excited to see a pony, or hadn’t seen any sailors before. “You can’t just swim away?”
“If I could, don’t you think I would’ve by now?” Melody sighed and idly splashed her tail through the water. “I haven’t been able to do anything except swim circles around these stupid things and try to feed off the minotaurs.”
Rarity suddenly remembered she was talking to a giant reptile with carnivorous teeth that could turn her to mincemeat in seconds. “F-Feed off them?” she worriedly echoed.
“Oh! No, no, not like that!” Melody sank a little lower into the water and sheepishly smiled. “I mostly eat fish. But I need their emotions to refill my magic, so I usually sing near their island once or twice a moon.” She tapped the green gem embedded in her chest, which Rarity noted swirled and shimmered like it held an entire galaxy inside of it. “They’re kind of sour, though. It’s not the best tasting magic. Ponies are supposed to be much sweeter.”
“Yes… sure…” Rarity put a hoof over her heart and swallowed hard. “I would prefer if you didn’t try and sample mine, though.”
“Oh, that’d just be rude! You’re a guest of mine!” Once more, Melody returned to her bright and beaming self and she hoisted herself out of the water some more. “Tell you what, I’ll go get us some fish, and then we can talk some more while we’re eating! It’s no fun chatting on an empty stomach, right?”
Rarity nodded, though the thought of eating fish made her empty stomach churn. “Can you find something vegetarian for me?” she asked. “I’m… not a big fan of meat.”
“Really?” Melody’s eyebrow rose. “My mother used to tell me that lots of ponies ate fish.”
“Maybe the ones on the shore, but I’m from further inland,” Rarity said. “There’s not a whole lot of fish where I’m from, but there’s lots of plants.”
“Cool! You’ll have to tell me all about it. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to live on land!” Grinning once more, she pushed off from the ring of stone and bobbed in the water. “Don’t go anywhere! I’ll be back with breakfast as soon as I can!”
And then she slipped beneath the water before Rarity could even say anything. Without her presence or colorful voice, Rarity felt like she was alone in a tomb. It didn’t help that she didn’t know where exactly she was or even how deep underground she might be. Even if she tried, there was no way for her to leave, save through the water in the middle of the chamber. And Rarity doubted that she could hold her breath long enough to navigate it and somehow make her way back to the surface.
“I guess I’m not going anywhere any time soon,” she muttered to herself. Sighing, she sat down by the edge of the water, wrapped her tail around her side, and simply waited for the siren to return.
Rainbow Dash felt uncharacteristically tired that morning. Usually, she was one to rise with the sun, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually get up and be active, even with her desperation to find Rarity. She was fundamentally and completely exhausted in a way she hadn’t felt in a long while.
She slept in for an extra two or three hours that morning, only rousing herself with a concentrated effort. Finally, it seemed, her body was starting to collapse from exhaustion and stress. With her poor diet, the torture at the hooves of the pirates, and overall lack of sleep, not to mention any lingering effects from her concussion, Rainbow felt like she was splitting apart at the seams. She knew she needed rest, lots of it, but she couldn’t afford it right now. So long as her body would survive just a few more nights of hectic activity and frantic searching, Rainbow wouldn’t stop or slow down. Rarity couldn’t afford for her to do so.
But her limbs still moved with a lethargic clumsiness that she knew would be difficult to shake off. She nearly punched herself in the face when she tried to rub at her eyes and squish away the drowsiness clinging to them by putting some pressure on her eyelids. Her mouth stretched wide open as she yawned, and almost as soon as she finished the first yawn, she had to do it again. Yet she forced herself to stand regardless, stretched her wings out to their full span, and squinted through the blistering daylight around her to survey her surroundings.
Champagne had found a nice and sheltered spot close to the north shore of the island for them to pass the night. Here, a series of trees grew in an almost V-shaped formation, and the two pegasi had used the crook of the V to shelter themselves from the winds and the interior of the island. The bases of the trunks also provided some support and a sturdy place to lodge their supplies so they wouldn’t be covered with sand or washed away with the tides, though from what Rainbow could see across the beach, high tide only came to about ten feet of where they had chosen to rest for the night. If the waters got any choppier, she knew her and Champagne would have to move everything somewhere else to keep it dry.
As for the concierge, Champagne was still asleep in the sand, snoring softly with her wings splayed out on either side of her. Her chin rested on some of the fronds Rainbow had torn out of the palm trees to give them some bedding, and her breath flicked the tip of one back and forth, back and forth. Occasionally, she’d twitch or mutter something in Prench, but she was soundly and solidly asleep. As much as Rainbow wanted to have an extra pair of eyes in looking for Rarity, she figured it’d be best if the Prench mare got her sleep. After all, it’d probably be worse for them if they both were terribly exhausted and something happened. If Champagne could catch up on sleep, then maybe she’d at least be coherent and alert as the day dragged on.
In the meanwhile, Rainbow figured that a quick walk through the water would do her some good; maybe the cold saltwater would help her wake up. Staggering across the sand, Rainbow came to the edge of the swash zone, hesitating for a few moments before finally deciding to step in. The cool kiss of the seawater around her legs and hooves sent shivers up her spine, freezing her in place like ice while she tried to adjust to the sudden change in temperature. Gritting her teeth, however, she lowered her head and galloped directly into the next wave, letting it break against her chest and splash over all her of body, instantly drenching her in seawater and soaking her coat to the skin. Gasping, Rainbow locked up like a statue, shivered, and turned tail to gallop out of the water before the next wave could batter her some more. It was certainly one way to wake up, and Rainbow felt very much awake now.
Stopping on the sand to shake as much of the water as she could out of her coat, Rainbow spread her wings and focused on letting the sun dry them. She had heard nor seen nothing the night before, and for the time being, at least, she still had no idea where to start looking for Rarity. Maybe she missed something in her flyover last night with only dim moonlight to illuminate the island? At the very least, it was worth another pass now that the sun was actually out. Maybe she’d see something new beneath the trees from up above. She just needed to let her wings dry off first… and maybe snag some breakfast.
Several minutes later, Rainbow found herself with her back against the crook of trees, a jug of water by her side and some coconut and sugar apples in her hoof. She tried eating the two together, hoping that their flavors would mix and present something new to her, but she soon remembered she’d already attempted that weeks ago. Frowning, she stuffed the rest of her meal into her mouth and tried to swallow it without tasting it too much. She’d been spoiled with the meals prepared from the crew’s rations yesterday. Returning to her fake-apple diet was almost painful to do.
She eyed the skittering movement of tiny crustaceans up and down the beach. Maybe she could go crabbing if she wanted something a little different. She hadn’t had a chance to go crabbing in a while, and the crunchy, salty sand crabs would be a perfect snack to mix up her palette a little. She was even about to stand up and go after some when Champagne finally began to stir.
Within five minutes, the Prench mare opened an eye and yawned. “Mmmrff… quelle heure est-il?” she asked in her native tongue. “J'espère ne pas avoir dormi pendant les heures de boulot...”
Rainbow smiled down at her. “Heh, good morning to you too and stuff.” She shifted out of the way slightly so Champagne could roll over and stand up, though she had to wave away one of Champagne’s wings, inadvertently extended into her face in the cramped space. “You look like you slept well.”
“I did,” Champagne said, dipping her head. “Perhaps too well. How long have you been awake?”
“Only, like, half an hour, maybe,” Rainbow said. “It took me a while to get out of bed too. That was a tiring flight last night.”
“Yes, it was.” Champagne winced as she stretched some more. “My wings are still stiff. I know I’ll be feeling that for a few more days.”
“So long as it doesn’t interfere with the flight back,” Rainbow said. “At least then we’ll have fewer supplies on us, but we might need to carry Rarity back.”
“Yes, right.” Champagne shook her head. “We should have taken the raft over.”
“The raft would’ve been too slow,” Rainbow said. “We made better time from flying. Besides, I didn’t want to thin our camp out any more than we already have by taking a unicorn to push the raft along. They need as many numbers as they can get.”
“For the pirates?” Champagne asked. Her eyes briefly fell to the sand. “I’m sorry I got them involved in this…”
Rainbow reached out with a wing and brushed her shoulder. “We needed their numbers; you did the right thing. If they’re gonna be assholes about it, that’s their friggin’ problem. Truth is, I don’t think we would’ve kept the mummies from getting out of the tomb if we didn’t have Flag and Roger to back us up.” Sighing, she added, “But I still don’t trust them to work with us completely. Sooner or later, things are gonna come to a head, and we’ll have to figure out once and for all if we can trust them. That’s why I want Ratchet to have as many capable ponies with him as he can get, just in case the pirate brothers start something. I don’t want to come back with Rarity to find out that they’re all dead.”
Champagne shuddered. “I hope it won’t come to that…”
“It won’t,” Rainbow assured her. “Ratchet and Ruse and the others can keep things under control. Plus, if they really needed to signal us, they’ve got Stargazer. He can fly between the islands quick enough to let us know something’s happening. In the meanwhile, we just shouldn’t worry about them, because they’ll be fine.”
Rainbow stood up and passed the basket of fruit to Champagne. “Eat up and stuff. We’ll have a long day ahead of us. In the meanwhile, I’m gonna fly up there and get a good look at the island.”
Champagne nodded and picked out some coconut. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
“Good.” Spreading her wings, Rainbow started to trot off along the sand. With a few flaps of her wings, she called out over her shoulder, “Enjoy the rest while you can!”
Leaving Champagne behind to enjoy her breakfast and more peacefully wake up than she herself had done, Rainbow picked up altitude and climbed above the island at a leisurely pace. Even though she hadn’t admitted it to Champagne, the flight last night had taken a lot out of her wings as well. They were still stiff and sore, and she couldn’t work them too vigorously for fear of cramping the muscles. After all, a serious cramp would ground her for some time, and then she’d have to climb all the way back up again later. It was best if she took her time and didn’t push herself, especially with how weakened and tired she felt.
At any rate, the slow climb afforded her ample opportunity to scout the lower reaches of the island for anything that might be hiding beneath the trees. The atoll, Rainbow quickly realized, was the largest of the islands in terms of its circumference, but the smallest in overall area. The thin walls and beaches of the atoll seemed to go on for miles, forming an irregularly shaped enclosure that kept a vast lagoon of calm and still water neatly enclosed within its sandy beaches. The overall size of the atoll even rivaled the archipelago the survivors of the Concordia had ended up at, but the thin and narrow beaches barely made up for more dry land than what Rainbow could find on her home island. Some of the beaches were barely more than glorified sandbars, just barely thick and tall enough to separate the ocean from the lagoon. After quickly scanning the atoll’s sandy ring, Rainbow concluded that the thickest part of the atoll had to be no more than a few hundred feet wide.
Yet she knew that there had to be a temple or shrine or something hidden on the spindly limbs of the atoll. It was clearly marked on the map underneath the home island, even if time and weathering had thinned it out much more than it had been depicted there. But that meant that there had to be something important here regardless. Unfortunately, the trouble lied in actually finding such a temple or shrine. And for the time being, Rainbow couldn’t see anything.
Fifteen minutes of circling higher and higher rewarded Rainbow with no probable leads to go off of. The trees were simply too thin to conceal something like they had on the archipelago, and there were even entire stretches of the atoll that were bare of vegetation. These sections of crisp, white sand broke up the island into chunks of pristine beach, without even anything as slight as a rock or bump for Rainbow to investigate. She realized she was quickly running out of possible places for a structure or something to hide on this island that would house Rarity. Unless it was hidden beneath the sand or somewhere else, Rainbow had no idea where this final Ponynesian temple could be, or even what happened to Rarity.
Growling in frustration, Rainbow swooped down low over the island, surrendering all the altitude she’d built up to perform a closer inspection of the beach. If she couldn’t see anything from the air, maybe a closer inspection of the beaches would give her some clues to Rarity’s whereabouts. There had to be some blemish to the sand that hadn’t been covered up by the tides and the winds, right? It’d only been a few nights. Maybe if she was lucky, she’d find more bloodstains on the beach or something. All she asked for was something that would lead her to where her marefriend had gone.
But nearly an hour of searching turned up nothing, absolutely nothing. Rainbow completed an entire circumnavigation of the atoll, her keen eyes scrutinizing every inch of the beaches, every grain of sand on the shore, but had found nothing. No blood, no hairs, no signs of activity. It didn’t take very long before Rainbow started to wonder if the arrow on the beach had been a red herring or simply meant something else entirely, and in her desperation to find Rarity, she had merely assumed that it meant she was on this island. But what if it didn’t? What if her jumping to conclusions had led them wrong, and now they were wasting time out here, looking for Rarity at someplace she wasn’t?
Maybe she missed something. She had to have missed something. She simply couldn’t accept that she might have been wrong. Rarity was here somewhere, she knew it. She just didn’t have any idea where exactly Rarity was.
“Rainbow Dash?” Rainbow jumped at her name, and when she looked to the side, she realized she’d ended up back in front of their camp. Champagne watched her with a cocked eyebrow, concern plainly written on her face. “Have you found anything? Take a seat, you look like you’re running yourself ragged out there.”
Rainbow groaned, but she trudged over to Champagne anyways. Sitting down, she leaned back against one of the trees and took a drink of the water. “I haven’t found anything,” she admitted. “There’s just… no trace of her. Nothing at all. No hoofprints, no blood, no hidden underground structures. There’s just sand and trees. Nothing.”
“Are you sure?” Champagne asked. “Maybe I can help you look.”
Rainbow nodded. “I’m sure there’s just something I missed,” she said. “I’m pretty tired, so I could’ve easily glanced over something. I just need to keep looking.” A beat, and then she added, “I refuse to believe that I made a mistake. Rarity’s here, somewhere. That, I’m sure of.”
“Then we’ll find her,” Champagne assured her. “We just need to look harder. She’ll turn up before long.”
“I certainly hope so. I don’t know what I’d do if she d—!”
A sudden burst of water cut Rainbow’s words off. Both pegasi jumped and whipped their heads toward the shore, where a plume of frothy seawater erupted on the surface. Bursting out of that geyser was an enormous body of glittering emerald scales, seemingly propelled through the air by the paddling of its huge tail. Motes of reflected green light dazzled and danced over the two ponies and the island, and soon it was passing overhead. In a few seconds, it dropped behind the trees, out of sight, and another splash of water erupted from the interior of the atoll.
Champagne balked at the sight and cowered back into the shadow of the trees. “W-what was that?” she stuttered. “I’ve never seen anything like that before!”
But Rainbow had. Those few seconds had afforded her more than enough time to make sense of what she had seen. She realized she’d seen those green scales and translucent fins once before, and the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. If something had taken Rarity from the beaches of the archipelago, why wouldn’t it be anything other than a siren? Her hooves were the same size as the giant prints Rainbow had found on the beach. Suddenly, she knew for a fact that Rarity was somewhere on the atoll… or maybe even beneath it.
Standing up, Rainbow began to hurry towards the lagoon in the middle. “Come on,” she said to Champagne, not bothering to waste any time and see if the Prench mare was following her. “We need to take a look at the lagoon.”
Rainbow hurriedly trotted through the measly trees of the atoll. Her excitement at seeing the siren put some more energy into her step, and now her mind was spinning a thousand miles a minute. If the siren was here, then Rarity had to be here. She had to. And as far as Rainbow figured, the siren would most likely know where she was.
Brushing aside some ferns and drying plants with her wings, Rainbow emerged into the interior of the atoll. But when she looked around for the enormous scaly creature, she was nowhere to be found. There was only water, gently rippling and splashing against the sandy shore, coupled with a few seagulls waddling across the sand.
Blinking, Rainbow rubbed at her eyes. “She’s… gone?” she asked herself. She trotted out into the edge of the water and frowned. It wasn’t all that deep, and only gradually got deeper towards the center. Was it really deep enough to hide a siren? Why would she even go into the water instead of lounging along the shore?
Champagne caught up to her not long after. “This is a bad idea,” Champagne worriedly muttered. “Yes, let’s go toward the big scary fish dragon! Nothing bad will happen from that!”
“It was a siren,” Rainbow said. “And I’ve seen her before.”
“You have?” Champagne asked. “When? How did she not eat you?”
“Well, she never saw me. She sang at my island once and didn’t know we were there. But I’ve seen her around before. And if anything could take Rarity off of that beach and leave a message, it’d be a big siren like her.” Rainbow’s eyes narrowed at the stilling waters of the lagoon. “But she’s not here. She just… disappeared.”
Champagne looked over the water for a bit. “Are you sure she didn’t go into the water? I heard a splash when she went over the trees.” Blinking, she shook her head in awe. “I didn’t think something so big could move like that.”
“Yeah, well, they can fly too, so there’s that.”
“They can fly?!” Champagne’s face paled. “If she decides she wants a tasty snack…”
“I’ll carry you out of here if I have to,” Rainbow said. “I can outfly her, easily.”
“But for how long?”
Rainbow shook her head. “We can’t worry about it. I’m willing to bet my wings that the siren knows where Rarity is.”
“So how are we going to find her?” Champagne asked. “She went under the water.”
“Yeah, but why?” Rainbow frowned and extended her wings. “There has to be something under there. An underwater cave or something?”
She flapped her wings and flew out over the lagoon, Champagne following her close behind. The two pegasi climbed up a little, just enough so that the glare of the sun wouldn’t be in their faces, and looked down. The sand and grit under the water gently fell away into a bowl shape dotted with reefs and populated by a few small fish. At first, Rainbow didn’t see anything interesting about the lay of the land. There didn’t seem to be anywhere for the siren to go.
“What…?” Rainbow wondered aloud. “How could she have just disappeared?”
“She didn’t jump over the entire atoll, did she?” Champagne asked. “You said she could fly!”
“Yeah, but she wasn’t airborne that long. She had to have landed in here.” Swooping down, Rainbow hovered with her hooves just barely above the water. She took several seconds to peer through the sparkling glare of the lagoon, and suddenly gasped aloud. “There! There’s like… a cave or something!”
Champagne dropped down next to Rainbow and tried to look through the water as well. “She went through that? How are we supposed to follow her?”
The cave in question was little more than three rocks propped against each other, but by the depth of the shadows within, Rainbow could tell it went on for some time. Not only that, but the rocks seemed unnatural. Chiseled, even. Their sides were mostly square, and they were more than just haphazardly arranged. Somepony had placed those three large stones together to make that entrance some time ago. Rainbow didn’t know if it was the Ponynesians or the siren who was responsible for it.
Did that matter? Ultimately, no. The important thing was just that there was a cave in the ground, a tunnel, large enough for a siren to pass through, yet sandy and sunken enough to be practically unnoticeable from the air. It didn’t help that the rocks were covered in colorful and swaying coral. The camouflage was impressive, and Rainbow considered herself lucky that she’d even spotted it in the first place.
But now she’d reached the second part of the problem. How were they supposed to follow her? Champagne had been right in asking that question. With something like that leading down into the earth, the chances that they’d be able to swim it were slim to none. Unless it made a quick bend into a trapped pocket of air, that tunnel was little more than an easy way to swim to their graves. Rainbow wished she could change into a seapony at will like the hippogriffs could; so many problems since coming here could have easily been solved with fins and gills.
“We can’t get in there, can we?” Champagne asked. “We’d never make it.”
“No, we wouldn’t.” Rainbow shook her head and frowned, glaring at the tunnel. “If the siren even went in that tunnel, then we can’t follow her. We can’t go to her and ask her about Rarity. We’re completely at the mercy of her whims.”
Champagne blinked. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that we can’t do anything but wait.” Rainbow drifted back to the shore and sat down facing the lagoon. “Eventually, she’s gotta come back out of there. And when she does, I’ll be waiting for her. I’m fast enough to intercept her before she makes it to the ocean and starts swimming away. I’ll get my answers from her one way or another.”
The Prench mare slowly nodded her head. “If you say so. I would be careful, though. We still don’t know if we can trust her to not eat us.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Yeah, good point, but I’m still gonna talk to her. She knows where Rarity is; I’m sure of it.” Then, sighing, she pushed her hooves through the sand around her. “Why don’t you bring over our supplies, alright? We’ve probably got a while to wait.”
Black Flag leisurely scaled the south hill, sticking to the shade provided by the palm trees to keep the blistering sun off of his black coat. There wasn’t much to do around the camp while the rest of the survivors waited for Rainbow Dash to return from her expedition to the south, and as such, he’d quickly grown bored of sitting around in the sand. At least for the next short while, he could entertain himself by exploring this new island, but even that, too, he knew would come to an end.
A part of him wished that the moon mummies would attack them again just to give him something to do. At the very least, they would kill him and end all the waiting… the insufferable waiting. He fully expected to die on these islands, especially after everything that had happened at the tomb. As much as he hated Squall, as much as that crazed bitch had frightened him, everything had gone to shit when she died. Sure, her stubbornness might have been the reason they all got into this mess in the first place, but after they ended up on the islands, her merciless aggression and terrifying presence had kept the survivors at bay and the crew together. Once she had fallen, the pirate crew dwindled to two and the idiotic survivors had remained unmolested enough to open a tomb and unleash a curse that would eventually kill them all.
But there was no sense in thinking about what went wrong and what could have been. Right now, he and his brother were the only two survivors of Squall’s crew, not counting Hot Coals. Flag couldn’t even believe the unicorn was still alive. The engineer still clung to life somehow, and Flag realized he hadn’t given him enough credit for how tough he was. He may have been pressed into service on Squall’s ship long ago, but it definitely took a stallion of harder stuff to survive that for years while secretly hoping to go free.
Flag wondered if he should just kill the bastard while everypony was asleep. His survival when so many other good shipmates had died was like an insult to him, an insult to their memory. But he knew he couldn’t get away with it without the others figuring it out, and besides, he was already spending a lot of time and effort to keep his brother in line and make sure he didn’t do something stupid. The last thing he needed was Jolly stirring up some more conflict between them and the survivors, especially when they were heavily outnumbered as they were.
Soon, the pirate found himself on top of the south hill, looking out over the lagoon below him. The crystal-clear waters ebbing and flowing against the beach reminded him of glass, and the chattering of the birds and the wildlife roared all around him. Of course, there were annoying green flies that bit at his coat, perhaps even worse than on the archipelago he’d come from, but there wasn’t much he could do about that other than try to swat them away. But, given that there wasn’t any fighting going on, or even any other ponies in sight, Flag truly felt like he was on some kind of island getaway.
Of course, the presence of his often insufferable brother quickly shattered that illusion. Jolly Roger swooped down from the sky and splashed into the lagoon, his eyes locked on something below the surface. Flag watched him from afar, squinting as he tried to make out what exactly his brother was doing. He saw the pegasus flick his wings into the water and carefully pick something up between his wingtips, looking it over before trotting out of the water with it. It was then that Flag saw he’d collected a little pile of black somethings on the sand, and he added the one he’d taken out of the water to the pile. After carefully looking his feathers over and brushing off any sand on them, Roger once more stalked back into the water, looking for another.
As the older of the two brothers, Flag immediately knew that whatever Roger was up to was no good. Sighing, he stomped down the side of the mountain, arriving at the edge of the lagoon in a few minutes. From there, he walked around the edge, trying to see what Roger was up to until he finally got close enough to the pile to figure out what was inside. As he approached, Roger returned from the water to dump another one of the spiny balls off on the sand, and proudly turned to Flag. “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy doing what?” Flag asked, looking over Jolly’s hard work. “Why are you collecting urchins?”
“Because they might be useful to us.” Jolly pointed at the pile of spiky balls, which slowly shifted as the urchins tried to crawl back to the water. “I heard the bitch with the broken back talking to their doctor about them. They’re apparently really poisonous. That rainbow mare we had with us got stung by seven spines at once and nearly died.”
Flag frowned at the urchins. “And you think collecting venomous urchins will help us how?”
“In case we need to do a little quiet killing,” Roger said. “We stick some of the venom in somepony’s food, they’ll probably get really sick and die. The rest of them will just think it’s food poisoning. Fuck, if we throw a couple of these urchins into a pot when they’re making food, it’ll probably poison the whole meal and we can wipe them all out in one go.”
Black Flag let his eyebrow raise a bit. “If they don’t notice us messing with the food,” he said. “Besides, I don’t think we need to worry about them for the time being.”
“That’s what you keep saying,” Roger said, “but it’s fucking obvious that they don’t trust us. They don’t want us really getting involved in their affairs and they treat us like outcasts. Way I see it, they’re only a few steps away from killing us while we sleep. You know one of them is always watching us while we’re resting?”
“Because one of us is always watching them,” Flag said. “Nopony trusts each other. It’s still their group and us.”
“And their group has more. A lot more.” Roger growled in frustration and sat down on the sand. “Tell me you’re at least keeping this shit in mind, too,” he said. “Sooner or later, this shit’s gonna come to a head. If we’re not acting on the front hoof, we’ll be caught dead trying to defend on the back hoof. If we’re going to end up in a fight, our only way to stay alive is to strike first. If we wait until they decide that they don’t want us around anymore, then we’re already dead.”
Flag thought for a moment, his eyes wandering over the urchins. “The poison won’t preserve if they die,” he said. “Put them back in the water for now. We know where to find them if we need them. If we need them. Let’s not start something we can’t undo unless we really mean it.”
Roger rolled his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. At least they’re here.” Grumbling, he picked one of the urchins up between his wingtips, where the spines could only touch his feathers, and started trotting back to the water. “Be careful, though. If those moon zombies don’t show up any time soon, and Rainbow and Champagne come back with Rarity, then they’re really going to start to wonder why they’re even keeping us around anymore. Right now would be the best time to strike. Let’s not waste it.”
“Noted.” Flag watched Roger fling the urchin back into the water, then took a few steps back. “Just keep your head down and your eyes peeled. If we decide to do something—and right now that’s a big if—then I’ll be the one to pull the trigger. Okay?”
“Whatever.” Roger sneered and picked up another urchin. “Just don’t sit on your ass until they’re already murdering us.”
Flag shook his head and walked away. There was a smart way and a dumb way to go about this. One way would get them leaving the islands alive, and the other would end with their deaths.
Unfortunately for him, he didn’t know whose way was right and whose way was wrong.
Rarity hadn’t even realized she dozed off until the loud splash of Melody returning startled her awake. For a moment, all Rarity saw was green scales and huge teeth, and she nearly shrieked in panic. Her brain, however, managed to catch up to what was happening before her lungs could empty, and so she only made a half-strangled cry of alarm and shrank back a few paces.
“Oh! Sorry, sorry!” Melody apologized, holding out both her cleft hooves and drifting away from Rarity. “I didn’t mean to scare you! If I’d known you were sleeping I would’ve come in quieter.”
Once Rarity took a few deep breaths to slow her racing heart, she managed to smile at the siren. “Oh, no, it’s okay, darling. I just wasn’t expecting you to return so suddenly. That’s all.”
Melody sheepishly smiled and drifted back down to Rarity’s eye level. “I’ll try to remember that in the future. Sorry…”
Now that she was well and thoroughly awake, Rarity sat down by the water’s edge and looked around Melody expectantly. “There was no harm done, apart from the damage to my nerves. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a good meal and some amicable company… right?”
“I’m not sure if I fit the part of the last one, but I did bring food!” Melody hummed to herself as she dropped a haul of the sea’s bounty on the floor of her cave in a raggedy net. “Clams, oysters, tuna, even crabs. All you can eat, and it’s all fresh!” Her scaly lips pulled back into a grin as she plucked a wiggling tuna from the pile, smashed its skull against the cave floor to kill it, and then tossed the meaty fish into her toothy maw. “Say what you will about being trapped around these islands for eighty years now, but at least the food’s always good!”
Rarity paled at the effortless slaughter of a fish that weighed significantly more than she did, especially when the creature’s blood and juices dribbled down Melody’s scaly chin. “Yes, I’m sure… you did manage to get some food that wasn’t meat, right?”
Melody blinked, swallowed the fish in her mouth and chuckled. “Oh! Right, silly me. I forgot you didn’t like meat. Yeah, I got some seaweed off the seafloor. That’s the best I could do, really. Unless you like algae slime, because that stuff grows everywhere!”
The siren nosed through the pile of food before she found a bundle of folded seaweed. Her hoof separated the weed from the pile of food, and she dropped the plant in front of Rarity. Rarity grimaced and looked over the slick and wet plant, almost certain she could see some sort of sea insects crawling through the leaves. She picked up a leaf of the weed and combed through it with her magic as best as she could, and only when she was satisfied that the plant was as clean as she could make it, folded it up and took a bite.
It wasn’t exactly bad, but it was definitely not something Rarity was used to. For one thing, the seaweed was overwhelmingly salty, having just been pulled from the sea and not even washed first. For another, it wasn’t as firm or consistent as surface plants; it was more slimy and mushy, and it seemed to break apart in Rarity’s mouth when she moved it with her tongue. Rarity knew that ponies elsewhere in the world liked to eat seaweed as a staple of their diet, but she had a feeling they didn’t just eat it raw as soon as it was plucked from the sea.
However, Rarity was starving, so she wasn’t going to turn down food, especially when the carnivorous siren had gone out of her way to bring back something plantlike for Rarity to eat. Swallowing the morsel, Rarity shivered but managed to put on a smile for Melody. “It’s… good,” she said. “Not exactly what I’m used to from the surface, but it’s a plant at least. That’s good enough for me.”
Melody shrugged. “If you say so. I prefer meat to plants.” She scooped up a few clam shells and tossed them into her mouth, where her macabre teeth made short work of them like they were potato chips. “Seaweed just gets stuck on my teeth and then I’m sucking at my gums the rest of the day.”
The siren even made a face to go along with it, and Rarity couldn’t help herself; she giggled at the absurd image Melody painted for her. “I wouldn’t think that sirens would eat plants,” she said. “You definitely have a carnivore’s set of teeth.”
“Yeah. I knew some sirens that liked to try and eat plants. ‘A balanced diet’, they called it.” Melody snorted and briefly paused to take another bite of her pile of seafood. “They were weird, but I guess that’s what some of us try to do to fit in better with pony society. Not all of us like being hunted and terrorized.”
“Hunted and terrorized?” Rarity blinked in surprise. “That’s exactly how our sailors feel about sirens! They all tell stories about how sirens use their voices to lure them to their deaths!”
Melody shrugged. “Some of our sisters are mean and violent. If all of us did that, do you think you’d ever be able to send things by boat through our waters? None of them would ever make it.” Melody frowned down the length of her scaly muzzle. “Most of us like to keep to more isolated waters nowadays. If we stray too close to your shipping lanes, then we’re attacked. The tropics are nice, because they’re not often traveled and there’s enough ponies and civilizations down by the shore for us to sing to and get our magic back.”
“I didn’t know.” Rarity took another bite of her salty, raw seaweed. “I mean… I’d only heard things from myths and superstitious talk. You’re the first siren I’ve ever met. I only had an idea of what you were like from talking with another pony I know who’d met some of your kind before, and they weren’t all that nice.”
“Not all of us are monsters,” Melody said, her eyes falling a little. “Ponies don’t usually care to find out when they find us in the sea. Even a mother and daughter aren’t safe if they cross with the wrong ship.”
Rarity chewed on the inside of her cheek; she felt like there was something more that Melody was alluding to. “How old are you?” Rarity asked her. “And… is that how you ended up here?”
Melody slowly nodded. “I’m a hundred and six,” she said. “I think. Around that. I’m barely more than a child. Most sirens live until they’re a thousand years old.”
That simple statement made Rarity’s heart nearly seize. “You’ve spent most of your life trapped here?” she asked Melody. “And you’re still only a child?”
“Relatively,” Melody said. “Sirens reach maturity around fifty, but yeah, I was… a lot smaller when I got here.”
“And how did you get here?” Rarity asked her. She had a feeling, though, that she wasn’t going to like the answer.
Melody looked away. “My mom and I were attacked by a hunting ship. She led them away so they wouldn’t get me. I swam as fast as I could in the other direction and I… I didn’t stop.”
The emerald creature’s beak-like mouth turned into a frown. “I swam for an entire day and night, and as soon as I approached this island, I felt something tingle my antennae. I didn’t think anything of it, but I rested here for a while, slept and hunted some fish, and then I tried to leave. But when I tried to swim away from the islands, I got stopped by some kind of shield after an hour.” Melody held up her hooves and looked at them. “I could put my hooves against the shield. It physically prevented me from leaving. But it didn’t stop me from getting in. And even when I tried to fly above it, I still couldn’t leave.”
Rarity swallowed hard. “By Celestia… you must’ve been so scared.”
“I was,” Melody said. “I was separated from my mom and I was still a kid. Small, afraid, and weak. And when my mom eventually found where I was, and realized I’d swam someplace she couldn’t get to me without getting caught herself, she cried. Instead of crossing the barrier, she told me she’d find some way to get me out of here.” Melody stopped talking and wiped at her eyes. “Eighty years later, she’s still trying. She comes by and sings sometimes so I’m not lonely, but she’s gone most of the year when the migration takes her away from these waters. I sing with her, too, but there’s nothing I can do. I can’t leave, and she can’t afford to get trapped inside with me. And that’s been my life for almost longer than I can remember.”
“Gosh,” Rarity breathed. “I’m so, so sorry…”
For a moment, Rarity saw something that looked like a flicker or hate or rage in Melody’s draconian eyes. It was the first expression she’d seen out of the siren that frightened her, if even for a moment. “It was ponies’ fault that I ended up here, separated from my mom,” Melody said. “I could’ve blamed you all for it, especially after having been stuck here for eighty years. But I don’t, because I don’t want to be like you.” Her features shifted into a look of disdain, and she shook her head. “Ponykind judges sirenkind off of the actions of a few individuals. Thankfully, us sirens don’t think like that.”
Rarity nodded. “I’m so very sorry,” she said again. “And I understand why you would think that. You’re right. All we ever hear about sirens is that you all are vicious and violent monsters. That we should fear you.” She sighed and fiddled with her seaweed. “I’m glad that I got to meet you and see that that’s not true at all.”
The compliment made Melody smile. “And I’m glad that I was right to take care of you,” she said. “It’ll be nice to have a friend on these islands. Trust me, it gets very lonely after a while.”
“Well, thankfully, I haven’t been alone this entire time.” When Melody raised a scaly eyebrow, Rarity correspondingly lowered hers. “You mean… you don’t know?”
“Know what?” Melody asked.
“There are other ponies on these islands,” Rarity said. “Stuck here, trapped, just like me! Surely you’ve run into them by now?”
“I saw pieces of a wreckage scattered everywhere,” Melody said. “But no ponies. Well, no living ponies. There were… there were a lot of bodies in the reef where the ship crashed.”
Rarity felt a chill run down her spine at that. A shipload full of corpses, already food for the crabs and other scavengers. “Some of us survived,” she said. “And we’re stuck here. We’re trying to figure a way out of here.”
“Good luck with that,” Melody said, shaking her head. “I’ve tried for eighty years. There is no way out.”
The slight smile and Melody’s confused look were worth their weight in gold to Rarity. “Not quite…”
“If there was a way out of these islands, I would have figured it out by now,” Melody said. “I’ve been here for so long, I’ve searched every nook and cranny of the seabed. There is no way to get past the barrier.”
“Not get past the barrier,” Rarity corrected her. “My friends and I think we discovered the source of the barrier, and we think we know how to lower it. All we need to do are collect four statuettes and put them in a shrine beneath one of the islands. Once we do that…” She hesitated and shrugged. “Well, to be fair, I don’t know exactly what will happen when we do that, or if we need to do anything else. But we’re all but certain that will help us take down the barrier and send us all home.”
Rarity looked around, and her heart momentarily dropped when she realized she hadn’t seen any of her belongings since waking up in Melody’s cave. “Speaking of which, what happened to my belongings? I had one of the statuettes on me when I passed out on the beach. Did you take it, or did you leave it behind?”
To her surprise, Melody wasn’t smiling or excited at the prospect of taking down the barrier and leaving the island. In fact, she appeared to be quite the opposite: frowning and concerned. “You can’t take down the barrier,” she said.
“We… can’t?” Rarity asked. “Were we wrong about the figurines? What do you mean?”
“I mean that you shouldn’t.” The siren covered her muzzle with her hoof and looked down into the water. “Do you even understand why this barrier is around these islands? What exactly is going on here?”
Rarity’s ears fell a bit, and suddenly a finger of worry entered her mind. “No?” she said. “I don’t… we just want to go home.”
Melody sighed and sank down into the water. “I’ve… had a lot of time to explore these islands and learn what I can about what’s going on here. Of course, it’s hard to get to everything because of how locked away it is and, well, my sheer size. But there’s an entire temple under the atoll here. This cave is just one chamber of it.”
Rarity looked around and realized that made sense. The signs were there that the cavern had been shaped by pony hooves, however improbable it seemed. And then the bedroom she’d woken up in was definitely not sized for a siren. Rarity had to wonder how Melody even got her into that room in the first place and took care of her, given her great size. “There’s more to it than this?”
“Yes. Deeper in the water. This is just one of the few air-filled chambers inside.” Melody shook her head. “But there’s also murals down there. The ponies that lived here didn’t have a written language, I don’t think, but they used pictures to tell stories. It’s how I learned so much; otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to understand anything, not nearly enough to know that lowering the barrier is a bad idea.”
“And why is it a bad idea?” Rarity asked. “Why is it a bad idea to get rid of the single thing stopping us from going home?”
“Because there won’t be a home for you to go back to if you take it down,” Melody said. “Everything you know will come to an end. Everything.”
Rarity thought back to her experience in the tomb when she recovered the unicorn figurine. Pitch blackness, a being that seemed to be made from the absolute dark itself, a voice that seared through her very being. Enchanted, almost zombified ponies, and unfathomably powerful and old magic saturating the air. There had undoubtedly been something evil and horrifying in that tomb, and if Melody could swim to the islands but not leave, Rarity started to realize that the barrier surrounding the islands might have been more something to contain them and whatever dark secrets they held.
“I found something inside a tomb beneath one of the islands of the archipelago,” Rarity said. “It was like… pure darkness given form. It talked to me, talked through me, like it was everywhere. Something far greater than me.” She looked up at Melody and swallowed hard. “Is that… is that what the islands are trying to contain?”
“You opened the tomb?” Melody’s scaly face paled. “If you have… then we’re already out of time.”
“Just tell me what’s going on,” Rarity said. “Maybe there’s something we can do. We just don’t know anything; we’re clueless and stumbling about trying to find our way home.”
Melody lowered her eyes and gathered her thoughts for a few moments. “I… don’t know if this is all correct,” she said. “I’ve only had faded pictures to study for a long time. But this place used to be filled with ponies until a seven or eight hundred years ago. They had two gods: a sun god and a moon god. They lived in harmony and ruled the world together, but something changed.
“Some of the followers of the moon god tried to summon their god into this world,” Melody continued. “They sought to give him a physical form so he could rule the islands and the world in eternal darkness. They were stopped by the cult of the sun god. What once was a unified island chain of ponies split in two between sun and moon, and there was a raging civil war. In the end, the followers of the sun god won, but they’d decimated their population—and they only interrupted the cult of the night.”
“Interrupted?” Rarity asked. “What do you mean?”
Melody shrugged. “I wasn’t exactly sure. I didn’t know what it meant at first. But from what you told me, they succeeded in drawing some essence of their moon god into this world. He then created an avatar to wage war and gain power in his name, but the avatar was slain, its horn separated from its body, and its body buried somewhere else. But they never banished the essence of the moon god. He’s still here. But what they could do is contain it.”
The siren gestured around the chamber. “I think they used whatever population they still had left to perform a powerful ritual to isolate these islands from the rest of the world. They created figurines and imbued them with the power of the four pony races, then scattered them across the islands. Those figurines maintain a barrier that keeps everything that enters these islands trapped inside. They don’t want the darkness of the moon god to go free and swallow the world.”
“What happened to them all?” Rarity asked. “We only found bones at the sun temple, and there were a lot of bodies in the tomb at the archipelago. They didn’t… you know. Did they?”
“Maybe,” Melody said, shrugging. “But they didn’t last very much longer afterwards. They only had enough time to put these murals onto their existing temples, and then they just… died out. The minotaurs are much more recent, I think. They’ve only been here for a few centuries, maybe. They came long after the ponies here all died out.”
Melody reached into a crack in the stone and pulled out the figurine of the unicorn. “Getting all four of these will lower the barrier and stop containing the dark spirit that’s been trapped here. If you do that… the rest of the world might very well fall to it, too. So I can’t let you have this.” The siren frowned, and she dropped the figurine into the water. Her draconian eyes focused on Rarity, and the unicorn shrank back a little. “If you get these figurines… if you bring them all to that shrine… everything you know will die.” She swallowed hard, and added, “Including us.”
Rarity felt the blood drain from her face. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. There really, truly wasn’t a way out? Well, technically there was, but it would destroy the world. The barrier keeping the islands hidden from even Princess Luna and keeping them all trapped within had been designed to contain the nightmarish abomination her and the other survivors had accidentally released. Taking down that barrier would allow it to escape the islands whenever it finally broke out of the tomb.
But that couldn’t be all she wrote, could it? If Rarity had learned anything from all her dangerous adventures with Twilight, even the most hopeless situations had a way out. There was always some angle, some unexplored idea that could get her and her friends out of a mess like this. The problem was, she just wasn’t seeing it.
Melody had gone from happy and cheerful to somber and quiet after the discussion, choosing to eat her lunch in silence. Perhaps it was the siren’s silence that unnerved Rarity most of all, but she just couldn’t get comfortable and work on her own lunch. Sirens were creatures of song, and for one to be enveloped in a sullen silence like now just made Rarity feel wrong. Now that she knew she’d gotten Melody’s hopes up for nothing, even if only accidentally, Rarity wanted to find some way to make it up to the siren and help her get back to her mother.
Which again brought her back to the same problem: there was no safe way out of the islands. If there had been another way to get around the barrier without breaking it down, Melody surely would have found it by now. The only possible option Rarity could think of to let Equestria know what was happening was through Melody’s mom. The other siren, being on the opposite side of the barrier, could easily relay a message back to civilization, but Melody had made it sound like her mom only came around once in a blue moon. If she was out on the migration, then she likely wouldn’t return before the next full moon.
Rarity shuddered; the moon was still waning, but it wouldn’t be that long before it became full again. They had less than a month before it was up again… but did that even matter? She realized she had no idea what fate befell her friends. There was just so much to take in since she woke up that she didn’t know what to focus on first. But now that she’d quizzed Melody about their chances of escaping the islands, worry about the safety of her friends, about Rainbow’s safety, came crashing back to her mind.
Clearing her throat, Rarity waited until she saw Melody glance in her direction. “So, um, Melody… you haven’t seen anything about any other ponies on these islands?”
Melody slowly shook her head. “Only you,” she said. “I mean, I figured there had to be more of you when I found you lying on the beach. I left a sign pointing toward the atoll so anypony that might have come looking for you would have an idea of where to go.”
Rarity blinked. So there was a real chance that Rainbow and the others knew what happened to her? “Well, have they come for me, yet?” she asked. “Knowing my friends, they wouldn’t wait very long to go after me.”
To that, Melody could only shrug. “I… didn’t see any ponies on the atoll when I was out and about earlier.” She rubbed the translucent fin on the back of her neck. “But I mean… I didn’t exactly look very hard. I was just trying to get food for lunch, since you were asking.”
“Oh, well, that’s quite alright, darling,” Rarity assured her. “And the lunch was good. I definitely needed the food. And I don’t want to be a bother on you, especially given all your hospitality, but…”
Melody smiled at her. “Oh, it’s fine. I don’t usually like to stay in the caves all that long, anyway. I prefer to stay above the surface, where I can let the sun warm my scales.” She lightly chuckled and added, “I guess that’s one benefit of being isolated here. I don’t have to join the migrations to the colder polar waters to chase food. There’s enough around these islands for one siren.”
“It certainly would have its perks… were I to visit these islands of my own volition and not be cut off from civilization while having to contend with murderous pirates and an ancient, dark abomination.” Rarity’s smile faltered, and she shrugged. “But, all joking aside, I would very much appreciate it if you could find my friends and at least let them know I’m alright.”
“If you wanted, I could take you back to the surface,” Melody said. “You’d get a little wet, but it wouldn’t be too bad.”
Rarity would’ve liked that quite a lot—she would’ve given practically anything to see Rainbow and her friends again, to know they were alright. But then she’d be leaving without the figurine Melody had dropped into the water, along with the rest of her supplies. If Melody dumped her back on the surface, there was no way she’d be able to get to it again. Her eyes drifted to the water around Melody’s scaly body. She was a unicorn, after all, and she had telekinesis…
“I think I’ll stay here for the time being,” Rarity said. “At least until you know for sure where my friends are. I still feel exhausted after recovering from my ordeal, and I wouldn’t want to stress myself out too much yet. Besides, your company is simply so wonderful that I feel it’d be rude to leave now.”
Rarity wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw Melody blush; her green cheeks made it difficult to tell. “I’m enjoying your company, too,” the siren said. “It’s nice to have somebody to talk to. The minotaurs just threw spears at me. They couldn’t get through my armor, but…” She shrugged and laughed. “I’ll go and take a look, okay? I need to sun myself. Sirens aren’t warm-blooded, you know.”
“I didn’t, actually, but now I do. I imagine I’ll be learning quite a lot about sirens from you.” Rarity flashed her a smile, and then shifted some away from what was left of Melody’s pile of seafood. The smell was starting to bother her. “I will eagerly await your return.”
“Hopefully I’ll have good news.” Melody slid back into the water until only her head and neck remained above it. “If you need some rest, use the bed. It’s probably not comfy by pony standards, but I sleep on rocks, so I wouldn’t know.” Once more, she bared her sword-like teeth in a smile, and then her green fins dipped beneath the surface of the water, out of sight.
Rarity sighed and looked around at the walls of the cave. She hoped Melody would find her friends, but Rarity already knew she was going to have to have a discussion with the siren later. Come the next full moon, the tomb might open again. In that case, it didn’t matter if there was a barrier around the island. Something told her that this dark spirit would find a way past it, and it would simply kill them all in the process—Melody included. There was no sense sitting around and doing nothing, pretending that everything would be alright.
Of course, that was Rarity’s bitter irony right now. Sitting around, doing nothing, and hoping her friends were alright was all she could do, at least until Melody returned.
Gyro blew a hot breath out of her nostrils and stretched her forelimbs. She’d moved herself to a half-shaded spot with the help of some of the other survivors so she could enjoy some sunshine without spending too much time under the direct glare of the sun. The only thing worse than not being able to move was not being able to move when the sun was scorching her dark coat into charcoal.
But at least, as per usual, there was a nice breeze coming in off the sea. Gyro had perched herself on the sandy ledge that made up the waterside tree line of their camp, where she could get a good view of the ocean. On a day like this, she would have loved to be down at the shore, happily splashing through the waves, but her recovering back made that all but impossible right now. She’d found she could weakly move her legs through about half of their usual range now, but her back was definitely not healed enough yet to stand. At the rate she was recovering, though, she knew it wouldn’t be too much longer before she was out and about again.
Her ears twitched at approaching hoofsteps, and she glanced over her shoulder to see Ratchet walking towards her from the camp. “It’s a good thing you’re not our king or something, old stallion,” Gyro teased him. “I don’t have to get up and bow whenever you approach.”
Ratchet shook his head and sat down on the sand next to her. “Being the king of this ragtag bunch of ponies is about the last thing I want,” he said. “Rainbow can be the leader, for all she wants. So long as I’m keeping my crew safe, I don’t really care about much else.”
Gyro nodded, and her eyes drifted off to the south, where somewhere beyond the horizon, Rainbow and Champagne were looking for Rarity. “I hope she’s doing alright,” she said.
“Who?” Ratchet asked. “Rainbow? Or Rarity?”
“I mean, both,” Gyro said. “But more specifically, Rainbow. She’s been gone all day. I don’t know what the south island’s like, but I would’ve hoped that she’d find Rarity by now.”
“Even if she did, it would take them some time to get back to us,” Ratchet said. “Besides, need I remind you it hasn’t even been a day? I don’t know how long it took the two of them to fly south last night, but in any case, they probably were tired and had to rest this morning. And even if they do find Rarity, I think it will still be a while before they manage to make it back here. Especially if they have to carry her back.”
“They should’ve taken the raft,” Gyro said. “That would’ve been the smart thing to do.”
“From what I’ve gathered about Rainbow Dash, she usually isn’t one to follow the ‘smart thing’,” Ratchet said with a wink. “She just wanted to get over there as fast as possible. Besides, you know she was insistent on trying to take as few ponies as possible. She didn’t want to weaken us in any way while she was on this excursion of hers.”
Gyro sighed. “She worries too much about us,” she said. “She’s always worrying about ponies. Like, what do we even have to be worried about right now? It’s not like those moon mummies and dark alicorn whatsit have attacked us.”
“I think she’s less worried about them and more about our company,” Ratchet said. “She doesn’t trust the pirates.”
“She’d be an idiot to, so there’s that.” Gyro shook her head. “I don’t know what to think of those two. The older one seems like he’s reasonable, but the younger is just… well… dangerous.”
“They’re convinced that we’ll stab them in the back once we don’t need their help anymore,” Ratchet said. “They’re afraid to let their guard down around us. We won’t be able to cooperate until we both learn to trust each other.”
“And why shouldn’t we just deal with them and stop worrying about it?” Gyro asked. “That Jolly Roger stallion isn’t stable. He’s gonna snap at some point, and somepony’s gonna die.”
“Are we really any better than the pirates if we murder them in cold blood?” Ratchet asked her.
Gyro scoffed. “How many ponies died on the Concordia? How many of you guys did Squall’s crew murder on the archipelago before Rainbow and Rarity killed her? How many brothers, sisters, parents, and children died on the crash because the pirates took our ship and flew it right into a hurricane?” She idly struck at the ground with her hoof, leaving a horseshoe imprint in the sand. “It wouldn’t exactly be cold blood, if you ask me. I think it’s already simmering, if not outright at a boil.”
“Be that as it may, we won’t accomplish anything from killing each other,” Ratchet said. “All we can do is keep a close eye on the pirates and make sure they don’t pull anything. That’s what I’ve been having Stargazer do when he doesn’t have anything else to do.”
He shrugged and turned his attention back toward the sea. “Enough about the pirates, though. That’s a point that’s been talked about at length. We know where they stand, and we know what they think of us… or what they think we might do. It doesn’t matter. One way or another, we’ll get over it.”
Gyro could only reluctantly nod and look away. “You know, if it wasn’t for all the killing and death and everything, these islands would be a pretty nice place to retire to.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Ratchet said. “Keep talking like that, and we might never leave.”
“I mean…” Gyro half-heartedly moved her shoulders. “It’s been on my mind a lot, lately. Just… what happens if we never find a way to go home? Think we could live on these islands forever? Assuming this stuff beneath the tomb doesn’t break out and kill us, I mean.”
“Until the minotaurs get to us,” Ratchet said. “We definitely don’t have the numbers to fight off a war party.”
Gyro sighed and laid her forehead down on her crossed forelegs. “It’s a shame, really,” she said. “Everything here just looks perfect at the superficial level. Dig a little deeper, though, and it’s super dangerous and deadly.”
“At least we don’t have to contend with things like malaria,” Ratchet said. “Truth be told, having access to freshwater and food, while also steering clear of dangerous tropical diseases, has been a boon for all of us.”
“Yeah,” Gyro agreed. “Disease would have torn us apart by now if there was really a problem with it. Thank Celestia the islands are basically clean.”
“Mmhmm.” The two ponies sat in silence for a bit, at least until Ratchet stood up a few minutes later. Grunting, the stallion stretched his neck left and right. “Alright, that’s enough of a break for me. You know I hate sitting around and doing nothing.”
“Too bad there aren’t any boilers that need maintenance around here,” Gyro said. “Maybe you can build one from scratch.”
“Maybe. We have enough metal for it.” He turned around and began to walk away, only stopping long enough to give Gyro a farewell. “I’ll check back in on you in a bit.”
“Don’t worry, dad, I’ll be fine.” Gyro shook her head. “I’m not even going to say ‘I’m not going anywhere’ because even I think that joke’s dead by now.”
Ratchet stared at her for a few seconds. “I’m going to assume the joke in there was you said the thing you just said you weren’t going to say.”
“Ayyyy, somepony gets it.” Gyro snorted in amusement and went back to looking out over the waters. “I’ll be here all week.”
Rainbow Dash sighed and idly flexed her wings in the sand. She found herself lying on her back, staring up at the green fronds of a palm tree, catching glimpses of blue sky and wispy clouds as the sea breeze gently battered them about. All in all, it was a perfect summer day. The only things lacking were friends, music, and cold drinks to chase away the tropical heat.
The blue pegasus yawned and let her eyes close for a few minutes, though she kept her ears active and moving, listening for the sounds of something breaching the water. It’d been about an hour since the siren had leapt into the center of the atoll, and so far, she showed no signs of returning. Rainbow didn’t know what she was doing down there, but if she had Rarity someplace beneath the water, she could only hope the creature was caring for her marefriend. Whether or not she was, though, Rainbow didn’t want to guess. Sirens were dangerous and cunning, and just because this one had taken Rarity from the archipelago when she was near death, didn’t mean that she had her best interests in mind.
Again, Rainbow felt another yawn trying to squeeze its way out of her muzzle. It took all of her willpower to prevent her attempt at just resting her eyes from turning into a nap. So long as the siren was down there, somewhere, she wasn’t going to let herself rest. She could rest later, when all was said and done—preferably in the embrace of a soft, white unicorn. Until then, she had to stay alert and active… or at least, as active as her exhausted body would let her be.
She heard Champagne shift in place by her side, and she felt at least a little more assured that even if she started to doze off, the Prench mare would be able to wake her in case the siren showed her head again. Occasionally, Champagne would hum a little tune to herself, but she seemed awake and alert despite the draining flight the night before. Rainbow realized she was right to let the mare sleep a little bit longer that morning. Hopefully, it would pay dividends later.
Still, her impatience began to get the better of her. It wasn’t too long before she groaned and rolled over, cuddling the soft sand beneath her face like it was a plush pillow. “Mmmrrffff… See anything yet?”
“Not a thing,” Champagne dully replied. “The waters are still and quiet. I’m not sure she’ll be returning anytime soon.”
“She has to, though,” Rainbow insisted, mostly because it was better than worrying about whether or not the siren would actually return. “Sirens are always, like, sunning themselves on rocks and stuff, right? She wouldn’t spend all day deep in the water.”
“Did this siren ever do that before?”
“Friggin’… I don’t know,” Rainbow admitted. She sighed and picked her head up, using her fetlock to brush some of the sand off of her chin. “One time, me and Rares and Gyro saw her singing in the lagoon on our island. She hung out there for a while, but she eventually just slid back into the water and left. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen her. She probably doesn’t go there very often.”
“Well, if she did sun herself, this atoll would be the perfect place for her to do it,” Champagne said, trying to assure her. “There aren’t any minotaurs or any other creatures on it that could interrupt her.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping.” Rainbow turned back around and scooted a few paces across the sand until she could sit back against a tree. “She’s probably just eating or something. I bet that’s what she was doing earlier; hunting for food.”
“So long as it’s fish and not Rarity,” Champagne said.
Rainbow grimaced. “If she wanted to eat Rarity, I don’t think she would’ve made more than a snack.” She swallowed hard and shook her head. “But… well, w-we’ll see, I guess.”
They didn’t have to wait too much longer to see. Barely five minutes more passed before Rainbow noticed ripples beginning to form on the surface of the atoll. Sitting forward, she could only gasp as a glittering emerald body breached through the surface of the water, shooting dazzling displays of green light dancing across the white sands. The siren’s scales were like gemstone armor, brilliant and shining like polished stones in the bright light of the noon sun. When she exhaled through draconian nostrils, two small jets of water vapor seemed to issue forth from them, scattering the droplets clinging to her beak. A clear film much like a pegasus’ third eyelid pulled away from her eyes, and her scaly brow fell as her slitted pupils quickly adjusted to the bright sunlight. Colossal hooves pulled her belly onto the sand, and her tail with its translucent fins briefly curled out of the water before splashing back down once more.
Despite the sheer size and menace of the creature, her motions flowed with absolutely perfect grace and elegance. Rainbow wondered if everything about sirens was like that. Even when drowning a pony, they were still likely elegant and beautiful. They’d probably still look dangerously attractive even if their beak and teeth were covered with equine blood.
Being this close to one, though, Rainbow could only freeze in a mixture of awe and fear. She’d studied this siren once from afar, but now, being no more than thirty feet away, she was completely paralyzed by the sight before her.
Slitted eyes briefly glanced around the atoll, but soon enough, they stopped on Rainbow. She heard the siren gasp, and suddenly her enormous bulk swiveled about, scattering sand and creating tiny waves in the lagoon. Rainbow could practically feel the ground shake as the siren shifted her hooves, plowing them into the sand as she adjusted her frame. Soon, Rainbow found herself staring face to face, eye to eye with the green sea creature, feeling incredibly small and vulnerable in comparison. When the siren parted her lips to reveal the dozens of glistening white swords in her maw, Rainbow nearly fled at that very moment, rescue be damned.
“Oh! I was just looking for more ponies!” the siren said, her voice sweet, melodious, and surprisingly not booming despite her sheer size. “How long have you been on my atoll? I must have missed you when I came back from hunting. Oh, but you have wings! Did you fly here?”
Rainbow swallowed hard, and it took her a few seconds to find her bravado again. “We… we flew here last night,” she managed. “We’re looking for our friend. You know… white unicorn? Drama queen? She was really hurt when she disappeared…”
“Oh! Rarity was right!” The siren beamed and pulled her head back, giving Rainbow and Champagne some breathing room the two pegasi definitely needed. “She said that her friends would come looking for her! Glad to see she was right. I was afraid I’d have to go searching around the islands for the rest of you!”
“Yeah…” Rainbow swallowed again. She didn’t exactly like the language the siren was using. But she was using Rarity’s name, so she at least talked to her for a little bit. “Is… is she alright? Were you taking care of her?”
“She’s fine!” the siren said. “I just got her some lunch. Had to go hunting for seaweed for her; I don’t touch the stuff myself.” Her massive hooves pushed into the sand on either side of Rainbow and Champagne, and the two pegasi shrank back, touching each other for support. “Would you like to see her? I can take you to her!”
“You can?” When the siren nodded, Rainbow felt a wave of relief come over her. “Well, cool. Yeah, I’d love to see her! It’s… it’s been a few days since she disappeared.”
Champagne tugged on Rainbow’s foreleg. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Rainbow?” the Prench mare asked her. “I’d be careful if I were you…”
The siren’s fins around where her ears would be twitched, and she sighed. “I promise you, I won’t hurt you,” she said. “I know ponies are scared of sirens, but we’re not all bad. I just had this conversation with Rarity, if you have to know. She was scared of me, too.”
Rainbow Dash stood up and started to carefully walk toward the siren, leaving Champagne to cower in the sand. “I believe you,” she said to the siren. “If you say Rarity’s okay, then I’ll trust you. I mean, truth be told, if you really wanted to kill and eat us, it wouldn’t matter what I did. You’d get us eventually.”
“I’m… slightly offended, but you aren’t wrong.” When Rainbow finally got close to her, she held out her hooves. “How long can you hold your breath for?”
Rainbow eyed the water warily. “How long of a swim is it?”
The siren shrugged. “Not that long. Maybe a few minutes? I don’t know pony time that well. But I know you ponies are small and can’t breathe water, so I don’t want to drown you accidentally. And I don’t think you’d appreciate me taking you down into the caves by holding you in my mouth like I did with Rarity.”
Rainbow balked. “You carried Rarity down there in your mouth?”
“I didn’t tell her. She seemed like she might freak out about that,” the siren said. She gently smiled. “So it’s either mouth or hooves.”
Rainbow glanced at the siren, then back at Champagne, then down at the water. Finally, shivering, she backed up a few paces on the sand and closed her eyes. “Champagne, stay here. I’ll be back soon, hopefully. If not, go and tell the others.” Then, turning to the siren, the pegasus bowed her prismatic head. “Whatever’s easiest for you, I guess. Let’s just… get this over with, then.”
Rarity hardly waited more than two minutes after Melody left to rise to her hooves and start looking around. She knew she didn’t have a whole lot of time before the siren returned, especially if Rainbow Dash had followed Melody’s arrow to the island. Though Melody was convinced that lowering the barrier was a bad idea, and some part of Rarity was worried that the siren might be horribly right to worry, another part of her, a cocky, confident part, was sure that Equestria could more than handle whatever horrors the islands could throw at it. After all, her and her friends had faced down many menaces before, right? And if somehow that wasn’t enough, Equestria also had four alicorns. They could give it a run for its money, she was sure.
But then again, Tirek had bested them all, even fighting Twilight to a standstill when she had all of the alicorns’ power. It had taken the powerful magic of the Tree of Harmony to defeat him. Rarity didn’t know how powerful this shade of a dark deity was, or if it had somehow made itself a new avatar like Melody had said. But everything she’d ever encountered or fought before was a magical creature or spirit of some kind. Even Discord was a magical aberration more than a literal deity. What if the Ponynesians were right, and they’d somehow summoned part of a true god of darkness and destruction?
Rarity slapped herself across the muzzle and vigorously shook her head. “Now you’re worrying too much, Rarity,” the seamstress muttered to herself. “Too much time reading silly stories. You’re filling your head with nonsense.” Sighing, she started to pace in an attempt to shake those thoughts away. She didn’t need to deal with them right now.
For now, she figured her best way of going about was to assume that they could find some way to get home and contain whatever monstrosity she’d encountered in the oily darkness of the tomb. There wasn’t any point in sitting on her flank and waiting to see if they died or not with the next full moon. They only had this small window to act, and Rarity damn sure wasn’t about to waste it on the words of a worried siren who’d been isolated from the outside world for the past eight decades.
…A worried siren who had eight decades to study the murals and carvings scattered across the islands…
“You’re doing it again, Rarity,” Rarity growled at herself. Huffing, she abruptly stopped her pacing and strode toward the edge of the pool in the cave. Maybe actually doing something instead of idly pacing would get her mind in the right place.
Peering through the murky water, Rarity struggled to make out anything below the glassy surface. While the flickering silver torchlights provided plenty of illumination for the stone walls of the cave, their light didn’t penetrate through the water all that far. Rarity could barely make out the jagged contours of stone descending deep into the water—when her own reflection didn’t obscure the view, at least. Growling, Rarity splashed her hoof into the water, breaking the still mirror on its surface. Normally, she would have loved to spend a few minutes to admire her reflection, but there wasn’t much to admire now. She hadn’t even seen her reflection since the fight with Squall, and she didn’t want to start now. She already knew she looked like a freak with her missing ear and deep scar slicing down across her brow and into her cheek. Add to that the feeling of her ribs poking through her chest and thinning coat, and Rarity figured she could have been mistaken for a victim of war instead of just a marooned survivor.
With some degree of irony, she noted that she probably looked like she would have fit in perfectly with the pirates that had caused all their troubles in the first place.
But, dashing her reflection to pieces at least gave her a brief window to peer a little deeper into the murky waters. The hole in the floor fell down for about a hundred feet before it opened up again, and Rarity thought she could see massive archways lining the bottom. Several holes decorated the stone walls from top to bottom, and Rarity knew it was from one of those that Melody had pulled out the figurine earlier. But then she’d dropped it straight down, and now the dark coloration of the unicorn figurine blended in with the shadows covering the rocky floor. All Rarity needed to retrieve the statuette with her magic was to see it, but she couldn’t even see it right now.
Frowning, Rarity let her magic build on her horn until she’d summoned a light source. Then, just like she’d done with Rainbow in the tomb, she flung the light source into the water. With her hooves practically grasping at the edge of the stone platform, Rarity watched her little ball of light drop down, down, down, illuminating its surroundings as it went. It was then that she noticed the structure seemed like it wasn’t exactly designed to all be underwater; she saw a staircase ringing the edges of the hole, and what looked like the beginnings of other chambers and rooms that abruptly ended when they reached the outside. To Rarity, it looked like the hole in the ground might once have been filled with floors, but they’d collapsed into the rubble lining the bottom a long time ago. It gave the appearance that this temple that Melody lived in was definitely once designed to be inhabitable by the Ponynesians, but had long ago sunk into the ground.
Just before the light hit the floor and fizzled out, however, Rarity thought she saw a glint of obsidian in the basalt rubble. But as soon as she blinked, it was gone. Was that the statuette, all the way down there? She needed to drop another light to be sure.
Before she could, however, she saw something dart into the hole. Green scales reflected some of the light of the cavern, and soon, Rarity saw Melody swimming up to meet her. She barely managed to back away from the water before the siren burst out of the hole with a splash, her cheeks slightly bulged out and her hooves reaching for the edge with an uncomfortable swiftness that Rarity didn’t usually see from the siren. Still, she was surprised to see Melody back so quickly. “Did you find them?” she asked the siren. “Are they on the island?”
Melody nodded quickly, and then lowered her head towards the platform. There, she opened her beak, and a rattled and slimy rainbow pegasus tumbled out of her maw. Grimacing, Melody quickly dunked her muzzle back in the water and rinsed her mouth out. “I don’t like the taste of sweat and feathers,” the siren said. “At least fish scales don’t leave your tongue feeling like it’s covered in dust!”
But Rarity’s attention was already turned to the trembling pegasus lying on the ground in front of her. “Rainbow Dash?!” Rarity exclaimed, bounding over to the blue mare’s side. She slid to her knees and nuzzled the pegasus, paying no mind to the siren saliva covering her coat. “Oh my goodness, I’m so happy to see you!”
“I’m… I’m happy to see you too, Rares…” Rainbow managed, still quite obviously shaken up from the ordeal. She let her weight fall limply against Rarity’s side, and her ruby eyes darted up toward Melody. “I… I think I’ll just… hold my breath, next time…”
Rainbow Dash still shook and trembled, but little by little, the traumatizing experience of sitting in Melody’s mouth started to go away as her body purged the adrenaline from her veins. That was closer to a siren than she’d ever expected to get in her life, and was definitely not an experience she wanted to repeat. But if she got in one way, she had to get out, too…
She was not looking forward to the return trip.
But she was alive, she was more or less unharmed excepting the nightmares she knew she was going to have about the ordeal, and amazingly enough, the siren had told the truth. Because pressed against her, simply trying to hold on as tightly as she could, was none other than Rarity herself. Every waking moment, Rainbow had worried that Rarity must have died or been trapped beneath the tomb when the rest of the survivors pulled out. She had wondered if she’d never ever see Rarity again, if the last she ever saw of her was an uneasy smile before she teleported behind the stone door, or the bloodstains of a dying mare on a beach.
“Rarity,” she croaked, pressing her weight against the unicorn. “I… I found you…”
“You did,” Rarity replied, nuzzling her cheek. “You did, darling. When I woke up here, I didn’t know if you were alive or okay. I worried something awful happened to you.”
“I thought we’d left you in the tomb to die,” Rainbow said. “We had to run away. There were too many monsters, too many mummies…”
“Mummies?” Rarity asked. “You mean those corpses I worried would stand up and attack us actually did so?”
“Yeah… yeah, it was really bad.” Rainbow shook her head. “They started attacking from everywhere. We had to leave, otherwise we would have been overrun and killed. I thought we were leaving you to die when we did and the tomb doors shut.” She pressed her nose against Rarity’s coat and inhaled, blotting out the smell of fish and siren with the scent of her marefriend. “How did you even get out of there?”
“There was a cave behind the final room of the tomb,” Rarity said. “I managed to teleport out through it before Soft Step and that pirate could catch me. But I accidentally teleported my flank through a stalactite. I nearly died from blood loss after I cut myself free and escaped.” She turned her face up at the siren and smiled. “I tried to make it back to our supplies to treat my injuries, but I collapsed before I made it. If it wasn’t for Melody, I would have died on the beach.”
The siren, Melody, smiled down at the two ponies. “You’re lucky I decided to investigate what was happening on the archipelago that night. At least now I know why I felt the energy shift there.”
“Yes, and I think I can say we’re all happy about that,” Rarity said. After a moment, she cleared her throat and clarified: “I mean, you coming to investigate the islands and finding me, not the… energy shift that happened there.”
“Yeah.” Her slitted pupils turned toward Rainbow, and even after riding in the siren’s mouth unharmed, Rainbow still shrank back from the look. “Maybe you can explain more about what happened? Rarity could only tell me a bit of what she encountered on her end.”
“Well… there was a lot of fumbling about in the dark,” Rainbow began. “But after you went into the inner tomb, Rares, Soft Step and Blow Off and two pirates came down into the tomb and just… opened the door with some kind of freaky moon magic. They were enchanted or something, and when we tried fighting Blow Off and one of the enthralled pirates, they just fought like they were machines.”
“I encountered Soft Step and the other pirate in the inner chamber of the tomb,” Rarity said. “They glared at me, and it felt like something was trying to grab onto my mind. But there was a flash of darkness, and I managed to escape.” She glanced at Melody and shrugged. “What I don’t get is why. I mean, they were likely enthralled by this moon god’s power, right? And I… I talked to his shade. It could control darkness at will. So why would it stop its minions from turning me into one of them?
“You left with the unicorn statuette,” Melody noted. “The thralls probably can only follow simple commands, but I think it’s obvious that the shade wanted you to leave with the figurine. It wants you all to collect them all and take down the barrier.”
“Wait… moon god? What?” Rainbow shook her head. “I’m… confused.”
“I can explain it better later,” Melody said. “But that’s what was in that tomb, and it’s what caused those thralls and those mummies you mentioned. Some ponies that lived here tried to summon it centuries ago, but they were stopped by another group, and they basically killed themselves off in a civil war. The survivors sealed off the islands to prevent any bits of the shade from escaping and to keep the islands a secret from the outside world.”
“From what Melody said, the shade needs an avatar to complete its summoning ritual or… something to that effect.” Rarity shrugged. “So long as it doesn’t get that, though, then I think we can take care of it. After all, we’ve fought worse back in Equestria before, right? We can take the barrier down and get help from home to deal with this menace.”
“I think you underestimate how dangerous it is,” Melody said. “If it ever gets back up to full strength…”
“It already has an avatar,” Rainbow said. “A new one, I guess. I saw it.”
Melody’s beak hung slightly agape. “It… has an avatar again?” she asked. “Are you sure?”
Rainbow slowly nodded. “I saw it when me and some of the other survivors were trying to fight off the swarm of mummies and keep them inside the tomb until the moon fell enough for the door to close. It was a dark green alicorn mare, with a twisted, evil horn on her head. She nearly escaped before the door sealed.” Rainbow shuddered. “If she had, I think she would have killed us all.”
Melody sunk a bit lower into her pool of water and frowned. “He must have made a new one when those two thralls got into the tomb,” she said. “The mare that tried to enthrall you, Rarity… I think she’s the new avatar now.”
Rarity’s faced paled. “You mean… that monster turned Soft Step into a twisted alicorn?” She trembled and let her eyes fall to the stone. “I… that poor mare…”
“Yeah, I… I thought her face looked kind of familiar,” Rainbow said. “It was larger and shaped a little differently, but her eyes…” The pegasus shivered. “What do we even do now?”
Melody shook her head from side to side. “I need to think,” she said. “Because this is really, really bad. I’ll… I’ll be back in a bit.”
Without another word, Melody pushed off from the edge of the platform and sank back down beneath the water. Her tail briefly splashed out again as she twisted in place, but then the green siren was gone, vanished somewhere into the underwater temple. That left just Rainbow and Rarity alone on the stone, holding onto each other.
Rarity swallowed hard. “What do we do now?” she asked. “Come the next full moon, we’re all doomed.”
Looking at the beautiful mare in front of her, beautiful still even beneath the missing ear and badass eye scar, Rainbow wanted to do nothing more than just lean in and kiss her. She even started to, moving her wings out to touch Rarity’s sides. “I missed you so much, Rarity,” she murmured.
Before she could go in for the kiss, however, Rarity stopped her with a dainty hoof on her chest. “You’re still covered in siren saliva,” Rarity reminded her. Smiling, she winked at Rainbow. “Why don’t you go wash off first, okay? It turns out there’s a bedroom down here, and I don’t want you ruining it after traveling in Melody’s mouth.” A grimace of revulsion decorated Rarity’s face. “How did you even manage that? Her mouth isn’t that big.”
“It was scary,” Rainbow said, already moving toward the water. “I was tucked in as tight as I could mange on her tongue. And she kept moving it! I was afraid she was gonna swallow me whole!”
Rarity smirked and winked at Rainbow. “Maybe I’ll have to ask her what she thinks about your taste.” She even licked her lips for emphasis. “I’m sure we can compare notes.”
Rainbow couldn’t help but waggle her eyebrows. “I’ll give you another sample after I wash off.”
“Good.” Then, humming, Rarity strode away from the pool and down the short hallway to the bed. “Don’t keep me waiting…”
Rarity would’ve thought that Rainbow Dash hadn’t seen her for years with how enthusiastic she was in the bed. She didn’t exactly blame Rainbow, though; she felt much the same way. Those few days apart had felt like an entire lifetime of suffering and loneliness without each other. It felt great to finally be reunited again, and to express their joy in more carnal ways.
Afterwards, the two mares simply lied side by side on the bed, holding on tightly to each other and snuggling in each other’s embrace. While Rainbow almost immediately passed out cold from sheer exhaustion, Rarity remained awake and clingy, holding onto Rainbow like she feared the pegasus would disappear if she ever let go. She’d gone through Tartarus and back ever since separating from Rainbow’s side beneath the tomb, and she was not keen on reliving that horrible experience.
Still, her worries wouldn’t go away. While she’d been afforded a brief respite, now that the ecstasy was wearing off, her fears about what would come in the next few weeks started to crash back down upon her. Neither her nor Melody had expected things to be this bad, but if what Rainbow was saying was true, than they all were truly in a race against time to escape and contain the dark spirit before it was too late. While Rarity obviously didn’t know as much about the islands and their dark history as Melody did, she had still learned enough from Melody to know that the islands were on the verge of something incredibly bad happening. That it had shaken Melody enough to force the siren to leave and think worried Rarity, too.
Unfortunately for her, she had to suffer through those worries alone for almost half an hour. She tried to sleep like Rainbow, but found it all but impossible. Her mind could only puzzle through the myriad different ways things could go horribly wrong by the time the next full moon around and how she could try to fix them.
So she was thankful beyond relief when Rainbow woke up from her quick nap. The pegasus mumbled something and lifted her head, where it took a few seconds for her bleary eyes to focus on Rarity’s face. When they did, she blinked and used her wingtip to rub at her eyes. “Mmm… I think I dozed off.”
“A little more than a doze, darling,” Rarity said, the corners of her mouth twitching a bit upwards. “You were practically out cold.”
Rainbow grimaced and began to fidget, stretching her different limbs in succession. “I haven’t gotten much sleep these past few days. Maybe I can finally get some tonight when we’re back home.”
Rarity slowly nodded. “Some rest would certainly do you good, Rainbow. I’m flattered that your worry for me has led to many sleepless nights for you, but really, your own health should have come first.”
“Nah. There was no way I was ever gonna get good sleep without you by my side.” She smiled and rubbed her nose against Rarity’s. “I’ve grown too used to the good life.”
Rarity giggled in return. “I’m glad to know that I’m still ‘the good life’, even though I look like I’m straight out of a war movie.”
“Scars can be sexy, too,” Rainbow said. “Pegasi are warriors at heart. We love a few good scars here and there.”
“Then I guess I should consider these a blessing.” Rarity touched the wound where Squall had nearly cut out her eye. “It’s going to be nothing but pure Tartarus for me when I return to the fashion world, though.”
“Ah, screw them. You should just impress them with a fashion line about tropical survival and stuff.” Rainbow smirked at her. “Soon, everypony will be dressing in tattered, salt-stained rags, bandages, and eyepatches! It’ll be the next big trend!”
“Pssshhh, as if.” Still, Rarity couldn’t help but giggle a little bit more at that. “Though I’m sure I’ll be dominating the headlines of fashion magazines for months. Everypony will want to hear about my story.”
“I’m sure it’ll make, like, a good story to tell the other ‘Bolts at a bar or something,” Rainbow said. “It’ll probably get me a bunch of free drinks.”
Rarity blinked. “Why, I would have thought that your team would be more worried about what you’d been through.”
“I never said they wouldn’t,” Rainbow said. “But, I mean let’s face it, we’re all jocks on the Bolts. Jocks don’t talk about emotional stuff like that. I’ll get a bunch of drinks out of a few cool stories, and then we’ll be back to flying routines and stuff. It’ll be almost like it never happened.” She extended her free wing and frowned at it, noting the disheveled feathers jutting out from the limb. “It’ll take me a while to get back into shape, though. I’m suffering from muscle loss just being out here. My diet isn’t good enough to maintain mass and tone while I’m barely surviving on grass and fruit and coconuts. I just hope I don’t have any lasting damage.”
“Is your wing going to be fine?” Rarity asked her. “Has it been bothering you since it healed?”
Rainbow shrugged and tucked her wing back in against her side. “I mean, it’s good enough for now,” she said. “It still feels a little off, and I probably won’t know how well it healed until I get the team physician to look at it. I mean, I was running around in an improvised sling of vines and moss until it healed. There’s no way I got it set as well as it should have.”
“But it hasn’t interfered with your flying?”
“If it was, I wouldn’t have been able to fly between all these islands,” Rainbow said. “I know my limits and when to take it easy. So far, it hasn’t interfered with that.”
“That’s good.” Rarity closed her eyes and pressed her chin to Rainbow’s forehead. “Well, I’m just happy to know that you’re alive and well, darling.”
“Yeah, same,” Rainbow said, happily snuggling up against Rarity’s body. “Unfortunately, it’s not gonna last all that long. Soon, we’re gonna be outta here and right back into the fire. If we don’t come up with a plan soon… if we don’t find the last figurines? We’re all done for.”
“I managed to snag the unicorn figurine from the temple, but Melody dropped it in the water,” Rarity said. “She’s worried about us taking down the barrier and letting this dark spirit destroy the world.”
“Well, the dark spirit’s got an alicorn and an army full of mummies, so he’d get it sooner or later, regardless of what that siren thinks.” Rainbow huffed and frowned at Rarity’s coat. “But that still means we’re down a statue. This whole temple is underwater apart from a few rooms. We can’t get to them, not without Melody’s help.”
Rarity nodded. “Then I think we’re going to have to convince our friendly siren to help us.”
“Hopefully she does,” Rainbow said. “If she doesn’t, we’re all screwed.”
-----
When there wasn’t anything to do, Gyro loved to nap. She always found herself constantly taking naps when it wasn’t her shift in the boiler room of an airship, and usually spent half of her days off asleep in bed. Now, being stuck on an island with an injured back, she had plenty of time to sleep. It didn’t hurt that the tropics and the sunlight just seemed to suck the energy right out of her and send her into a deep sleep even from just doing nothing but lying on the sand all day.
What did hurt her was her dreams, and how they constantly teased her. She dreamt that she was surrounded by mushrooms of all kinds, grilled, sautéed, even raw and fried. Her mouth watered constantly, and they always just seemed to be out of reach. She felt like if she was trapped in this mushroomy wonderland any longer, she’d go insane from the aroma and mouthwatering fungus all around her, so tantalizingly close but so horribly far away.
Thankfully for her, somepony shaking her shoulder woke her up from her nightmare. She awoke with a start, her legs kicking out at the sand. It was still in the early afternoon, so she couldn’t have been asleep that long. Who could possibly need her and her useless legs now?
When she looked up, she saw Ratchet looking back down at her. There was a soft smile on his face, which confused Gyro at first. “Did I interrupt your dreams?” he asked her. “I’m sorry if I did.”
“No… no, it was more like a nightmare.” Gyro moved her tongue around, and it was then she realized she must’ve been drooling in her sleep. Laughing nervously, she wiped some of the spittle off of her chin and raised an eyebrow at her boss. “So? What is it? Or do you just feel like messing with me?”
Ratchet shook his head back and forth. “No, I don’t. In fact, you’ll probably think you’re still dreaming when I tell you what I have to say.”
Gyro blinked. “Still dreaming? What do you mean? Did something happen?”
“Yes, actually.” Ratchet smiled at her again, making Gyro just even more confused. But when he spoke again, she finally understood why. “Hot Coals just woke up.”
Gyro’s breath caught in her throat; she nearly started choking on it. She didn’t believe that what Ratchet was saying could be true. Hot Coals had finally woken up? After four days? When Fresh Linens had died, she wondered if Coals would be next, and she’d nearly resigned herself to the fact that the stallion would never wake up. But now he was supposedly awake? Ratchet had to be playing some kind of cruel joke on her.
“No way,” she said, desperately searching his face for any sign that he was lying to her. “He can’t have just… just like that? He’s awake? You’re… you’re serious?”
Ratchet kneeled down next to her and lightly shook her shoulder. “I know I enjoy teasing you and fooling with you,” he said, “But I know how much this stallion meant to you. I would never lie about something like this.”
“So he’s actually awake?” Gyro whipped her head over her shoulder in the direction of Gauze’s hut. “Is he alright? Has he said anything? Does he need anything?”
“I guess I half-lied,” Ratchet said, an apologetic look on his face. “He’s awake and moving, but he’s hardly coherent. He’s spent the last four days out cold, so he’s more than a little confused.”
“Then I can fix that,” Gyro insisted, already trying to stand up on the sand. Her weak hind legs trembled and fought for at least a little purchase in the sand, though she could hardly put much force or weight on them. Growling, she started to use her forehooves to turn herself around, angrily waving for Ratchet to get out of her way. “I’m going to see him!”
Ratchet quickly stayed the gray mare, restraining her with both hooves gently on her shoulders. “Don’t push yourself,” he warned. “You don’t want to hurt your back.”
“Screw my back. Coals is more important.”
“If you think Coals will screw your back to health, you’re going to be mistaken,” Ratchet said, his lips twitching a few times. “At least let us help you get there instead of you trying to drag yourself across the sand like a desperate, thirsty mare.”
“But I am thirsty—in more ways than one.” But, relenting, Gyro sighed and stopped trying to struggle against Ratchet. “Fine, get me some help and get me over to that hut, otherwise I’m going to start dragging myself there again.”
“As much as I’d like to see you attempt that, I don’t want to see you hurt yourself.” Ratchet chuckled and shook his head, then waved over Stargazer. When the pegasus fluttered closer, he pointed to Gyro. “Help me move her to Gauze’s hut, Star. She’s got a date with the patient that she can’t be late for.”
“I heard he was awake,” Stargazer said, moving to Gyro’s right while Ratchet shouldered her left. “How did he even survive? He was out cold for so long.”
“Gauze is nothing if not determined,” Ratchet said. “We should all be thankful we have him here with us.”
“Yeah. Nothing beats having a trained medical professional with you when you’re lost in the middle of nowhere.”
“His temperament could be better,” Gyro joked. “I tried to avoid going to see him on the Concordia unless I was basically on my deathbed. You go there for a sniffle and you think you’re gonna get executed.”
“I always liked him,” Stargazer said. “He’s a no-nonsense guy.”
“That’s, like, antithetical to my very being,” Gyro said.
Ratchet laughed, his shaking shoulders rocking Gyro back and forth. “Gyro is a being of pure nonsense,” Ratchet said. “Of course she’s not comfortable around the doc. They’re complete opposites.”
“I thought he would have tried to cut some nonsense out of you when you went in for your back,” Stargazer said to the gray mare.
“Then I guess I’m glad Rarity was the one doing the cutting, not him.” Still, despite the banter, as soon as Gyro saw Gauze, she wanted to run forward and kiss him for saving Hot Coals’ life. As it was, supported by Ratchet and Stargazer and struggling to move on her own, she could only happily grin at the doctor and try to peer past him into the hut. “He’s really awake?” she asked the doctor, unable to see much through the little frame of fronds hiding the interior. “Did you really save him?”
“I was able to stabilize and nurse him back to health, yes,” Gauze flatly replied. “He had a better chance for survival than Linens did; he hadn’t lost nearly as much blood, even if the shock put him out for days. He’s somewhat awake and active now, but he won’t be moving anywhere soon. I’ve left him with some food and water now that he can eat and drink on his own again, and hopefully he’ll be able to work his way back up to full strength soon.”
“I’m going to see him,” Gyro announced, already leaning forward to try and convince the ponies supporting her to help her through. “I haven’t seen his stupid sexy face for years and I cannot wait another second longer!”
“Be gentle with him,” Gauze said as he stepped out of the way. “If you reopen his wound, there’s a good chance he won’t recover the second time. He’s incredibly lucky he didn’t catch an infection, but he’s still likely to be very weak.”
“If I could pounce on him, don’t you think I wouldn’t need these two to help me get over here?” Gyro smirked at Gauze. “My legs are coming along nice, by the way.”
Doctor Gauze nodded. “Good. Don’t ruin them.” Then, turning his attention to Ratchet, he nodded. “Now that I don’t need to be giving my undivided attention to any patients, I’m going to get a meal and some exercise. If somepony hurts themselves while I’m gone, it’s their problem, not mine.”
“I’ll try to keep the damage to a minimum,” Ratchet said with a chuckle. “Enjoy yourself, doc.”
“Yeah, and thanks,” Gyro said. “I don’t know what we would do without you.”
“I imagine this camp would be a lot smaller and a lot more somber than it already is,” Gauze flatly responded. Then, with only a tiny nod, he turned around and walked away, leaving the three ponies to stand outside the hut.
Gyro only let the silence last about four seconds before she tried dragging herself in on her own again. “Come on, if I have to wait any longer I’m going to explode.”
“And what a mess that would be.” Ratchet nodded to Stargazer, and the two stallions helped Gyro shuffle through the entrance to the medical hut. It was a little hard to maneuver inside three abreast, but with a little careful repositioning, they managed to lie Gyro on her stomach in the sand in front of the other figure at the back.
Ratchet patted Gyro’s shoulder and stepped back. “We’ll leave you two to it, then,” he said, smiling at her. Then, gesturing to Stargazer, the two stallions left the hut, leaving Gyro alone with the other figure at the far end.
She saw limbs move in the dim light that went through the walls of the hut, and a head rose from the sand. Two spots of reflected light blearily looked out at her, and Gyro felt her heart stop. Little by little, the figure shifted closer to her, until their dark muzzles were barely more than a few inches apart.
A gasp, and a surprised shift. Hooves pushed against sand, and soon she saw teeth in a mouth hung agape in awe. Hot Coals closed his mouth, swallowed hard, and soon, sound began to escape his throat. “G… Gyro? Is… that…?”
Gyro felt hot tears running down her face. Planting her forehooves in the sand, she dragged her body closer to Coals and began to shudder as she pressed her cheek against his. “You’re alive…” she whispered, sniffling and hiccupping. “You’re… y-you’re alive…”
Gyro was not a mare prone to tears. Growing up in Baltimare, she had learned early on that the world wouldn’t be nicer to her just because she let them fall. If she was going to survive in a cramped and not very mare-friendly occupation like airship engineering, then she needed to prove herself as tough, stubborn, and able to take anything and everything life threw at her.
She hadn’t cried when the Concordia went down and took so many of her friends with it. She hadn’t cried when the minotaurs had locked her in a tiny room for weeks with barely any food or water to survive on. She’d sniffled a few times when she’d learned that they’d eaten Stormy Skies, the happy seventeen year old mechanic who’d ended up stranded on the minotaurs’ island with her. But she did not let herself cry. At the time, she didn’t have the strength for tears, and in subsequent reflections, she refused to let them come.
She cried for Hot Coals, however. She cried for the stallion she hadn’t seen in so long, who she thought had simply abandoned her after life took them in two different directions. She cried not because he was dead and gone, but because he was alive and recovering. And now, after so many years apart, she could simply talk to the pony she had once loved with every fiber of her being. No longer did she have to stay awake at night wondering what he was doing, if he was okay, if he ever thought of her. None of that mattered anymore. He was here, and Gyro could be with him. It made all the pain of the past few years melt away into nothing.
“You’re alive,” Gyro cooed again, pulling herself closer to the stallion with her forehooves until she could finally lay neck to neck with him and put her forelegs around his shoulders. “I didn’t think… I worried that…” She swallowed hard and drew in a shuddering breath. “Do you remember me?”
She felt Hot Coals weakly exhale, and then he buried his nose in her coat, just below her ear. “How could I forget you, Gyro?” he asked her, his own voice momentarily hitching as it seized up on tears. “I thought about you every night for five years. I thought I would never see your beautiful face again.”
“I thought you were dead,” Gyro said. “Or even worse, that you… that you just didn’t care about me anymore. You just… you disappeared off the face of the earth. You vanished from my life.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Coals said, breathing into her ear. “I didn’t have much choice in the matter. If I could have talked to you, believe me, I would have.”
Gyro hiccupped and smiled. “I… I h-heard you were moonlighting as a pirate,” she teased. “I bet you were a blast on Nightmare Night.”
Coals shuddered against her side, but he did manage to chuckle regardless. “After five years, I think I got good at playing the part.”
“I just can’t believe our luck,” Gyro said. “How impossible is it that we were both on the ships that went down in the storm?”
“It just means we were meant to see each other again,” Coals said. He stroked her cheek with his hoof, and Gyro happily sighed and tried to put more of her weight against him. “We were always meant to be together, Gyro. It’s just… well, that first stint apart that was supposed to only last six months ended up taking ten times as long.”
“We’re going to have to make up for it somehow,” Gyro said. “I’d take you right here, right now, but the doc says that’d be a bad idea. Don’t want to tire you out, right?”
“Just having you here with me is enough to keep me awake and alive,” Coals said. “I feel like I’ve been sleeping for an eternity.”
“You were out cold for four days,” Gyro said, shifting some to get more comfortable inside of the dimly illuminated hut. “I didn’t think you’d make it. A lot of us didn’t.”
“Four days?” Coals looked around the hut as fast as he could manage without succumbing to dizziness. “What happened? Where am I? How did you get here?”
Gyro exhaled and chuckled. “That’s… a kind of a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Coals assured her. “Give me the condensed version?”
“Alright, but I know I’m going to have to answer twenty thousand questions when I’m done.”
The stallion’s lips perked up into a bemused smile. “That just gives you more time to spend with me.”
Gyro snickered and shook her head. “When you put it like that, it doesn’t seem so bad at all.” Taking a breath, she quickly organized the important pieces of the past four days into something resembling a recap. “Uh, let’s see. So after Squall shot you, Rarity and I did some things to get the rest of your crew out of your camp, and then she and Rainbow Dash killed Squall. A bunch of the survivors killed some more of the pirates, and then we all went back to their camp on the other side of the islands. Thankfully, the survivors had a doctor who patched you up so you wouldn’t die on me, and then they went to the tomb at the center of the island, because Rainbow and Rarity were convinced that there was something inside it that they needed to get so we could all go home. But instead of finding it, they unleashed some sort of horrible mummy uprising, and Rarity went missing, and then we all evacuated the archipelago and went east to a different island where we could have some respite and be safe for a while. Now, Rainbow Dash flew south to look for Rarity, and we haven’t heard back from her yet, and you just woke up, and now I’m here.” Gyro looked back toward her flank and rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, I was also half-paralyzed for a day or something, but it’s getting better. Can’t use my hind legs yet, though I can at least move them and stuff.” She turned her attention back to Coals and grinned. “So, uh, where do you want to start?”
Coals blinked at her for a few moments, simply trying to process everything she’d said. Eventually, though, he managed to circle back around to the beginning. “Squall is… dead?”
Gyro scoffed. “After I just said there’s a fucking mummy uprising, I’m surprised that’s the first question out of your mouth.”
“It’s the sanest point I can think to start with,” Coals said. “Squall was a horrible monster and I lived in fear of that bitch for five years. I can’t possibly believe she’s dead.”
“If she was still alive, do you think you’d be out of her camp and even alive to hear me say it?”
“Mmmrfff… good point.” Coals shook his head. “Still, though, Rainbow Dash and Rarity? How in the world did they manage to take down that hardened psycho by themselves?”
“You’d have to ask them for the details, but they’re both gone right now. Maybe later.” Gyro shook her head. “But she’s dead, and most of the pirates are, too. There’s only Black Flag and Jolly Roger left, and for the time being, they’re with us.”
“They deserted?” Coals asked. “Flag was second in command. I don’t know why he’d work with you all.”
“He didn’t have much choice. When the mummies started coming out of the tomb, he and Jolly kind of got drafted to help keep them contained. Now they’re just… hanging around our island, and I’m pretty sure Jolly Roger’s still thinking about ways to kill us all.”
“He’s not exactly right in the head,” Coals said. “He was one of Squall’s favorites because he was bloodthirsty just like her. He was convinced half the crew was going to kill him somehow, someday, and so he was always prepared to murder them in their sleep. He’s probably doing the same thing with you guys right now.”
“I’d bet money on it if I had any.” Gyro shook her head. “But yeah, there’s some horrible shit going on at the tomb on the archipelago, and we had to abandon it. For the time being, it's all contained within the tomb, because it only opens during the full moon or something, so we don’t have anything to worry about for a few weeks. But come next full moon, we’re probably going to be fucked. Which is why Rainbow Dash is trying to find Rarity and we can figure a way back home.”
Coals blinked several times, shook his head, sighed, and laid back down on his side. “Okay. That’s a little too much for me. I think I need some time to process that all.”
“I’ll get you caught up,” Gyro said, dragging herself closer to Coals. She happily sighed and rested her chin on his body, cuddling up to his warmth. “I don’t care how long it takes, just ask and I’ll answer. I don’t want to do anything else except spend time with you.”
Coals smiled back at her and managed to contort his neck enough to kiss her ear. “I’m fine with that, filly. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
After some more time to cuddle on the bed with Rarity, Rainbow soon realized that she was incredibly hungry, and the smell of seafood wafting in from the large chamber certainly didn’t help. Unlike Rarity, Rainbow had few problems eating seafood, and was able to stomach the raw fish that Melody had left just sitting on the stones by the water. Seafood was an important staple of pegasus culture, as the protein helped her race retain energy and build muscle to ease their constant flying, and Rainbow had no complaints about sinking her teeth into some fresh fish, pulled from the ocean not even more than an hour or two ago.
She did, however, have some seaweed as well, mostly to help calm Rarity’s revulsion at how naturally Rainbow chewed into the fish. It was at once both slimy and stringy, and she definitely did not enjoy it as much as she did the fish. Seaweed wasn’t even a plant; it was just a bunch of algae pretending to be a plant or something. Rainbow didn’t really know for sure, but she thought she might have been half-paying attention at Twilight’s once when she started rambling about it unprompted.
“I still don’t understand how you can stomach that, darling,” Rarity said, her face in a constant state of disgust that only worsened when Rainbow turned to look at her with a bit of tuna hanging out of her mouth. “It’s not natural.”
“For unicorns, maybe,” Rainbow said, slurping up the bit of fish and swallowing it. “Ancient pegasi couldn’t farm for crap, so we ate a lot of seafood to stay strong. You guys were lucky you had earth ponies to do your farming for you; we were stuck on the other side of the sea for the longest time.” She bit into the fish again and swallowed another meaty chunk. “It’s also why we got some pointy teeth and you don’t. We were meant to eat fish alongside plants.”
“That still doesn’t make it natural,” Rarity grumbled through her grimace.
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “‘Natural’ isn’t defined by what unicorns say and do, Rares. Pegasi matter too.”
“What about earth ponies?”
“Eh…” Rainbow shrugged. “Apples or something.”
The water in the chamber rippled and bubbled, and soon Melody reappeared. Streams of liquid poured down her fins and face as she breached the surface, and the gill slits on her neck momentarily fluttered before they sealed off and her nostrils began to draw air. She looked around the cavern for a few moments before her surprised eyes fell on Rainbow and Rarity, who were staring up at her from the ground. “You’re still here?” she asked. “Did you even move?”
“We moved quite a fair bit, I would say,” Rarity said, glancing at Rainbow. “We simply cannot leave without your assistance, if you recall.”
“Not all of us can breathe underwater,” Rainbow added.
“That’s a shame,” Melody said, once more slipping back down into the water until her large head was on a closer level with the two ponies. “Being able to switch between air and water is great. I don’t know how you all live without it.”
“Not many of us make our livings down by the shore,” Rarity said. “And even then, we don’t live in the water all the time.”
“I guess that’s fair.” The siren blinked, and her scaly lips quirked around in an awkward smile. “So…”
Rainbow shook her head. “We need to get rid of this barrier, Melody,” she said, launching straight to the heart of the matter. “If we don’t, we’re going to die. All of us. You included.”
Melody sighed and sank down into the water some. “I… I know. It’s just… this is literally the worst case scenario just all of a sudden happening without warning.” She shook her head. “But if that thing gets out, then everything’s gonna die. Not just us.”
“It’s not like the moon god wouldn’t be able to find the statuettes on his own,” Rainbow insisted. “He’s got an alicorn and an army of mummies. He’d be able to scour this island no matter how long it took and find them all, then just lower the barrier himself.”
“Unless we’re proactive and remove the barrier ourselves, we’re only delaying the inevitable,” Rarity said. She shuffled closer to the water’s edge and tried to reassure Melody with a smile. “Listen, Melody, I know you’ve been trapped here for a long time, but Equestria can handle whatever this is, I’m sure of it. Rainbow and myself have helped save it numerous times now. Granted, we had our friends with us, but if we remove the barrier, we can go and enlist their help, and even the help of Equestria’s alicorn princesses. Whatever shade of a dark god this spirit might be, it won’t be able to stand up to all of them if we can summon them all here.”
Melody still looked hesitant. “I’m not sure,” she said, her head and upper torso nervously shifting a bit. “The ponies who lived here made it sound very clear that if this spirit ever escaped, it would destroy the world.”
“We’ve already fought an evil pony who wanted to shroud the world in darkness,” Rainbow said, waving her hoof. “It wasn’t even that big of a deal. Two, even, if you count Nightmare Moon.”
The siren shook her head. “Not just shroud the world in darkness. Destroy it. Wipe it clean. Everything would die if it got out.”
Rainbow blinked. “Oh. Well, that’s a little more serious, I guess.”
“Only a little?” Rarity fidgeted in place. “How reliable would the Ponynesians be with this, though? Perhaps it’s all just hyperbole?”
“Would you want to run that risk?” Melody asked.
“Well, we can’t just sit around doing nothing!” Rainbow said. “The barrier’s coming down, one way or another. The only difference is if we do it now while we can, or if this dark spirit kills us all and then lowers it to destroy the world and stuff. And I don’t want to sound like me and Rares are the only ones who have a real chance of stopping it, but me and Rares are the best shot any of us have at containing this thing! Once we get the other girls and the princesses with us, it won't stand a chance!”
“And what if you fail? What if this really is a bad idea?” Melody sighed. “Forgive me if I seem unconvinced, but I’m worried that you’re just… assuming you’ll be able to defeat this thing without knowing how dangerous it is. What if it’s worse than you think?”
Rainbow blinked, shifted in place, and ultimately looked away. “Well… then at least we went down fighting.”
“There has to be a better way than this,” Rarity said. “Some sort of middle ground. Maybe we can stop this spirit from fully reincarnating on our world and dooming us all?”
“We’d need to defeat its avatar,” Melody said. “If it loses its avatar, it can’t do anything more.”
“Easy!” Rainbow exclaimed, fluttering a few feet above the stone. “The Ponynesians killed it once or something, right? And we’ve got a siren on our side! You can go crush that alicorn with your big pointy teeth and stuff and all our troubles are over!”
“The alicorn that’s actually Soft Step?” Rarity asked.
Rainbow deflated and winced at the question. “Well… I mean, what can we even hope to do for her, Rares? Change her back? How?”
Melody nodded once. “The life of one twisted and corrupted mare would be well worth saving the world, I would think.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to do bad things to her,” Rainbow said. “But if I was forced to choose between her life and the lives of all our friends, of you, Rarity…”
“Right… let’s just drop it, then,” Rarity said with an emphatic shake of her head. “So, what we seem to be coming to an agreement on is that if we can stop the alicorn avatar of the evil moon god or whatever, then we won’t destroy the world when we lower the barrier. Is that correct?”
Rainbow and Melody looked at each other and shrugged. “I guess?” Melody said. “It’s certainly possible…”
“It’s a better idea than what we have so far,” Rainbow said. “But we shouldn’t just sit on our flanks all day. We should get the last statuettes so that we can get out of here as soon as possible. Heck, maybe even summon some reinforcements for fighting off the evil alicorn!”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” Rarity said. Then, turning to Melody, she sweetly smiled up at the siren. “So, Melody, you’ve been living here for eighty years. What do we have to do to go home?”
“It’s… not exactly the most straightforward thing,” Melody said.
Rainbow Dash shook her head. “I mean, the whole place is underwater. Of course it’s not gonna be super easy. But since you’ve apparently been here a long time, you’ve probably got it all mapped out and everything. You probably know where all the important things are. Heck, if you’ve seen the figurine sitting on a table or something somewhere, you could just go and fetch that and bring it back to us! Easy peasy!”
“I have not seen any small figurines or statuettes in the ruins of this temple,” Melody said. “There are a lot of rooms I can’t get to. They’re all sealed off, and I can’t open them by myself.”
“But, like, do you at least know which one’s likely to have the thingy behind it? Or maybe just how to open the doors, even if you can’t do it yourself?” Rainbow fidgeted in place; she was already anxious to get started. Even if they had weeks until the next full moon, every minute spent sitting around felt like another minute wasted, another missed opportunity to get home safe and sound.
“I have my suspicions,” Melody said. “Deep in the bottom of the temple, there’s an enormous door that’s sealed shut. I’ve tried breaking it down before, but it’s enchanted and warded so it’s impervious to damage. It’s sealed by two big mechanisms that have to be undone at the same time to get it to open. At least, that’s what I think, but I can’t open both at once. They’re too far apart, and I might be big, but I’m not that big.”
“What kind of mechanisms are they?” Rarity asked. “Enormous latches? They aren’t magical, are they?”
“I don’t think they are,” Melody said. “They don’t feel magical, and they don’t resonate with my voice. If they did, I could manipulate them into opening from afar.”
“So you’re saying you can’t reshape the stone like you did earlier?” Rarity asked, her eyes noting the stone bowl still jutting out of the floor a few feet away.
Melody shook her head. “The stones deeper inside the temple are very well warded. I can’t affect them at all. Believe me, I’ve tried. The only way to get through that door is by opening the latches at the same time, and I can’t do that by myself.”
“Is there a way we can help?” Rainbow asked. “Maybe if we work together, we can get to it!”
“And just how would we do that?” Rarity asked her. “It’s underwater, darling. We can’t breathe underwater.”
“Well… yeah, that’s a problem. But there’s gotta be a way around it!” Ruby eyes swiveled to slitted emerald, and Rainbow fluttered over to Melody until she was practically standing on the siren’s nose. “Can’t you like, do some magic or something with your voice? Sing us a song and turn us into seaponies or something! That was a fun adventure, wasn’t it, Rares?”
“It certainly was an adventure,” Rarity half-heartedly agreed. “Though I could have done without all the near brushes with death we encountered. At least we met plenty of nice creatures along the way.”
Melody’s scaly brow furrowed, and she rubbed her beak with a cleft hoof. “I… don’t think I could pull that off,” she said. “That’s very powerful magic. Maybe older sirens might be able to pull it off, but I’m barely more than a juvenile. And I haven’t exactly had a lot of time to practice my songs with the pack.”
“Maybe you can just like… I don’t know, make a big bubble of air or something for us.” Rainbow scratched her chin. “There’s gotta be something you can do, right? We can’t be entirely stonewalled on options here, there’s always something!”
The pegasus glanced back at Rarity, who seemed to be deep in thought and staring at something. Frowning, Rainbow fluttered back down to Rarity and tilted her head to the side. “What’re you thinking about, Rares? Got any good ideas?”
“One, maybe,” Rarity said. “I just think it might be too much of a stretch to work.”
“It’s better than nothing, I can guarantee you that,” Rainbow said. “Let’s hear it!”
“Very well…” Rarity shifted her attention to Melody, though Rainbow noted her eyes were on the gem in the siren’s chest rather than her face. “Melody, darling, what happened to the emerald that I had with me when you found me?”
Melody blinked. “You… you mean the heartstone?”
“Heartstone?” Rainbow asked. “What’s a heartstone?”
“This is a heartstone,” Melody said, tapping the gem in her chest. “It’s what makes a siren. It allows us to feed off of the emotions we inspire in creatures when we sing. It’s the source of all our magic. It’s… it’s basically a siren’s soul. Legend has it that when the first siren was born from the First Song, she entered the world through a gemstone, which became her link—our link—between the real world and the realm of the Eternal Chorus. Losing your heartstone condemns you to death, both in spirit and in body.”
Rainbow winced. “Eeesh. That’s… that’s a thing, I guess.” Her attention shifted back to Rarity. “And you found one of these? How? Where?”
“When I was escaping the tomb,” Rarity said. “I found a skeleton higher up on the mountain where the caverns opened up to the surface. It was cradling the heartstone. I don’t know why or how it got there, but I decided to take it with me just in case.”
“Huh.” Rainbow blinked, piecing together a plan—though it was less of a plan and more of a blind hope. Turning to Melody, she raised an eyebrow. “So, Melody… you have that, right?”
Melody hesitantly nodded after a few seconds. “I buried it here when I realized what it was. It was so old that it had lost its luster. Whoever’s heartstone it was, her spirit is already gone from it.”
Rarity nodded. “Now, this is going to sound crazy,” she said. “But… do you think you could use that heartstone and whatever magic might still be inside of it to turn one of us into a siren?”
“I…” the siren’s voice trailed off, and her eyes fell downwards as she started to think. “I… I don’t know. It’s… possible, I think. Maybe. It depends on how much magic is still left inside of the stone, but it would give me something to focus my songs through regardless. It would let me bypass the specifics of the song I’d need to turn you into one without it. It might work.”
“It’s worth a shot, right?” Rainbow asked. “Because I mean, let’s face it: we’re not getting that statuette without another person who can breathe underwater.”
“Then if it’s the only chance we have, we must try.” Rarity nodded to Melody. “Would you please fetch the heartstone for us, Melody dear? We might as well see if this works.”
“Are you sure?” Melody asked, tapping her hooves together. “This… might not be the best idea.”
“Girl, the only way we get anywhere is with stupid ideas,” Rainbow said, grinning. “It’s got us this far; who’s to say it won’t carry us any further?”
At Melody’s skeptical look, Rarity chuckled and shook her head. “Don’t mind her, Melody. She can just be like that. First, let’s at least give this a shot. We have no other alternatives, as far as I can tell.”
“If you insist.” Melody backed away from the pool’s edge and positioned herself above the deep drop into the temple. “In the meanwhile, you two should figure out who’s going to join me. There’s… no guarantee I’ll be able to undo it, even if it works.”
Rainbow and Rarity shot each other worried looks, but by the time they’d turned back, Melody had already begun to dive deeper into the temple. Clearing her throat, Rainbow raised an eyebrow at Rarity. “So… who wants to be a fish?”
Rarity was surprised at how quickly the words came out of her mouth. She hadn’t even given Rainbow much of a chance to think it over or even volunteer for it. Rarity didn’t even particularly know why she was so quick to volunteer. Maybe it was just her generous side, but she didn’t want to risk endangering Rainbow’s hopes and dreams if the worst came to pass—that Melody was right, and she wouldn’t be able to undo the spell and change her back to normal. With her scars and wounds, Rarity already knew her image would be ruined in the fashion world. Being a siren couldn’t possibly be any worse. And besides, it wasn’t like she needed to be pony sized to work on pony dresses. It would just be a bit harder, but nothing she couldn’t overcome.
And of course, just like she had expected herself to volunteer without hesitation, she wasn't surprised when Rainbow immediately rebuffed her with an emphatic shake of her head. “No way, Rares,” Rainbow said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous as it may be, I don’t think we are in much position to complain,” Rarity said. “We need to do this, and I’m the best candidate for it.”
“You’ve already done enough for us, Rares,” Rainbow insisted. “You survived that whole ordeal at the temple alone, you barely made it out of there with your life, you even found the unicorn figurine and this weird siren heartstone thing—you deserve a break. Let me handle it!”
“While I appreciate your bravado in volunteering yourself for this, I think I should be the one to do it,” Rarity said. “We lose less if I’m the one who does this and ends up stuck as a siren.”
“Lose less?” Rainbow frowned at Rarity. “What about your magic? You can teleport and do so much crazy stuff! I can only fly around, and not even all that well right now with my wing still only just healed!”
“Your ‘not that well’ is still much better than every other pegasus here,” Rarity said. “What few of you are even still alive, I might add. How many pegasi do we have at the camp still? I don’t think we could afford to lose a set of wings, not while we still have plenty of unicorns.”
“There’s still three of us,” Rainbow said. “Me, Stargazer, and one of the pirates. But sirens can fly, too! I wouldn’t lose that!” She blinked. "Oh, and Champagne, too. Nearly forgot about her."
“Then think of it as me gaining the ability to fly,” Rarity said. “In addition to siren song to augment my own magic. I think singing is more my forte than it is yours, anyway. It’s empirically the better choice to have me do this.”
Rainbow gnashed her teeth together in frustration. “I just… I just don’t want to see you stuck like that,” she said. “Stuck as a big scaly fish dragon thing… forever! I know how much you care about your appearance, Rarity. I can’t imagine what that would do to you, even if you want to pretend you’re fine with it.”
Rarity hesitated at the accusation; Rainbow was right, after all. Vanity was one of her weaknesses, and she didn’t know what she’d do if she found herself stuck in the form of a big sea monster. But at the very least, sirens were beautiful in their own ways, and everything they did exuded grace and power in equal measure. That was one way to make up for no longer being Equestria’s most beautiful mare, right?
“My career wouldn’t end if I were to be stuck a siren,” Rarity said. “I can still make dresses, though I’d have to make some appropriate accommodations. You, on the other hoof, would never be able to work at the CWC or fly with the Wonderbolts ever again. I couldn’t make you give that up for me.”
Rainbow winced and discreetly glanced at her wings. Rarity knew she was weighing a life without them in exchange for taking the spell for her. Still, her heart did momentarily swell when Rainbow grimaced and again shook her head. “I’d give it all up for you, Rares.”
“While I’m glad to hear that, the matter has already been decided,” Rarity said. “It is better in all respects if I take this instead of you. Forgive me if I same brash or rude, but I shan’t hear another word of protest from you on the subject.”
The pegasus sighed and quite literally came back down to earth. She landed in front of Rarity and looked the unicorn up and down. “I just… don’t want to lose you again. Not after all this.”
“You won’t lose me,” Rarity said, stroking Rainbow’s cheek. “Melody will keep me more than safe down there. I mean, have you seen how big she is? The safest place on the entire island chain is by her side. I won’t have anything to worry about.”
Though Rainbow quite obviously wasn’t convinced, she finally began to relent in the face of Rarity’s persistence. She slowly shook her head and pressed her cheek against Rarity’s for a brief moment. “It’ll be a lot harder to have sex when you’re a giant fish,” she said.
Rarity giggled and let her eyes close. “It depends on how adventurous you feel,” she said. “I’m sure we could figure something out.”
“I don’t even want to start looking at the specifics of that,” Rainbow said. “Especially if sirens like, y’know… lay eggs and stuff like other fish.”
“I’m sure if we asked Melody, she’d give us an answer.” Rarity stepped away from Rainbow and quickly pecked her on the nose. “It’ll be fine, darling. I’m sure of it.”
“I’m not so sure… but if we don’t have a choice.” She kissed Rarity back, and then enveloped her in a feathery hug. “Just… come back to me, you pretty, pretty pony.”
“You can count on it,” Rarity assured her. “And besides, if worst comes to worst, I’m sure Twilight will figure out some way to change me back. We can always count on her.”
“That we can.” With another weary sigh, Rainbow sat down next to the water, her wings gently urging Rarity down with her. “Just try not to freak out too much when you have to eat fish. Sirens don’t eat plants.”
Rarity felt her stomach begin to flip when Rainbow said that, and she briefly shuddered against the pegasus’ side. “I… suppose that’s something I’ll have to get used to.”
“Better get used to it quick, then,” Rainbow said, noting the churning of the water. “She’s coming back.”
Within a few seconds, Melody’s translucent green fins broke the surface of the water, followed by the siren’s scaly body not too long after. Once more, after taking a second to adjust to the different environment, Melody quickly spotted the two ponies and repositioned herself so she wasn’t towering over them. “Well, I’ve got it,” she said, lifting up the heartstone, which looked so impossibly tiny in her hooves. “It still has just enough magic left in it that I could probably make something work from it. This was from a very young siren, judging by the size. Much younger than me.”
She set the gem down on the stone next to the two ponies, and Rainbow raised her eyebrow at it. “Why is it green?” she asked. “I thought, like, all sirens’ stones were red.”
“No?” Melody’s brows dropped in confusion. “My stone’s green. Some sirens have red stones, some have blue stones, some are yellow. It depends on what kind of emotion we draw our magic from. Red is anger and conflict, yellow is happiness and joy, you know.”
“Then what’s green?” Rarity asked. “Jealousy?”
“No. Jealousy is really hard to foster in a song. I wouldn’t be able to collect a lot of magic if it was jealousy. No, green is… green is loneliness.” Melody seemed to deflate as she said those words. “It’s… the irony is not lost on me. Trust me. That’s why all my songs are sad and sympathetic. They make creatures long for companionship, to go back home, to find happiness again. It’s a very bittersweet taste.”
Rarity remembered how miserable Melody’s songs had first made her when she heard them so long ago. She’d had terrible dreams of homesickness and loneliness, and the next morning, she’d been utterly drained. At least now it all made some sense. “I’m… sorry to hear that, Melody.”
“It is what it is, I guess.” Shrugging, she vigorously shook her body as if she was trying to scatter away those emotions. “So, did the two of you figure out who gets to be the lucky pony?”
Rainbow immediately shot Rarity a look. “Are you sure about this, Rares?”
“No, but I’m going to do it, anyway.” Standing up, she gently shed Rainbow’s wing from her back and paused to passionately kiss her marefriend. When they broke off, she turned her attention back to Melody and nodded. “I’m going to do it," she repeated.
Melody slowly nodded her head. “Somehow I knew it would be you. That’s good; I can already tell that you’re more agreeable to song. That’s an important part of being a siren.”
“That’s an understatement,” Rainbow huffed.
Melody only shot the pegasus a glance before her focus shifted back to Rarity. “I think I’ve figured out the notes to make this work. All you need to do is hold the stone to your chest and keep it there. Just let me know when you’re ready.”
Rarity took a deep breath to steady her trembling limbs. She’d already done this once before, technically; amazingly enough, the feeling of losing two of her limbs into her tail wouldn’t be that alien to her. She’d just be much… bigger, and infinitely more carnivorous. Those were all things she could get used to without too much fuss, right?
“Do it now before I change my mind,” Rarity said. “The faster we get this over with, the better.”
Melody nodded, and she gestured to Rainbow Dash. “You’re gonna want to make some space,” she said. “Sirens are… not as small as ponies.”
Rainbow Dash shot Rarity a smile and a nervous wink. “Good luck, Rares. You’ll be the prettiest siren ever, I know it.”
“Thank you for the words of encouragement,” Rarity said, watching Rainbow backtrot to safety. Then, holding the heartstone close to her chest, she closed her eyes and deeply inhaled. “Let’s begin.”
Melody nodded once, and after a moment to fill her enormous lungs with air, she began to sing. The notes were low, long, and soft, almost like a deeply strung cello echoing in the cavern. As the notes persisted, they made Rarity’s skin itch, and she suddenly became overwhelmed with the feeling that everything about her body was wrong, There was no better way to describe it; if she wasn’t trying to hold still for Melody’s song, she felt like she’d start clawing her skin off with her hooves just to break out of her shell, like an insect shedding is exoskeleton.
The meter and notes of Melody’s song slowly began to increase in speed and pitch, and every single utterance out of the siren’s beak felt like it rewrote some part of Rarity’s being. The more she sang, the more Rarity felt an energy building up inside of her, just waiting to break free. The mounting pressure in her skull made her want to scream, and it took all of her willpower not to just blindly take off, fleeing away from the song that wounded her so.
A dash of high notes that jumped several octaves up the scale made Rarity cry out in pain. She could feel the heartstone she held to her chest glowing hotter, like it was made of fire, a fire that soon began to sear its way into her ribcage. When Rarity opened her eyes, she saw the heartstone wasn’t so much held by her hooves anymore as it was melding into her chest. Adrenaline began to race through her veins, and she shot Rainbow Dash a look of worry and regret as Melody’s song began to crescendo.
As soon as the heartstone bonded itself to her flesh, an overwhelming volume of changes began to strike Rarity all at once. Her teeth sharpened inside her lengthening and hardening muzzle, and when she tried to clutch at the beak forming around her nose and lips, her hooves had cleaved themselves down the middle. Coat hairs turned to milky opal scales, and her horn loosened and lengthened, becoming a wavy pair of antennae sprouting from her forehead. The hues and colors of the world seemed to shift and sharpen as an itchiness spread over her eyes, and when she inhaled, the scent of fish and the smells of the cavern were suddenly nearly overpowering. Her remaining ear rose higher on her head, becoming longer and narrower, and her hearing suddenly became crystal clear, like her entire pony life, she’d been listening to the world through a thick oaken door.
The unsettling changes rapidly spread down her body. All across her figure, her coat turned into rows upon rows of thick scales, protecting the soft flesh underneath, and fins sprouted out of her back and along her forelegs. Her spine seemed to snap and stiffen as Melody’s magic worked on it in the feverish pitch of the song, and her flesh crawled as muscles rearranged themselves to more easily benefit an undulating, swimming motion. Her hind legs felt like somepony had grabbed onto the hooves and pulled them back, knotting them into the hairs of her tail before lengthening the entire thing. Bit by bit, flesh and bone and muscle fused together into one strong tail, and what remained of her hooves fanned out into the fin at the end.
A feeling of vertigo overtook her, and between her dazed glances around the room, Rarity felt her perspective changing. Everything seemed to fall away from her, except for Melody, who she seemed to be traveling up towards. Her newly cleft hooves slid about on the stones as she struggled to balance herself, and her uncoiling tail slapped against the stone wall behind her. Eight lines of white hot pain opened up on her neck, four on either side, and they momentarily opened when she gasped as her gills formed. She could feel her voice box strengthening, growing larger and more settled in her expanded throat, and when she squeaked and grunted, it turned those noises into nearly melodious tones.
And then Melody’s song ended on a final crescendo. Silence filled the cavern, save for the ringing in Rarity’s skull, but that too faded in time. Bit by bit, Rarity was able to stay her swaying body and even open her eyes, as different as the world seemed through them.
The first thing she noticed was that she was almost on eye level with Melody. The siren smiled softly at her, and draconian eyes flitted up and down her figure. “I… think that worked perfectly, actually,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Like… like I just spent a week in a washing machine,” Rarity said. Even speaking felt wrong with her new tongue and teeth. She couldn’t stop feeling around the inside of her mouth… beak? She couldn’t really tell where the distinction between the two parts began. Closer to her neck, she had lips she could easily move, but they turned into a hardened, solid piece near her nose. She couldn’t even flare her nostrils anymore; they’d been drilled into the hard frame of her beak, completely immobilized.
“I’d imagine that it’s disorienting,” Melody said, trying to assure her. “Just take some time to get used to it. We’re in no hurry.”
“Right…” Rarity carefully shifted her new body around, feeling her strong forelegs and tail move her around on the stones. She already knew it was going to take some time to get used to her new form, though if Melody’s worries were true, then time wouldn’t be a problem at all.
Instead, she turned her head to the side and blinked at Rainbow, who was staring up at her with her mouth hung agape. “How do I look, Rainbow?”
Rainbow blinked. “You’re… wow.”
Melody giggled. “I’d take that as a compliment.”
“I think I will,” Rarity said, shaking her head. “I think I will.”
Rainbow stared up at the sight before her in awe. Where once a beautiful unicorn had stood, a stunning white siren now lay curled up on the stones. Rarity’s transformation had been both horrifying and mesmerizing as her body shifted and rippled at the behest of Melody’s magic, and Rainbow hadn’t been able to look away. Every detail of that transformation had been seared into her brain, and she knew she’d never forget it.
But now the metamorphosis was over, and she had to admit, Rarity was beautiful, even as a siren. Though Rainbow felt really small, weak, and vulnerable between two sirens, even if one was her marefriend, she was in awe of Rarity’s new form. Her ivory coat had been replaced with an equivalent set of snowy white scales, glistening more so than glittering like Melody’s in the silver light of the magical torches. It reminded Rainbow of a sheet of ice on a winter’s morning, and coupled with the tall, royal purple fins protruding from Rarity’s neck, back, and tail, the effect was something akin to looking upon royalty. If she didn’t know better, Rainbow would have thought she was expected to bow before her.
As beautiful as Rarity’s siren body was, however, it wasn’t without its blemishes and imperfections. Rarity’s scars and missing ear had translated onto her new draconian face, with a deep ridge of damaged scales cutting down over her eye, and one of her new, sharp ears was still missing entirely. On top of that, the green gem sticking out of her chest didn’t quite fit with the white and purple color scheme the rest of her body had adopted—even Rainbow could tell as much. But apart from that, it was very difficult to find anything visually to complain about on Rarity’s figure. Even her sword-like teeth meshed in perfect alignment, though Rarity tended to keep her mouth idly open instead of let the razors in her mouth rest around her gums. She also kept flicking her tongue up to the inside of her beak, and Rainbow knew the hard protrusion around her nose and the front of her mouth was bothering her. But then again, what wasn’t bothering the poor mare, so suddenly yanked out of her natural equine form and into something more reptilian and alien in nature?
“This is so strange,” Rarity said, looking her body over. “Everything feels so wrong and so right at the same time!”
“Your mind is equine but you have a siren’s heartstone in your chest,” Melody said. “The body feels at home but your mind doesn’t.”
“Will that… go away?” Rarity slapped her tail on the stone a few times, listening to the sound it made with her new ears. “It’s very disorienting.”
“Given enough time as a siren, I’m sure it will,” Melody assured her. “What’s the biggest difference? I’m somewhat curious, I have to admit.”
“Apart from the size difference?” Rainbow asked, her eyes sliding between the two sirens. Though Rarity wasn’t anywhere near as large as Melody, she was still roughly three quarters her size, and much, much larger than a pony. Rainbow wondered if that had something to do with the size of the heartstone they’d used for the transformation. At least that meant Rarity wasn’t too enormous. Rainbow could deal with that, as awkward as it would be.
“The size difference is certainly one thing,” Rarity said. “Perhaps the biggest thing is my senses. Everything just feels sharper and more detailed. I don’t think my eyesight has ever been clearer, the same for my sense of smell. And my hearing! I feel like I’ve spent my entire life with my head in the dirt, listening to the muffled sounds coming through the ground.”
“Even with a missing ear?” Rainbow asked.
Rarity touched the wound with a cleft hoof. “Yes, even with that. Though I’m surprised I still have my injuries. You couldn’t fix that, Melody?”
“Not without a lot more work,” Melody said. “I just reshaped your existing body through the heartstone into a siren’s body. I’d need to add things like your ear on my own, and I don’t know if I could really pull that off.”
Rarity huffed, and Rainbow could tell she was a little bit disappointed by that answer. “Oh well. I suppose it can’t be helped. Even missing an ear there, my hearing is still much better than it was when I still had two functioning pony ears.”
“A lot of your everything is much better than when you were a pony,” Melody said. She smirked and winked at Rainbow. “Sirens are just better.”
“I bet you couldn’t fly as fast as me if I really got going,” Rainbow countered. “I know you can fly somehow, but not as fast as a pegasus.”
“You can’t shape reality with your voice.”
Rainbow fidgeted. “Well, no…”
“I think I’ll be able to settle this debate in some time,” Rarity said with a bemused, toothy grin. “I’m starting to like this more by the second.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Just wait until you realize you’re too big to fit inside a door.”
“I’m sure there’s a song for that.” Rarity shifted her focus back to Melody. “You need to teach me some songs. I want to try doing things with my voice!”
“You’ll probably need to collect some magic first,” Melody said. “And you have a green heartstone, so you’ll draw from loneliness and homesickness like me. But that’s something we can worry about later. You’ll be fine for the time being.”
“Right.” Rarity nodded her scaly head. “So, I suppose we should get started, then?”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Rainbow said. “So, Melody, you’re just gonna take Rares down deep into the temple and get the statuette thingy?”
“If it’s that simple, which I doubt it will be,” Melody said. “What will you do in the meanwhile? Wait for us to get back?”
“I think I’ll rally the crew and wait for your return,” Rainbow said. “It’ll probably help if I have some time to warn them that they’re going to get visited by two sirens shortly.”
“That would certainly frighten anypony,” Rarity said. “Especially if one of the two was recently a pony until a few hours ago.”
“So, that’s settled, then,” Melody said. “Rarity, I’ll take you down into the tomb after I bring Rainbow back to the surface. I’ll give her the unicorn statuette, and then we can once we’re done, we can all meet up again. What island were you all at? The archipelago?”
Rainbow shook her head. “No, the east island. With the lagoon and the hill?”
“I know the one,” Melody said. “The acoustics there are better than most other places on the islands. I like to use it for working on new songs. It gives me a better feel on how my notes are shaping up.”
“I can show her exactly where to go,” Rarity said. “Once I figure out how to swim, I guess.”
“It’ll come naturally. Trust me,” Melody said. “Especially if you’ve done this once before, like you said.”
“True enough.”
“Right, so that’s settled then,” Rainbow said. Then, shuddering, she looked askance at Melody. “Let me just mentally prepare myself for the return trip, and then we can go. I’d ask Rarity to do it, but her head’s a lot smaller than yours.”
Rarity giggled. “That would certainly be a spin on our relationship, wouldn’t it?” she said.
“So long as you don’t get into friggin’ stuff like vore…” Rainbow grumbled. She fluttered up to Rarity and hesitated a few tail lengths away from her marefriend’s beak. “Gosh, this is awkward.” She drifted a little bit closer and kissed Rarity’s beak, right between her nostrils, and apologetically smiled back at her. “I’d rather you didn’t try to kiss me back with that thing… no offense.”
Rarity rolled slitted eyes and leaned forward, letting Rainbow embrace her scaly muzzle instead. “I’d be wary, too,” she admitted. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back to normal before you know it.”
“I certainly hope so. Otherwise I’ll feel like I’m starring in an award winning movie or something.” She nuzzled Rarity’s beak, then flew over to Melody. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
“See you, darling,” Rarity said, kneading her cloven hooves together. “Hopefully with the final statuette in tow.”
Champagne sighed and fidgeted on the sand. Rainbow Dash and that siren had been gone for a while now, and she was starting to grow worried. Well, she’d been worried since the moment Rainbow hopped in the siren’s mouth, but it’d only gotten worse in the passing minutes. On the bright side, if that siren had eaten Rainbow and wanted another snack, she’d come back, right? No matter what she said, there was no way in Tartarus Champagne was going to let herself do something as stupid as willingly step into a carnivore’s mouth.
Once more, she found herself wondering if she should just fly back and get help. At what point did she accept Rainbow was probably siren food? That friendly siren deal had to just be a ruse, a façade to make her hunting easier. Champagne didn’t exactly want to look like an idiot, and it was looking more and more likely that her best bet to not look like one and escape with her life was to leave and hide now before that sea monster came back.
She was just about to get up and take a brief flight around the island when the water rippled and bubbled. Her body froze in place, halfway standing, halfway sitting, wings outstretched, as a scaly green figure broke the surface of the lagoon. For a brief moment, emerald eyes rested on Champagne, and the Prench mare felt like a statue, unable to bring herself to move or flee. The siren could have lunged at her and Champagne didn’t know if she’d be able to move in time.
Instead, the siren’s eyes bulged, and she hunched over by the water’s edge. Her massive beak opened, and a slimy blue pegasus tumbled out. Rainbow immediately stood up, the sand from the beach sticking to her saliva-covered coat, and splashed into the water to wash it off. Even the siren herself seemed like she needed to clean her tongue of Rainbow’s taste, and she dunked her beak into the water and spat it out in a violent spray.
Still, the sight of seeing Rainbow Dash alive and unharmed finally broke the spell on Champagne. Her wings and shoulders sagged, finally letting go of their tension. “Rainbow Dash?” she asked, trotting across the sand towards the pegasus. “You’re… alive?”
“Alive and slimy,” Rainbow said through a grimace, shaking her wings out. Once she’d decided she was sufficiently clean, she turned around and nodded to the siren. “Thanks, Melody. I’ll go let the others know.”
“Right. Don’t forget the statue,” the siren said, pointing to the obsidian figurine sticking out of the sand. “Wouldn’t want to forget it now after all this.”
“Oh, yeah, that’d be friggin’ awful.” Rainbow stooped over and snatched the idol, cradling it between her wings. Then, smiling up at the siren, she safely tucked it against her side. “Take care of Rares for me. Make sure she doesn’t get too attached.”
“I don’t know,” Melody sung. “I think she already likes it more.” Pushing off from the lagoon, she briefly paddled her tail to stay in place above the underwater cave. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
With a flip of her fins and flash of her tail, the siren disappeared back beneath the water, leaving Rainbow and Champagne standing on the beach. Champagne blinked and slowly swiveled her head over to Rainbow, who watched the siren go and sighed. “What… what happened down there?” Champagne asked her. “Where’s Rarity? And… what is that?”
Rainbow blinked and glanced down at the obsidian unicorn statuette. “It’s… it’s a really long story,” she said. “But Rarity’s fine. I know because we had sex. I’ll tell you all about it on the flight back.”
Champagne’s face paled. “Just because I’m Prench doesn’t mean I’m interested in that…”
“What? I—oh, for Celestia’s sake, that’s not what I meant.” Rainbow shook her head. “Forget it. Let’s just get our stuff and fly. I’ll tell you the whole story on the way.”
-----
Rarity couldn’t stop tonguing the swords sticking out of her gums. She couldn’t believe teeth could be shaped like this. They were so sharp, she was afraid she’d slice her tongue open on one if she wasn’t careful. How did carnivores eat with these?
There were a lot of questions she had about her new siren body. Swimming would be simple enough with a little practice; she could already move her tail about as she desired, and she’d even wetted the fin a bit to get a feel for the water. It felt just as natural to her as the air did, and despite sirens being aquatic creatures, she felt like she was thriving in the air. Her lungs were each as large as a pony, and they supplied her scaly body with enough oxygen to survive out of the water, and enough air to sing her songs.
Which she’d spent a few minutes experimenting with. Her voice sounded crystal clear and perfect, and she didn’t think she could hit a flat note if she tried. She merely had to think about what pitch she wanted to hit, and she hit it perfectly, without fail. But she could only go through a few scales before she felt tired and drained, like she’d just run a marathon on two hours of sleep. Melody was right; she had almost no magic, and trying to move what little motes she had in the heartstone was exhausting. Maybe she could sing for the survivors when she got back and recoup some magic. But then again, she hoped she wouldn’t even be a siren for that long.
Melody returned with a splash a few minutes later, water dripping off of her fins and beak. “Rainbow Dash is safely back on the beach,” she said. “Her and that other pegasus she flew over with are gonna fly back to their island and make sure everypony’s ready for when we get there.”
“She remember to take the figurine with her?” Rarity asked.
“Yeah, she did,” Melody said. “So, what, we’ll have three gathered there now? You got the one from the minotaurs’ island?”
Rarity nodded. “That was quite an adventure,” she said. “Though what happened on the archipelago surpasses it in every single way.”
“I bet those minotaurs weren’t too happy to see ponies,” Melody said. “Or maybe they were. I don’t know exactly how they get along with your kind. There haven’t been many pony visitors to these islands since I’ve been here.”
She gestured to the lagoon and backed up a bit to make space for Rarity. “Come on in. Let’s get you used to your body before we go exploring. Just remember, you have gills, so you can’t drown!”
“But I take it inhaling water isn’t the same as breathing it,” Rarity said, putting her hooves in the pool. “How’s the best way to do this?”
“Draw water in through your mouth or nose and pass it through the gills in your neck,” Melody said. “It’s almost like swallowing it, but not really. Don’t worry, it’s an instinct we all have. You’ll be fine.”
“An instinct I only picked up a few minutes ago…” Swallowing hard, Rarity slid forward on her belly and looked down at the water. “Here goes…”
With little ceremony, Rarity slid off of the rocks and into the water. The cool liquid surrounded her, soaking her scales and moistening the flesh underneath. The salt stung at her eyes, but when she winced, she realized she had a clear eyelid she could flick up in front of them to protect them and allow her to still see her surroundings. Her tail wriggled a few times, each undulating motion pushing her a little farther into the water.
Melody dropped down with her, her forelegs outstretched to grab onto Rarity in case she needed it. “How are you feeling?” she said, her voice remaining clear in the water despite the different medium. “Just talk. Our voice boxes can handle both water and air.”
“I’m… okay,” Rarity said. “I… think I’m going to try to breathe, now.”
Melody snickered at her. “You just did, while you were talking to me,” she said, brushing one of the gill fins at the base of Rarity’s jaw.
Rarity blinked. “I… did?” Surely enough, as she talked and moved about in the water, she could feel water moving through the slits in her neck. Her diaphragm could move the water through her gills instead of pumping air to her lungs, keeping her chest movements almost to a minimum. But without the great rise and fall of her chest as she inhaled, it didn’t feel like she was breathing… but neither did she feel like she was suffocating.
“Those are your instincts taking over,” Melody said. She patted Rarity’s shoulder. “Now, come on. I’ll lead the way, you just try to keep up. I promise I won’t go too fast.”
She turned about in the water, her slender form moving like a dancer’s as she effortlessly changed her orientation. Rarity tried to study her movements as she swam down and out through one of the doors, pausing only long enough to beckon Rarity on with her tail. Sighing, Rarity set her features into a determined frown and began to mimic Melody’s swimming motions, swiftly catching up with the siren’s tail. It was awkward and clumsy, and she didn’t exactly know how to control her orientation, but she could move, and she knew she’d swiftly get the hang of it.
“Alright,” she muttered to herself, watching Melody dart off ahead again. “This isn’t so bad…”
Champagne stared at Rainbow Dash in disbelief. Rainbow didn’t blame her; if it’d been the other way around, she would’ve thought Champagne was losing her mind. “Listen, I watched the whole thing go down, and I still don’t believe it,” she said, flapping her wings a few more times to keep up her altitude and airspeed. “I didn’t know siren song was that powerful, but apparently it is.”
“And there really was no better way?”
Rainbow shook her head. “Melody needed somebody else to help her under the water. She couldn’t do everything by herself, and it’s not like there are any seaponies or other sirens around here. But apparently, she could turn one of us into a siren like her with the aid of one of their chest gem thingies that Rarity had found on the archipelago. So, Rarity volunteered and insisted that she do it, even though I tried to get her to let me take her place.”
Champagne whistled. “That’s quite a tale,” she said. “At least you didn’t try to make me do it. I would have said no.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Rainbow said with an amused smirk. “But that wouldn’t be right. In the end, Rarity got to be the beautiful badass fish dragon pony and I didn’t.”
“You almost sound like you’re jealous,” Champagne chided.
Rainbow shrugged mid flight. “I mean, it would have been pretty awesome. Not gonna lie, sirens are friggin’ cool when they’re not trying to eat you. But Melody was also worried that she wouldn’t be able to undo the transformation once she performed it, and Rarity insisted that she should do it because she stands to lose less than I do if it is permanent.”
“I couldn’t imagine being water bound for the rest of my life,” Champagne said. “Even if sirens can fly.”
“I bet I’d still make a pretty awesome Wonderbolt,” Rainbow said. “Not even becoming a several ton fish monster could slow me down!”
Champagne’s eyebrow crawled up her forehead. “I’m not so sure about that,” she said.
“Meh. Whatever. It doesn’t really matter anyway, because I’m not the one who’s a fish right now.” She shook her head and turned her gaze further north, where the green palms of her home island rose up out of the calm blue waters around it. “I’m mostly worried about what the others are going to think. And by others, I mean the pirate brothers.”
“Why them, specifically?” Champagne asked. “Or is it just because they’re the pirates?”
“Because they’re coastal ponies by the looks of it,” Rainbow said. “And sirens are a sailor’s nightmare. How do you think they’re gonna react when two sirens show up later?”
Champagne thought for a moment, her hoof rubbing her chin. “I… think I can see your point.”
“Yeah. Exactly. We show up with a pair of sirens and they’re gonna think the end of the world is upon them or something. I don’t really know, but whatever they do, it’s gonna be stupid and dangerous. So we need to try and get them calmed down before Melody and Rarity show up later.”
“That seems like it will be easier said than done,” Champagne said. “They aren’t exactly trusting of us in the first place.”
“Yeah, it’ll be a pain in the neck, but we’ll manage. Somehow.” Shaking her head, Rainbow adjusted the weight of her supplies on her back. After hers and Champagne’s expedition to the south island had ended up not even being a full day, she was immediately regretful that they’d brought so much equipment. She was even more regretful that she didn’t decide to just leave it on the beach and let one of the two sirens bring it back when they were done with whatever they had to do beneath the atoll. It certainly would have made her flight back to the island easier and faster if her and Champagne didn’t have to carry everything on their backs.
For now, though, she could only fly—fly and focus on what lay ahead of them all when she got back to the island and the wards finally came down.
-----
“Melody—Melody, darling, please do slow down!”
Rarity grimaced as she tried to keep up with the green siren’s nearly blistering pace through the tunnels and halls of the sunken temple. She constantly darted ahead, twisting and weaving through tunnels and cracks in the earth, leaving Rarity to struggle and catch up with her as she navigated her alien body through the water. Straight line swimming had come quite naturally to her, but every time she tried to turn her sheer size around a corner, she usually ended up rolling or twisting her tail and fins in some direction she didn’t want to go. She resorted to using her cleft hooves for grip and to keep herself pointed the right way very often, and she envied how effortlessly Melody could move through the temple while keeping her forelegs tightly tucked against her chest.
Still, her slower pace gave her ample time to take a look around the temple she was currently working her way through. Her first impression was that this was once a grand structure, grander than anything she’d seen so far on the islands. There were magnificent vaulted arches, enormous halls easy enough for a siren to make her way through without feeling cramped, and statues, carvings, and decorations galore on the walls, though many were crumbling, cracked, and covered with algae and other aquatic vegetation. The floor was covered with stone chairs and toppled, split tables, and occasionally, she’d spot the remnants of some equine bones left in a dark corner. This temple had been inhabitable by ponies at one point—why was it underwater now?
Melody was waiting for Rarity in the next of one of the great halls. After watching Rarity spin herself about with her legs until they were both oriented the same way, she had to stifle a chuckle with a hoof. “Getting the hang of it?” she asked, her tail idly swishing in the water to keep her in place.
“No, but I’m still moving,” Rarity said. “My brief stint as a seapony was not as difficult as this. In addition to being a lot smaller and more flexible, there weren’t as many tight and cramped quarters in Seaquestria as there are down here. There really wasn’t much of anything, in fact.” She paddled her way up to Melody and looked around the great hall they found themselves in. “What is this place?” she asked. “It’s so… so grand and gorgeous.”
“I think it was once the center of these ponies’ worship and government,” Melody said. “But at some point in their civil war, the entire island sank into the sea, leaving behind only the little atoll.”
“Celestia! Their war was that destructive?” Rarity shook her head in disbelief. “There must have been powerful magic at play to do something like this.”
“Which is why I’m so concerned about this spirit, even if you and Rainbow think you can handle it with Equestria’s resources.” Melody turned around and continued to swim deeper into the structure, but she at least slowed down enough for Rarity to easily keep up with her. “Their war destroyed an entire civilization. I think there may have been more islands than these four, as well, but they also were sunk straight to the bottom of the sea. How the ponies defeated the moon god’s avatar in the face of such awful destruction is beyond me.”
Rarity’s scaly face would have paled if it wasn’t already milky white. “That’s… that’s horrifying.”
“It is. But, if we have some way to stop it, we have to try,” she said. Her tail flared, and she quickened her pace to the doorway at the far end of the hall. “Come on. It’s not much further along this way.”
‘Not much further away’ turned out to be a misnomer, as Rarity soon found out.
She couldn’t possibly fathom how large and complicated this structure was. There were staircases, balconies, hallways, enormous rooms, and open-sea courtyards scattered here, there, and everywhere. Every so often, she and Melody would pass by another giant circular room that led up into some pocket of air and hidden chamber beyond the water level. Had Rarity the time to explore on her own, she might have stopped and attempted to map out this entire structure in the hopes of uncovering some kind of lost secrets. But then again, it would be all too easy to become hopelessly lost in the maze of underwater tunnels and rooms.
“I still can’t believe the Ponynesians built all this,” she said, keeping pace with Melody as the green siren led the way deeper into the structure. “They were primitives and didn’t have access to any of the tools and knowledge Equestria has today. That they could even build something like this that rivals the grand majesty of the Canterlot Castle is astonishing beyond belief.”
“Who knows how long these ponies had inhabited this section of the sea,” Melody said, her eyes wandering up as she momentarily paused to admire a leaning statue. “Even primitives with enough time could do something like this, don’t you think?”
“Then they wouldn’t be considered primitives anymore, would they?”
Melody shrugged and slowly paddled onwards. “My great-grandmother watched Equestrians develop better ships over eight hundred years. Every pony civilization seems primitive at some point to us. A single siren’s lifespan will sometimes outlast a civilization’s rise and fall.”
“I can’t imagine what living for a thousand years would be like,” Rarity said. “I’d be afraid there’s simply too much to remember and my skull would burst.”
“That’s why we have bigger brains than ponies,” Melody said with a wink. She hesitated at an intersection in the hall ahead of them before seeming to remember which direction she needed to go. “Come on, this way. We’re getting close.”
“You said that earlier,” Rarity muttered, swishing her tail after Melody. “I feel like we’ve been going in circles.”
“I’m just trying to remember where exactly this door is,” Melody said. “I haven’t been down here for two or three decades. There hasn’t been much of a point.”
Rarity sighed and rolled her slitted eyes. Of course there would be some kind of complication like this. At least it was because Melody was slightly lost, not because of some sort of unspeakable horror or magical anomaly preventing them from pushing ahead. “So long as we get to where we have to go before the next full moon…”
They carried on in silence for a few minutes, Rarity content to just follow Melody’s fins while she examined the architecture of the temple. There were certainly numerous images and carvings worked into the walls of the structure, seemingly telling the entire history of Ponynesia from start until its eventual decline. And, judging by the craftsmareship of the murals and carvings, the deeper they went into the structure, the more recent the events became. It wasn’t too long before she drifted to a stop in front of an enormous carving of a circle of ponies seemingly worshipping a unicorn descending from the moon itself, while on the panel next to it, the cult circle was attacked and massacred by other ponies wielding spears and slings. All down the hall, additional panels played out the fall of the Ponynesian civilization in abstract detail, recounting nearly every little event that happened in the war. As Rarity drifted along, she saw how increasingly desperate the primitives became, and some of that desperation was even reflected in the carvings about the conflict, in how they became sloppier and more rushed, like somepony was trying to etch everything down as it happened in real time.
She remembered the panels she’d seen at the tomb on the archipelago and blinked a few times. “Didn’t the Ponynesians bring the avatar’s dead body to this structure when they slew him?” she asked Melody. “I saw some panels that seemed to depict that back on the archipelago.”
“If they did, I haven’t seen it yet,” Melody said, her fins swishing along as she swam. “But if anything, it’s likely beyond the door I couldn’t get through. That would be the most secure place for something that dangerous.”
“I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just burn the body or destroy it in some way,” Rarity said, drifting back up to Melody’s side. “Why bury it in someplace like this? How did they even bury it down here in the first place if the entire structure is submerged?”
“Maybe the building sunk into the sea sometime afterwards,” Melody said. “Maybe there’s another explanation. For all I’ve been able to figure out about this, there are still some things I don’t know for certain, simply because there aren’t carvings about them, or whatever carvings there are were destroyed over time.”
“I feel like there’s something that we’re missing,” Rarity said. “Something that would make this all make more sense.”
“If there is, I haven’t found it,” Melody said. “I only know what I’ve been able to interpret from these walls.”
The two sirens swam on a bit more, until they finally approached a dead end. In front of them, an enormous stone door sealed with tarnished silver chains filled up the end of the hall. The chains seemed to be attached to enormous counterweights in grooves set into the walls, with handles on the weights to lift them up. Apart from that, Rarity couldn’t see anything more attached to the door.
Melody drifted over to the door and put a hoof on one of the chains. “This is as far as I’ve been able to get,” she said. “The door is warded and sealed, and the chains attached to the counterweights keep the two halves pulled together. To open the door, we’d have to lift the counterweights to let the chains slacken, and then pull the halves apart.” She pointed to one of the counterweights, and then she noted the distance between them with her tail. “They’re not too heavy for sirens like us, but they were too far apart for me to lift both at the same time. If I lifted one, then the other door half would pull taut against it, keeping it shut. We’d have to get them both up if we wanted the halves to pull away from each other.”
Rarity furrowed her brow and looked the door over. “But even then, how will we get inside?” she asked. “If we’re both holding up the counterweights, then how will we get through the door?”
“The door is heavy enough that the halves won’t slam together when we drop the counterweights,” Melody said. “You can quickly dart through the gap, and I can hold the halves open. Then you should be able to get inside, get the figurine, and leave. It’ll be simple.”
“Couldn’t we stack stones under the weights once we raise them to keep them up?” Rarity asked.
“The counterweights sink into holes in the ground. It might not look like it, but the handles are near the top,” Melody said. “Even when you lift them up all the way, there’s no space to put something under them.”
“Then there goes that plan,” Rarity muttered. “If only things could be simple, but they never are. I’ve learned that lesson quite a lot from this island.” Sighing, she shook her head. “Last time I went through a door on my own, I talked with a god of darkness, nearly became enslaved and enthralled, almost died, and moon mummies attacked my friends. I’m afraid that if I go through this door, I’ll find an open portal to Tartarus that will spawn an infinite army of demons to enslave the world.”
“I’m… sure something like that won’t happen.” Melody fidgeted, her hooves brushing together. “If you want, I can go through the gap, but you’ll have to hold the doors open.”
“No, no, it’s better if we do it your way,” Rarity said. “You’re the larger siren, so not only does it make sense that I should slip through the gap, but you’re likely much stronger than me. I’d be afraid I couldn’t hold the doors open very long and then we’d be separated.”
Melody nodded. “A fair point. I’ll make sure I can hold the doors open first before you go in, and if I do, I’ll give you a shout when I start to feel tired. We don’t have to do everything in this first foray, alright? We have time for multiple attempts.”
“Time indeed.” With a few swishes of her tail, Rarity drifted over to her counterweight and put her hooves under the edges. “Whenever you’re ready, darling.”
Melody nodded and did the same. With her hooves on the weight, she curled up her tail and pressed it under herself, like a coiled spring against the floor. “Do like I do,” she said, “and push on three. Ready?”
Rarity coiled her tail and wedged it against the floor, already tensing the muscles along its length in preparation to heave. “Ready.”
“Good. On three. One, two, three!”
Rarity’s cheeks puffed with seawater as she struck out with her tail. The counterweight in her hooves slowly began to rise, the old stone fighting with tremendous friction against its groove. But, little by little, Rarity pushed her counterweight toward the top of its groove, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she saw the chains slackening and the door halves beginning to separate, slowly rolling away from each other on their slightly declining grooves.
“You got yours at the top?” Melody asked. She twisted and shook her forelegs, trying to jam the block in somewhat on its side to allow friction to hold it in place better.
“Yes, I do,” Rarity said, also trying to follow suit. There wasn’t much room to maneuver or wiggle the counterweight, but she felt like if she twisted it slightly, it didn’t sink back down as quickly. Even when she let go, she saw that it only drifted down slowly, and the two halves of the door gradually pulled closer together a few inches every second.
Melody swam away from her counterweight and slid into the gap between the door halves. Bracing her hooves against each side, she grunted and pushed her forelegs out as far to each side as she could. Though they trembled a bit, both halves of the door stopped moving, and the counterweights ceased dropping. “I’ve got it,” she said through gritted teeth. “I can hold it open for a few minutes, but after that, you’re going to need to come back.”
Rarity nodded and already began swimming over to the door, dropping to the ground and using her hooves to pull herself through the gap under Melody. “I’ll be quick,” she said. “And please do say something if you’re starting to become tired. Better to be safe than sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” Melody said. “I will.”
Then, frowning down her scaly muzzle, Rarity pulled herself into the chamber lying beyond.
Rarity pushed herself off of the chamber’s floor, letting the nearly neutral buoyancy of her siren body slowly drift higher into the room. While the chamber itself was large, it was sparsely decorated, roughly hewn, and seemed to be slapped together in a hurry. The stone ceiling had sharp cracks in it and looked ready to collapse under its weight at any moment, and what might have been quickly carved wooden statues were now little more than soggy sticks leaning against the walls. They were the first statues on the island Rarity had seen that had been made out of wood instead of stone, and she wondered if that was because the Ponynesians had deemed themselves to not have enough time to set up proper stone idols and religious carvings like in the other tombs. Even the tomb that had sealed away the dark spirit, arguably much more dangerous and powerful than a headless corpse, had been given statues, though Rarity had to wonder if the statues were placed before or after the spirits internment and the binding of its horn.
“A whole lot of nothing,” Rarity said, swiveling her scaly head about. “It’s very drab and bare. I think it was constructed as fast as possible, and then sealed off.”
“They probably put more effort on the door and the seal than the chamber,” Melody said. She craned her neck around to see past Rarity, wincing while she held the door halves open with strong but trembling legs. “The island might already have been sinking by then.”
“I’d still like to know why and how,” Rarity said, slowly paddling through the chamber. “Were there any carvings that explained why the islands started collapsing?”
“They seem to be tied to the avatar and the cult,” Melody said. “Maybe they were sacrificing the islands with their dark magic or something.”
Rarity shuddered. “Sinking islands filled with thousands of ponies as an offering to a dark god…”
“Not exactly pleasant thoughts, yeah.” Melody shook her head. “Do you see what you’re looking for in here, though?”
Rarity furrowed her brow and looked around. There wasn’t anything in the center of the room other than some rubble from the collapsing ceiling, nor were there any trinkets scattered about the room. The plain walls didn’t even lead to anywhere else; as far as Rarity could tell, they were in a dead end. An empty dead end.
She blinked and scratched her chin. “There’s… there’s nothing in here,” she said. “No coffin, no figurine, nothing. It’s just an empty room.”
One of Melody’s eyebrows rose. “An empty room? That’s… no, that can’t be right. They went through all this trouble to seal the door. Why would it be empty?”
“I don’t know,” Rarity said. “But it… it shouldn’t be empty. Why would they make an empty chamber, and seal off the door?”
“Now you’re just repeating me,” Melody said, injecting a tiny bit of mirth that all too quickly fizzled away. “They had to have done this on purpose. This has to be some kind of… puzzle or something.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Rarity said, her eyes already searching the chamber for clues.
“Oh?”
“When Rainbow and I went to the sun god’s temple on the minotaurs’ home island, there was a large chamber in the middle of it that had a door we couldn’t open.” Rarity ran her hoof along the walls as she swam the perimeter, looking for something that stood out. “But in the middle of the room, there was a large statue with a golden sun between its wings. It didn’t take me too long to realize it was a mirror, and when we positioned it right, all we had to do was wait for the noon sun to strike it and reflect onto the door. That opened it up and we were able to get the figurine hiding inside.”
Melody frowned at the ceiling. “I don’t think you’re likely to find something like that in here,” she said. “There isn’t even a mirror, a skylight, or a door to reflect light onto.”
“True. But I have to wonder…” Pushing off of the wall, Rarity drifted up to the ceiling and noted the edges of the collapsing stone. “Do you think something like this would really hang this long without collapsing when it has the weight of the ocean pressing down on it? Or do you think it’s hiding something?”
“Hiding something?” Melody repeated. Her eyes narrowed on the half-collapsed portion of the ceiling. “You think they faked the ceiling collapse to hide something in there?”
“I know my gems,” Rarity said, “and to a lesser extent, rocks. They’re all minerals, after all.” Her tail swished a few times, and she brought her face closer to a rough edge. “There are obvious chisel marks on this stone. Straight, parallel lines running up and down—perpendicular to the ceiling. Now, the direction of the lines could just have easily been shaped through wear and tear, but on the other side of this block, the lines run parallel to the ceiling.” She pulled herself to the other side and pointed to it, even though Melody couldn’t see the lines. “These blocks were chiseled and shaped to be this way. If this was a normal chamber with a flat ceiling, the markings wouldn’t be on here. Plus, I find it strange that I can’t find a single crack in the ceiling that will let me see beyond.”
“So the Ponynesians faked the damage done to this room… to what end?”
“For one thing, to make po—people like us think that there’s nothing in here, and it’s too dangerous to enter,” Rarity said. “When in reality, the secret is around here somewhere. And if I had to guess, it’s probably beyond this half-collapsed fake ceiling.”
“So we just need to break it down.” Melody grunted and winced as she pushed the door halves back open again. “Think you can take it down by yourself?”
Rarity eyed the ceiling. “Maybe? I don’t have any magic to sing it down.”
“It probably wouldn’t work anyway; I bet the interior is just as protected as the exterior is to magic. But it’s a good thing you’re a siren now, right?”
Rarity looked at her hooves. “So I should just tear the entire thing down with my bare hooves?”
“I’d probably throw my shoulder into it,” Melody said. “Your armor is a lot thicker than you probably think. We have to wrestle with a lot of nasty sea monsters, so we’re built to take a few nasty hits.”
“So… just shoulder check the ceiling repeatedly like a hoofballer?”
“I… don’t know what that is.”
“Oh. Right.” Rarity drifted back a bit and cracked her neck. “It’s a very violent sport built around physical contact, strength, and machismo. Just… pretend that you get the analogy.”
Melody rolled her eyes. “Right…”
“Now…” Rarity braced herself against the wall and aimed herself at the lowest hanging stone. “I’m going to need a chiropractor when this is all over, I can already tell.”
At Gyro’s insistence, she managed to get both herself and Hot Coals out of Gauze’s hut and into the sun with some help from the other survivors. As much as she enjoyed talking with Coals and snuggling up against him for the first time in years, the lingering smell of death and sickness inside of the hut eventually drove her out. Besides, if she was going to have a happy reunion with Coals, she at least wanted to do it in the sun and pleasant weather, not hidden away deep inside a browning shack.
They’d both ended up down by the water’s edge, where the high tide just barely reached their hooves before retreating again. With a steady sea breeze and spotty cloud cover occasionally hiding the sun, the two ponies were able to comfortably lie in the sand and endure the heat and elements. Hot Coals didn’t mind the heat at all; after his sickness and all the blood he’d lost, the heat felt wonderful to him. Gyro simply didn’t care because she was out there with her long lost coltfriend, and somehow, the spark between them had survived after five long years of separation and no contact whatsoever.
As time slowly beat by, Coals gradually became more and more lucid and aware of his surroundings, and it wasn’t very long before Gyro felt the stallion had all of his wits back about him. It certainly made recounting all the exploits and adventures she’d been up to in their five years of separation a lot easier, even if tears occasionally trickled down her cheeks from how happy she was to get to share all these experiences with Coals again. She still couldn’t believe that he had suddenly returned to her life, and apart from the unfortunate circumstances surrounding their reunion, it felt like something out of a fairy tale.
“…And then I ended up on the Concordia,” Gyro said. “We did a few tours before our last one, but not too much interesting happened there. I got to go to a few places, see some ponies, just, you know. And then you pirates showed up and… well, we’re here.”
“I suppose it’s a good thing I didn’t know you would be on that ship,” Coals said.
“Oh? Why’s that?” Gyro asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I might have blown out the boilers otherwise. Destroyed the whole ship and killed half the crew.”
Gyro blinked. “I never took you for a suicide bomber.”
“Because I’m not. But if you’d gotten hurt because you were on one of the ships Squall lured in…” He shrugged. “That was always my greatest fear: that one day, we’d cross paths again, and it’d get you killed. I didn’t usually partake in the raids, so I never had any way of knowing if we did run into you, or if it’d already happened at some point. I just had to hope you were alright, and we’d never meet like we did.”
Gyro nuzzled his shoulder. “I’m glad I didn’t have to fear that,” she said. “I just… I was always hopeful whenever I stopped at a port that we’d somehow cross paths. I used to wander up and down the marina, just trying to spy into different crews to see if you were with them. I knew it was a hopeless cause—there are hundreds of airships all across the world—but I just wanted to hope that somehow, somehow, we’d cross paths again. And then I could finally learn what happened.”
She sighed again and watched the next wave roll in, the water stopping a few inches from her hooves. “I tried asking after you when you stopped writing, but your line didn’t have an answer. They said you’d changed lines and they didn’t know where you were now. I didn’t know who to ask to figure out what happened to you.”
“It was a private line,” Coals said. “I ended up on a luxury yacht. Perfect target for pirates, even if we did put up a fight. It was because of that that they needed replacement crew members, and I was unceremoniously drafted into what would soon become Squall’s crew.”
“Thank Celestia most of them are dead now, at least,” Gyro said. “They got what was coming to them.”
“What about me?” Coals asked. “I was part of their crew.”
“Only unwillingly,” Gyro said. When Coals opened his mouth to protest, she quickly shushed him with a hoof held over his lips. “I don’t care if you ‘got used to it’ or something. I don’t care if you just accepted that as your fate and started rolling with the pirate’s life. It doesn’t matter.” She took her hoof from his lips and placed it over his chest. “You’re a good pony in there. You did what you had to do to survive. And that’s really fucking great for me, because that means I got to see you again.” Trilling, Gyro cozied herself up close to Coals, his coat and ragged body warmer and more comforting than the sunbaked sands she lied upon. “That’s all that matters to me. That’s all that should matter to both of us.”
Coals smiled and gently nuzzled her back. “You’re right. I’m glad we’re here, together, however unfortunate the circumstances might be.”
“Mmm.” Gyro lazily blinked and watched a pair of sand crabs skirmish a little way further down the beach. “Imagine if these islands were a lot nicer. No minotaurs, no spooky curses and dark spirits, no lack of air conditioning… Think we could live here? Just the two of us, trapped away in paradise forever?”
Chuckling, Hot Coals shrugged and hummed in thought. “We’d need to find some way to make alcohol,” he said. “I don’t think I could survive forever out here without booze.”
“We’ve got coconuts. We can make all the pina coladas we want.”
“I think we need a little more than coconuts to make those,” Coals said with a laugh.
“We can ferment the coconuts instead of rum,” Gyro said. “It’ll be a double coconut pina colada.”
When Gyro turned to smirk at Hot Coals, her eyes instead narrowed on the pair of figures walking down the beach in their general direction. Coals saw her expression and turned as well, though Gyro couldn’t see what sort of emotions he portrayed on his face when he saw his two former crew members. The two pirates stopped not too far away when they realized who was lying on the beach in front of him, and then they slowly approached, disbelief and annoyance portrayed in their eyes.
“So, he lives,” Flag said, narrowing his eyes at Coals. “Of all the good ponies we’ve lost, you’re still hanging around.”
“I knew I should’ve murdered him,” Roger spat, purposefully loud enough so Coals could hear him from behind Flag. “It would’ve been right.”
“Good afternoon to you, too,” Coals said in a carefully measured tone.
“So, you’re already trying to bed the paraplegic?” Flag asked, pointing to Gyro. “I’m surprised you’ve even got enough blood left in you to pop a stiffy. Better be careful these survivors don’t bleed you dry.”
“She was my marefriend before I ended up on your crew,” Coals said. “This is the first time we’ve seen each other in five years.”
“Five years, eh? I guess it has been that long.” Flag grinned at the two of them, though it only made Gyro shudder. “You sure they’re all gonna forgive you for everything that fast just because you had a thing with one of them? You were one of us for five years, Coals. Don’t forget it.”
“I was never one of you,” Coals insisted. “I just did what I had to to survive.”
“Didn’t we all,” Flag said, winking at Roger. “Plundering ships is the only way to make a decent living out in the sky. You got nice and cozy with the rest of us by the end of it all. I almost thought of you as a shipmate and a brother.”
He leaned forward and patted Coals’ shoulder, making him and Gyro wince away. “Be careful of where you stand on that thin red line, Coals,” he said. “I don’t know how any of this is going to shake down. Nopony does. But we’ll know soon enough” Glancing back at Roger, Flag nodded his head towards the camp. “Let’s grab some food and maybe get into that crate of rum. The only miracle on these fucking islands is that we still have rum with us…”
The two pirates walked away, leaving Gyro and Coals behind on the beach. They watched them go until they went through the narrow line of trees, and then Gyro sighed. “I really hate those guys. I really, really do.”
Coals slowly nodded. “Yeah,” he finally agreed. “At least they know that they’re outnumbered. That’s probably the only thing stopping them from trying anything. They’re a bunch of paranoid motherfuckers.”
“Which will only make the coming snap worse…” Gyro sighed and laid her head down on her forelegs. “I’m just hoping Rainbow and Rarity get back soon. Maybe they’ll be able to defuse this ticking bomb…”
Rarity panted and panted—as much as an aquatic creature could pant through gills. Her shoulders hurt and she was pretty sure her rattling teeth had cut her tongue, and she was swiftly becoming exhausted. She also was pretty sure she’d knocked some of her scales loose, and now her the skin of her shoulders itched but she couldn’t scratch them beneath her natural armor.
To say her mood was quickly growing foul was an understatement.
“I hate this,” Rarity grumbled, leaning back against the wall to pause and flush some more oxygen through her gills. “I hate this stupid fake ceiling, and I hate the Ponynesians for making it. I hate them for setting up this overly complicated barrier, and I hate them for summoning a god of darkness that warranted it in the first place. And I hate that god of darkness too for stealing my blood and even being a problem we have to deal with in the first place.”
“Perhaps you’d like to list off what you don’t hate?” Melody quipped, her shoulders still trembling as she held open the door. Her stamina impressed Rarity—she’d held the two door halves open for approaching half an hour now without complaint. Though Rarity could see she was slowly growing more and more tired, the siren hadn’t said anything about her sore muscles yet. She was, to borrow some of Rainbow’s lexicon, a ‘beast’.
“I’m not nearly that sour,” Rarity said. “I just like complaining. It’s how I de-stress.”
“Right.”
“Are you sure you don’t need to take a break?” Rarity asked her. “I’m worried you’re going to hurt something.”
Melody shook her head. “I can keep this up all day,” she said. “They’re not as heavy as you think. Honest.”
Rarity’s eyes narrowed some. “I’ve spent enough time around Applejack to know a lie when I hear it. I just don’t want you to hurt yourself, or end up with me getting trapped inside this chamber.”
“I’m a lot stronger than I look,” Melody insisted. “I told you, I’ll warn you when I feel like I can’t hold it open anymore. I haven’t gotten there yet.” She grunted, let her chest expand some, and pushed the door halves a few inches farther apart again. “Just focus on taking down the ceiling, okay? It doesn’t look like you’ve made much progress.”
Rarity glowered at the ceiling. “You’re not the one trying to use your shoulder as a battering ram to bring down several tons of stone.”
“You’re not the one holding several tons of stone open with your legs so they don’t crush you and trap your friend inside.”
“Point… point taken.” Rarity sighed and pushed herself away from the wall again. For all the effort she’d put into it, the ceiling hardly seemed changed. The rocks still hung down from their roots, and apart from knocking a few small pieces of gravel out of the cracks, Rarity hadn’t accomplished much with her brute force approach. While Melody was right about her armor softening the blows, it just didn’t seem like she could put enough force into it to actually dislodge the rocks and allow the ceiling to collapse.
“I need to think of another approach to this,” Rarity said, drifting back towards the ceiling. “I’m thinking like Rainbow Dash, and Celestia knows that hardly gets anypony anywhere when it matters.”
“She certainly seemed like she was the kind of pony to think after she flies,” Melody agreed. “I’m afraid to hear what her singing voice is like.”
“I’m afraid to hear anypony sing again after experiencing what it’s like to be a siren,” Rarity said. “I’m afraid it would just sound horrible.”
“Trust me, it does.” Melody chuckled and smirked. “I’ve listened to seaponies sing before. They’re really bad at it. Then again, everyone sounds bad when they try to sing if they’re not a siren.”
“Oh, shush. Not all of us could be ‘born from the first song’ or however you described it. Though I will admit, that legend has a sort of beautiful romanticism to it.”
“You should hear an oracle sing it sometime,” Melody said. “We don’t have reading or writing, but we do have a very strong oral tradition. You’d be hard pressed to find a better epic.”
“I’m sure you’re right about that,” Rarity said. But, frowning, she shook her head and rubbed her hooves against the sides of her face. “Unfortunately, that isn’t going to help us get anywhere, as much as I’d love to hear it.”
“It’s certainly not making holding this door open any easier.”
Rarity put her hooves on the blocks hanging down from the ceiling and looked them over. If she could figure out how they were made, then maybe she could figure out how to get the ceiling to collapse. There had to be a much more intricate answer to this puzzle than what she was trying, because it certainly wasn’t getting her anywhere. It would certainly help her if she could see into the cracks in the ceiling, but there was hardly any light to see by. For the first time, Rarity realized that there weren’t any light sources other than what drifted into the structure from the open courtyards and windows of the structure, and her slitted, draconic eyes were allowing her to see everything perfectly clearly. It was yet another improvement over her pony form that she was just discovering, though the final test would still be to see if she could do magic with her voice.
As her thoughts momentarily wandered, Rarity accidentally put some pressure on one of the blocks, which went completely unnoticed by her until it shifted slightly, releasing a tiny trickle of sediment that rolled off her leg. Blinking, Rarity leaned in for a closer look, and she discovered that the block she was touching wasn’t perfectly square, but instead narrowed toward the ceiling, almost like a large wedge. The block had been nestled between other, larger blocks, sheltering it from Rarity’s repeated shoulder checks, but there was just enough space around the edges for Rarity to dig the cleft of her hooves into the seam and pull. Grunting and gritting her teeth, Rarity managed to start slowly pulling the block out, even arching her back so she could put her tail against the ceiling and use it to help push herself downwards and pull on the block.
“I… think I found the answer,” Rarity grunted between pulls. “It’s all held together… by this keystone!”
“Really?” Melody asked, squinting at the stone. “If it’s all held together by one stone, you should be careful it doesn’t—!”
“Hah!” With one last heave, Rarity popped the heavy stone out of place and dropped it onto the ground. “There! Now, let’s start with the next—!”
Before she could finish her thought, the chamber rumbled and the ceiling shifted. Gasping, Rarity pushed herself away from the center of the chamber just before the rocks began to fall and tumble. Their impacts with the ground through up thick clouds of sediment, and Rarity felt the sand irritate the gills in her neck as they drifted over them. Grimacing, she pressed her back against the wall and rubbed her hooves over her gills, curling her tail up to avoid getting it pinned under any falling rocks.
When the cloud of sediment cleared, Rarity saw Melody staring worriedly across the room. The green siren’s features immediately softened when she realized Rarity was alright, and her shoulders sagged as she finally relaxed. “I thought the ceiling would crush you,” she said. “You should have been more careful.”
Rarity pushed herself off the ground and dusted off her scales. “Perhaps, but I’m not hurt, at least. And I got the ceiling to collapse! The brain is always mightier than the brawn!”
“Well, what can you see in there?” Melody asked, her eyes peering at the hole in the ceiling. “Does it have what we’re looking for?”
“I don’t know,” Rarity said, swimming up to the hole, “but I’m going to find out.”
Sand and sediment trickled down through the gaps in the now-open ceiling, finally freed from centuries of build up between the stone blocks of the chamber. Rarity could even taste the difference in the seawater drifting down from the ceiling into the chamber her and Melody floated in. It was briny and stale, and her sharp siren eyes could see the difference in the salinity of the water as it mingled with the rest of the seawater. It was also lacking in oxygen, and when it ran over Rarity’s gills, she felt like it was the aquatic equivalent to trying to breathe in a very steamy sauna, where the air was just dripping with moisture. While the water here similarly posed no risk to suffocating her, it was nevertheless unpleasant to breathe.
Even Melody got a taste of the salt as it made its way to the door. “That chamber’s been sealed off for a long time,” she said. “All the oxygen is gone and it’s just been pooling brine. I’d be surprised if there was anything living in there.”
Rarity put her hooves on the edge of the hole and poked her head into the room. At a quick glance, all she saw was barren, lifeless stone, lacking even in the simple algae slime that had coated many walls of the structure so far. “It’s dead as the grave,” she said, glancing back at Melody. “Which doesn’t reassure me by any stretch of the imagination, because the tomb was similarly dead until it wasn’t.”
“Just try not to touch anything that looks evil,” Melody offered. “That’s about the best we can do.”
“I’ll certainly make an attempt not to,” Rarity said, pulling herself through the hole. “Everything went horribly wrong when I did last time…”
The room above the ceiling was like an ancient holy temple’s equivalent of an attic. It was cramped and obviously had been designed to be hidden between different rooms, judging by the slopes of the walls and the overall cramped quarters. For the first time so far, Rarity felt like her enormous siren size was definitely a detriment in this place. Where the previous rooms and halls had been so grand and large her and Melody could easily swim and maneuver through them, Rarity knew she wouldn’t be able to pull her whole siren body into the attic above the empty chamber. She was already having a difficult enough time just getting her head, hooves, and dorsal fin to fit comfortably in the cramped space. But, at the very least, she seemed to have found what she was looking for.
She immediately knew the room was different because of the carvings and panels squeezed into the tiny spaces available for the Ponynesians to work with. What they couldn’t fit onto the tiny walls, they’d placed on the low ceiling instead, but instead of murals depicting some history, every inch seemed to be covered with runes and other holy or religious symbols. They were wards of some kind, Rarity realized, though she couldn’t feel any magic through her antennae. At least, not in the same way she could feel the magic around the islands in her horn.
“What do you see?” Melody asked from below, unable to see past Rarity’s body into the room. “Is this what we’re looking for?”
“I think so,” Rarity said. “There’s runes and holy symbols and carvings. A lot of effort was put into this little hideaway, certainly a lot more than the room below. Apart from the fake ceiling, perhaps.” She squinted and peered through the darkness, her surroundings taking on a more grayish tone as the available light dwindled further. “I think I see something in the back, though. I’ll try to reach it.”
That something in the back was a small rectangular box, made out of stone with a heavy stone lid on top of it. It had been carved into the wall so Rarity couldn’t move it, but she had a good feeling she knew what was inside. After all, she figured that the concept of a sarcophagus would be fairly universal between different distinct cultures, and she knew she was looking at one right now.
The body of the first avatar was lying in front of her. But where was the figurine?
She relayed the information back down to Melody while she tried to look around and peer into the shadowy corners of the room. “There’s a large, stone container in here. I think it must be the resting place of the first avatar’s body. But I don’t see the figurine anywhere else. It’s certainly not in the open.”
“There aren’t any hidden panels or nooks to conceal it in?” Melody asked. “Someplace safe that the Ponynesians might have tucked it away in?”
After a few more seconds to look around the room, Rarity had to shake her head. “No, not that I can see. The walls here are very plain and barren, and these figurines were usually proudly presented in the open. Both the pegasus and the unicorn statuette were resting on altars, sitting in plain sight.”
“Is it inside the sarcophagus?”
Rarity wince and rubbed her hooves together. “It might be… but I’m not very keen on opening that up for obvious reasons.”
“True.” Melody was silent for a few moments, her tail swishing back and forth. “You’re sure it’s not anywhere else?”
“I’m very certain,” Rarity said. “There’s no place else it could be in here.”
“Then I guess we have to open the coffin. Can you reach it?”
Rarity warily eyed the stone container in front of her. “I can. I’m just worried that this will be a mistake.”
“Well, mistake or not, if we get all the figurines then we can get your backup and reinforcements that you’ve promised,” Melody said. “It’ll give us time to figure out what to do.”
“I’m just going to prepare to swim for my life once I open this thing,” Rarity said. “You’ll know if a headless corpse lunges at me by my panicked screaming.”
“I’ll try to hold the doors open long enough for you to swim through, but I make no promises.”
“Thanks,” Rarity said with a roll of her eyes. Then, grimacing, she set her hooves on either side of the sarcophagus and tried to ready herself. “If opening this box dooms us all, I swear to Celestia…”
Her legs flexed almost without her realizing it, and her siren strength easily pried the lid off of the sarcophagus. She fully expected something horrible to burst out of the box as soon as the heavy stone lid slid off to the side and slammed against the ground, but after a few seconds of cringing and tensing, waiting for anything to happen, Rarity finally concluded that nothing had changed. There was still the box, and there hadn’t been any noise or any movement.
Frowning, Rarity slowly inched her head up and forward, angling her neck to the side to try and make room for the large fins jutting out of her spine in the cramped quarters of the room. She got just close enough to peer into the sarcophagus, though her eyes didn’t linger on what lied inside all that long. She caught a quick glimpse of dark hair clinging to a body, and that was all she needed to see. If the murals back at the tomb on the archipelago were right, then the ponies had cut the avatar’s head off or something to that effect. She didn’t exactly want to see that.
Instead, she carefully lowered her hooves into the box, being extra careful to make sure she did any exploring of the environment with her hooves alone. Sirens’ hooves were much more solid than a pony’s hooves, and so she had less risk of accidentally cutting herself on something and repeating the accident she’d made back in the tomb with the dark spirit. She shuddered when they brushed against something soft, but she didn’t waste any time dealing with her revulsion; even she realized that the fastest way to get this done and over with was to just push on until she found what she was looking for. Never mind the dead body in the stone box; all she needed was the statuette.
Her hoof hit something hard, and Rarity immediately latched onto it with the two halves, pinching it and dragging it out. She almost squealed with joy when she saw the tiny shape of an earth pony staring back up at her. Somehow, finding the final statuette had gone off without too many problems, the worst of which had simply been solving a puzzle. But now, despite the odds, Rarity found herself cradling the last missing piece that would take them home.
“I-I’ve got it!” she stammered, still not quite believing her luck. “It was inside the sarcophagus all along! We have them all, now!”
“Really?” Melody asked, her voice carrying a note of disbelief. “It can’t have been that easy…”
“I wouldn’t have thought so either, yet here we are!” Rarity said. She quickly darted back down out of the ceiling and proudly displayed the little figurine to Melody. “We have it! We have them all! We can finally, finally go home!”
Melody’s expression brightened upon seeing the statuette. “That’s great!” she exclaimed, her scaly lips curving into a grin. “I’ve been dreaming of this day for so long, but I can’t believe that it’s finally here!”
“Me neither,” Rarity said, carefully cradling the figurine. “Yet here we are! Are you ready to finally be rid of these islands?”
“I most certainly am!” Melody giggled and pushed the door halves back out in a spurt of excitement-fueled energy. Still, they nevertheless came pushing back on her tiring limbs, and she winced. “But perhaps we should celebrate outside. I don’t think I can hold these doors open all that much longer.”
“A fair point,” Rarity said, slipping between the halves underneath Melody. With a grunt, Melody pushed herself out of the gap, and the two halves of the doors slid back together in a few seconds as the counterweights dragged them back into position. Grunting, Melody winced and rolled her shoulders, idly flexing and grabbing at her legs as the soreness crept up and down her muscles. “I’m so glad I don’t have to hold that thing open anymore.”
“I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about getting trapped inside anymore.” Sighing, Rarity looked the final figurine over, grinning to herself as she did so. “Let’s take you back home,” she said to it. “There are a lot of ponies who will be very happy to see you!”
Rarity and Melody stopped for a moment to rest up and catch their breath a little further away from the door halves. Rarity didn’t want to stay near them because of what she knew was on the other side, and Melody simply didn’t want to wait near the doors that had caused her such annoyance over the years. Instead, the two sirens found a quiet place to relax near one of the grand halls of the structure, where there was enough light making its way through the seawater to allow them to more easily see the figurine Rarity had snatched from the coffin.
“Let’s get a look at you!” Rarity excitedly cooed, pushing herself backwards through the water until she could get a few rays of sunlight to fall on the statuette. Whereas the pegasus and unicorn statuettes had obviously resembled the Ponynesians’ gods, and she couldn’t even remember what the crystal pony statue had looked like, this one seemed much more plain and simple. It depicted a stout stallion with a spear resting against his shoulder and a fishing net draped over his back and held in his teeth at the corner. Instead of a figure of divinity or power, it seemed to be a simple depiction of an average Ponynesian, resolute and determined despite the harshness of a life in the isolated tropics of the world.
“It’s certainly not as impressive as the unicorn,” Melody said, drifting closer to Rarity to get a better look at the figurine. “Very finely carved, though.”
“Well, they all were, so that’s nothing new,” Rarity said. “I’d imagine you wouldn’t want to enchant a totem of poor quality if you want your magic to work well.”
“I wouldn’t know. Sirens don’t enchant things like ponies do.”
“Mmm.” Rarity spun the figurine around, looking it over from all angles. “Still, regardless of how it looks, it’s the last thing we need. With this, we can finally lower the barrier around the islands and go home. After all this time, all this suffering, we’ll finally be able to go home!”
“All this time?” Melody raised an eyebrow. “You aren’t in any position to complain.”
“Erm… yes, I suppose you’re right. Still, though, aren’t you excited at returning to your… flock? Pod?” Rarity blinked. “What is a pack of sirens called?”
“A choir,” Melody said. “Kind of obvious in hindsight, don’t you think?”
“That’s… yes, you’re right, that one should have been easy enough to guess.”
Melody nodded. “And to answer your question, yes, I’m excited to finally be with my mother again. I am nervous, though. I’ve been gone for a long time…”
Rarity touched her shoulder to reassure her. “By the sound of it, things should mostly still be the same, I would think,” she said. “When sirens live for a thousand years, I doubt there’s been much turnover in your choir while you’ve been gone.”
“My choir was roughly thirty mothers and daughters,” Melody said, “but who knows how its makeup has changed since I’ve been gone. But I’m not even worried about that; I’m worried about what they’ll think of me after I’ve been gone for so long.”
“I’m sure they’ll be ecstatic to see you again,” Rarity said. “If your choir was close with one another, I’m sure your separation impacted them all.”
“My mom would tell me that they would ask about me,” Melody said. “I guess you’re right.”
“I know I’m right.” Rarity smirked. “I wonder if I’ll get to meet them one day.”
“You’d certainly have to be a siren for a long while for that,” Melody said. “The choir is riding the currents toward the east for now. They’ll be gone for a few months.”
“Maybe I’ll get the chance to some other time, then.” Rarity lowered the figurine and turned her attention toward Melody. “I’d like to think that even when all this is over, I can still call you my friend and be able to see you.”
Melody smiled and rubbed her hooves together. “I’d… like that a lot. So long as it’s not near pony population centers or shipping lanes. I don’t want to be attacked by ponies who don’t understand me and my kind.”
“I will certainly be a very vocal advocate of fair treatment for sirens upon my return to Equestria. Perhaps I can have Twilight petition the royal sisters to set up an organization for it.” She shook her head. “The world could always be improved by understanding and spreading friendship between all species.”
“Certainly.” Melody swished her tail back and forth a few times, simply playing with the currents coming off of it. “I always found ponies an amusing paradox for that. They proclaim friendship as a great magic, but they are so terrified and fearful of some of the other sapient species around them. It looks like a stark hypocrisy at a glance.”
Rarity shrugged her shoulders and reluctantly nodded in agreement. “Unfortunately, you’re right enough, darling. But that’s something we’ve been helping to remedy for years now. We’ve made such great progress, and I have very little doubt that shortly after this ordeal, we’ll be able to add sirens to the list of ponykind’s friends and allies.” She blinked. “So long as sirens don’t fight with seaponies. They’re our allies as well, and that could make things… awkward.”
Melody waved a hoof. “We never did much to the seaponies, from what I knew growing up. Sometimes we had to scare them away from our breeding islands, though they were harmless and scared of us on principle. I don’t think there was much contact between our populations.”
“That’s good, then.” Sighing, Rarity turned her attention back to the halls of the sunken palace. “I suppose we should start moving out shortly,” she said. “We need to deliver this statuette back to the island and get out of here. I certainly don’t want to waste any more time that we could be using to bring ourselves home faster.”
“I certainly hear that,” Melody agreed, righting herself in the water and slowly paddling her way toward the door. “I’ve been here for eighty or ninety something years. I’d rather die before it becomes one hundred.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Rarity said, following Melody through the halls. “One way or another, we’re all going home. I just know it.”
Rainbow Dash was yawning heavily by the time she started her descent to the home island. After last night’s long flight, the little sleep she’d caught before daybreak, and then spending two rides in a siren’s mouth with some passionate sex with her marefriend in between, Rainbow was amazed she could even keep her eyes open any longer. A nap was in very short order upon landing back at the island.
She felt a nudge against her underbelly, and she blinked and looked to the side to see Champagne withdrawing her hoof. “Your descent’s a little steep,” the Prench mare warned her. “You’re going to land in the ocean.”
Rainbow looked down to see Champagne was right—the ocean was getting awfully close, awfully quick. Grunting, Rainbow flapped her wings several times to pick up some more altitude and then continued her glide now that she was on a better course for the island. “Mmrrff… sorry, I can barely keep my eyes open and my wings out. I haven’t had a good nap in forever. I really need to recharge.”
“You’ll have ample opportunity for that when we land,” Champagne said. “Just please don’t make me have to carry you the last few miles. I’m already struggling to carry our supplies, too!”
“We should’ve left them for the sirens,” Rainbow grumbled again. “Oh well, can’t really help it. At least we’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“We won’t really have time to rest and relax right away,” Champagne reminded her. “We have to explain what happened and try to get the pirate brothers to not lose their minds.”
“Their skulls are already full of nothing but rum and bad ideas, but it’s at least worth a shot.” Rainbow shook her head and flapped her wings a few more times when she realized her trajectory was falling short again. “At least they can’t hurt sirens. They’ve only got, what, swords and pistols? I think a siren’s armor is more than strong enough to resist a pistol ball.”
“We aren’t,” Champagne said.
Rainbow sighed. “Yeah, you’re right about that. But if they really want to mess with us after we show up with two sirens, that’s their problem if they want to die so badly. Still, I’ll talk to them when we land. I’ll let everypony know what’s going on.”
Champagne nodded. “At least the prospect of getting the final statuette and leaving this place behind should get everypony to cooperate, right?”
“It should,” Rainbow said, “so long as we can convince the pirates they aren’t going to hang when Equestria rescues us. That was the biggest thing Squall used to keep them in line out there, and if they’re worried we’re going to hand them over to the gallows when this is all said and done, they’re going to try to fight us, no matter how suicidal the odds. ‘Cuz the way they see it, they’re gonna die either way, so they might as well try to take us down with them. Which is why we have to convince them that they’re not going to meet that fate when we get out of here.”
“I’d hate to see them escape justice,” Champagne said. “After everything they did, they deserve it.”
“I mean, yeah, I feel that,” Rainbow said. “They should be punished. But can we afford to? I don’t think we can. We have to make sure we secure their cooperation by pardoning them for all this horrible crap.”
“Why not just lie to them?”
Rainbow was silent for a few flaps of her wings. “Because I’m not gonna be a pony like that,” she ultimately answered. “I’m not gonna lie through my teeth promising ponies they’ll be okay if they do what I want and then just kill them anyways.”
“You wouldn’t be the one killing them,” Champagne said. “That’s for the courts to decide.”
“I’d be the one turning them in,” Rainbow said. “It’s basically the same thing.”
Champagne shook her head. “They don’t value our lives. We shouldn’t concern ourselves too much with the value of theirs. What comes around, goes around, and they’ll reap what they’ve sown.”
“We’ll reap it too,” Rainbow warned her. “Somepony’s gotta break and offer their hoof in friendship. I’m willing to be the first, but it’s not gonna work unless everypony else is with me.”
Sighing, Champagne turned her attention back to the island. “I suffered through their attacks for a long time, Rainbow Dash. We all did. Not all of us are going to be so eager and content to try and work with these pirates as friends as you are. As it stands, your leadership is the only thing keeping the fighting at bay.”
Rainbow blinked and glanced askance at Champagne. “Did a month of the worst crap a pony could experience really break everypony that easily? I get that you’re all upset and bitter about what’s happened, but I don’t want to believe for a second that you all would murder these ponies without a second thought because they’d done it to you. Real strength comes from forgiving and forgetting, not holding grudges and stooping down to their level.” She pursed her lips together and glared at the sands and trees beginning to fill her vision. “Murdering murderers still doesn’t make it not murder. And I friggin’ sure as crap want to believe that the only murderers on my island are the two pirates, and not the rest of you as well. Some food for thought.”
The blue pegasus flapped her wings a few more times, pointedly pulling away from Champagne and accelerating her descent to the home island. She knew that the two sides hated each other, and she knew the pirates had to be aware that attacking the survivors was nothing short of a suicide mission. They were so badly outnumbered they’d be cut down in a flash, but they’d still manage to take a few ponies with them. Of that, Rainbow was sure. But it wasn’t helping that the hostility amongst the survivors, like in Champagne and even Gyro, wasn’t exactly proving them wrong. The pirates were worried the survivors would cut them down whenever they wanted to. Rainbow Dash was worried they were right. The survivors weren’t completely blame-free in the situation developing on the island, and until they tried to forgive and befriend the pirates, she knew the pirates would never let their guard down around them. And if the two groups couldn’t trust each other, even if one of those groups was only two ponies…
Well, in short, there’d be nothing but disaster waiting for the survivors. They couldn’t afford a betrayal or a backstab, not now. But Rainbow worried that was exactly what they were heading for.
Hopefully she could stop the situation before it got too far out of hoof. She needed to, because she knew she was the only one who could. And if she didn’t, then there would be more blood on the sand before too long.
How much of that blood would stick to her hooves, she didn’t know, but it would be too much no matter how little.
By the time Rainbow Dash touched down on the sandy shore of her home island, her mood was beginning to edge on annoyed, and it was only half Champagne’s fault. She couldn’t fault the Prench mare for voicing her opinions, but dwelling on the divisions between the survivors and the pirates during the final few minutes of glide down to the island had really put Rainbow in a fouling mood. To be fair, while the two groups had only reluctantly joined together barely three days ago, she was already sick of the hostilities.
Blinking and rubbing at her bleary eyes with the back of her fetlocks, Rainbow quickly spotted a pair of ponies lying side by side on the sands not too far down the beach. Gyro’s gray coat she recognized quickly enough, but it took her a little longer to remember the stallion with the even darker one. But after a moment, she finally recognized Hot Coals, and a grin broke out across her muzzle. Finally, after so long, the stallion was awake, and it looked like he and Gyro were already reacquainting themselves by the water’s edge.
She was able to almost sneak up on the two ponies before Gyro finally noticed Rainbow. Gasping, Gyro lifted herself up on her forelegs, surprising Coals with her sudden movement. “Rainbow!” Gyro exclaimed, a widening grin breaking out across her muzzle. “You’re back!” That grin swiftly died after a split second, however, and the engineer furrowed her brow. “What happened to Rarity? Where is she?”
“She’s coming,” Rainbow assured her. “She’s fine. We, uh, made a friend at the south island. A big, scaly, green friend.”
Gyro blinked. “You mean the siren?” she asked.
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah. Her name’s Melody. She’s really nice. She’s helping us get out of here. She took care of Rarity when she found her almost dead on the beach.”
“A siren?” Coals asked in disbelief. “You befriended a siren?”
Rainbow laughed and lightly slapped the stallion on the shoulder. “I’m great at making friends, even if they’re giant fish dragons with teeth as long as my legs. She’s really nice, though, I promise. Mostly, she’s just lonely, and so when me and Rares met her, she just wanted to talk and stuff.” Smirking at Coals, she sat down on the sand next to the couple, dropping her supplies from her back as she did so. “Glad to see you’re awake, dude. When Squall shot you for trying to stick up for me, I thought you were done for sure.”
“Coals is tough,” Gyro said, nuzzling the stallion’s neck. “It’d take a lot more than that to bring him down.” The she raised an eyebrow. “So if Rarity’s not with you, she’s with this Melody then?”
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah. Melody needed her help to get the last figurine. So that’s what they’re doing.”
“Why would an enormous and powerful siren need a little pony’s help?” Coals asked. “Does she need a pony to get into someplace she can’t reach?”
“Not quite. It’s a lot more complicated than that.” At the sound of fluttering wings, Rainbow looked aside to see Champagne touching down nearby. “Hey, Champagne, go get everypony else, will you? I wanna get this debriefing and stuff done with quickly so I can go and take a nap.”
Champagne nodded and set off for the camp, carrying her share of the supplies with her. As she left, Rainbow sighed and pulled some fruit out of her supplies. “I’m so friggin’ tired,” she muttered. “I can sleep for a week.”
“Maybe you can,” Gyro said. “Now that this stuff sounds like it’s almost over with. I can’t wait to go back home.”
“Yeah, me too.” Rainbow shook her head, though she momentarily froze when she saw a bundle of red feathers watching her from a tree. Grinning, she waved her wing. “Hey, Chirp! There you are! Come here, boy!”
“Rainbow!” Chirp squawked, flapping his wings and dropping out of the tree to perch on a wing Rainbow outstretched for him. “’Ello! ‘Ello!” the macaw proudly said a few times, fluffing his wings and looking Rainbow over from side to side.
Rainbow giggled and nuzzled the bird’s feathery neck. “I missed you, buddy,” she said. “I didn’t really get a chance to see you after I got back with the crew, didn’t I?”
“I’m surprised he’s made himself pretty scarce,” Gyro said. “I think all the new ponies scared him.”
“Yeah, I’d be a little put off too if a bunch of strangers just suddenly showed up in my living room.” She brought her wing closer to her shoulder, and Chirp happily traded places for something a little more secure to stand on. “But now me and Rares won’t have to go anywhere for a while, so we can hopefully get him a little more comfortable with the crew.” Shrugging, she turned to Gyro. “Anything happen while I was gone? Apart from the obvious, of course,” she said with a gesture to Coals.
“Nothing really good,” Gyro said. “Nothing much of anything, really, but Linens died to her wounds. That sucked. Everypony else is mostly okay, though.”
“Alive and kicking,” Coals agreed. “Give me another day and I’ll be back on my hooves, able to help.”
“Give me another three or four and I’ll be the same,” Gyro said.
Rainbow chuckled and held her hoof out. “Don’t rush it, you two,” she said. “We won’t need you for a little while yet. You’re good for now, just focus on resting and recovering.”
She turned her attention back to the interior of the island just as a throng of ponies began to emerge from the treeline. She saw all the survivors walking in a tight knot, and behind them, the two pirates staggered through the trees. Rainbow figured they must have gotten into the crate of rum and been drinking for a while. At least they were drinking instead of taking out their aggressions on the rest of the crew, but they were pirates. She didn’t know if them getting drunk would be a good or bad thing for their temper, but she decided it would probably be a bad thing. She’d have to be extra careful with them.
Ratchet was the first to approach Rainbow, and he smiled as he did so. “Glad to see you’re back home, Rainbow Dash,” he said, stopping a few paces away from Rainbow. “And Champagne tells me things went well on the island, even if Rarity isn’t here with us. She also said you could tell us all what happened?”
Rainbow nodded. “I’ll try to sum it up quick,” she said. “Me and Champagne flew to the south island and met a siren there by the name of Melody. She took me to Rarity and showed me she was alright. Then she told me that there was an underwater temple at the island that she needed some help to get into, so she turned Rarity into a siren too and the two of them went to go open that. In the meanwhile, they gave me the unicorn figurine that Rarity managed to recover from the tomb when we got separated, and if all goes well, the should be coming back here in a short bit to deliver the last figurine.” Rainbow rifled through her supplies quickly and pulled out the obsidian statuette, holding it aloft so everypony could see it. “We’re going to go home soon, guys and girls. I hope you’re excited.”
Confused silence was the immediate response, though Rainbow had expected as much. She had, after all, condensed quite a tale down into a few quick sentences. And, as she expected, it was the pirate brothers that broke the silence first. “Sirens?” Flag asked, swaying slightly and using his brother for support as much as his brother needed him to stand up. “We’re working with fucking sirens now? You gonna feed them our bones to try and get the shit out of here?”
“She’s not like what you think,” Rainbow said. “I promise. She’s been trapped here for decades, and all she wants to do is go home. She was super excited to have some company. She’s harmless.”
“Bullshit,” Roger muttered. “Sirens’ is always hungry for… f’pony blood.”
“They eat sailors,” Flag said. “We’re… we’re snacks on a platter for her.”
Ratchet waved his hoof. “I don’t really care about what they think,” he said. “They’re obviously very inebriated. But did you say that this siren turned Rarity into one, too?”
“She needed another person to help her with something underwater,” Rainbow said. “Rarity insisted on doing it. But hey, now we’ve got two giant scaly fish dragons to help us with crap, so that’s not bad, right?”
“I’m… just amazed, is all,” Ruse said from Ratchet’s side. “Though I do have to admit, I am excited. I’ve always wanted to see sirens, though only from afar, on account of their reputation. But this one is friendly? And one of them is our friend, Rarity? Now I’ll be able to see one up close with no risk to myself.”
“Are you sure that siren is safe?” Stargazer asked. “It could have just been a trick.”
“I… had to ride in her mouth twice to get to Rarity and back,” Rainbow said. “She could have swallowed me whole, but she didn’t. In fact, she really didn’t like the taste of my feathers, so I’d say we’re safe.”
“Anyways, they’ll be back here in a bit with the final figurine,” Rainbow said, cradling the unicorn statuette in her hooves. “When they do get back… well, please don’t freak out and stuff. Especially to Rarity. You know she was always weight-conscious before, but now… hoo boy.”
“This is a fucking terrible idea,” Flag said, turning about and staggering away from Rainbow. “Me and Roger’s gonna hide in the trees. Sirens can eat you all they want. Not us.”
Rainbow narrowed her eyes as the two drunk pirates started to leave and sighed. Maybe she’d be able to deal with them later. At the moment, however, she’d at least gotten things sorted out with the rest of the survivors. “Now, I don’t know how long it’ll take them to get here, but I’m going to take a nap.” She passed the figurine to Ratchet as she walked past him. “Don’t lose that thing. It’s super important. And wake me up when Rarity gets back, but not for anything else, ya feel me?”
Ratchet chuckled and stepped aside to let Rainbow through. “I feel you,” he said. “Have a good rest. You’ve earned it.”
After leaving the temple behind, Rarity and Melody briefly stopped back at Melody’s cave to make sure they didn’t need anything. Rarity didn’t know what exactly a siren could own that they would need, but it turned out that Melody simply wanted to eat some more fish while it was still fresh instead of letting it go to waste. Though Melody offered some tuna to Rarity, Rarity declined for the moment, trying to ignore the slowly growing emptiness in her gut. Shredding flesh with her carnivore teeth was… not something she wanted to rush, if she could help it.
Even though Melody was the one who wanted to eat, she spent a lot of the brief stay back at her cave talking. Listening to the siren happily talk about whatever was entertaining at the very least, especially when she’d go on brief tangents about some facet of siren culture. Rarity imagined she’d have a lot to tell Twilight when they finally reunited, though sometimes Melody would stray into awkward topics simply in her desire to talk about anything. For instance, Rarity learned that there were no male sirens, and mothers used a special song to have children. Rarity quickly cut Melody off before she could mistake her shocked and confused face for interest on the topic—the details of siren reproduction were not something she really wanted to hear.
Eventually, Melody steered the conversation into something more pertinent to Rarity. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get back to Equestria?” the siren asked.
The simplicity of the question amused Rarity; even between wildly different species, girl talk was still girl talk, and she felt like it wouldn’t be long before gossip would start to pass between the two of them. Still, it was something she, admittedly, hadn’t given much thought to. “I don’t know, to be honest,” Rarity said. “I’ve been stuck on these islands for a month and a half now, I believe. I’ve been here for so long I haven’t exactly given it much thought. Or perhaps I haven’t been trapped here long enough, like you,” she said, conceding the obvious point to Melody. “I’ve been so preoccupied with survival and actually finding a way to get home that I haven’t given much thought to what I would do afterwards.”
“I can understand that,” Melody said with a nod of her head. “I’ve obviously had a lot more time to think about it. Sirens don’t really have a home or a civilization like ponies do; we’re very nomadic, so leaving permanent structures behind isn’t something we do. But I think I’ll see the world after I’ve had time to catch up with my choir. I’ve been confined to one place for so long that I feel like the only way to appropriately counter it is to see as much of everything as I can and experience as much of everything as I can.”
“But what is there to see underwater?” Rarity asked. “I know the seaponies had communities, but I think they’re being abandoned as they return to life as hippogriffs. For as good of friends as I am with a mare who likes to know everything, I’m afraid I’m not that well versed in the life of the aquatic sapients on the planet.”
“Oh, well then you’re in luck, because you’re talking to one,” Melody said with a toothy grin. Her green tail fin splashed the water a bit as she wiggled her tail in something almost like a foalish giddiness. “There’s actually a lot of cities and settlements under the sea, though siren choirs usually don’t visit them. We make the other species wary just because we’re large carnivores. But there are a lot of awesome, wonderful places, like the Reef.”
“The Reef?” Rarity asked. “Is it as obvious as its name implies?”
“No, not really,” Melody said. “It’s a city. The largest one there is, I think. It’s probably larger than any of your pony cities, to be honest.”
“I’d find it hard to believe there’s a city larger than Manehattan,” Rarity said. “Nearly two million ponies live there. The thing is practically sprawling across all the countryside it can gobble up!”
“The Reef’s been around for much longer,” Melody said. “I got to visit it once when I was twelve or thirteen, I think. Still a small siren pup. But it’s been around for as long as life has lived in the oceans. And its grown and grown and grown continuously since then. If you can imagine something, anything, you can probably find some corner of the Reef that has it.” She smirked at Rarity and added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a corner full of ponies trying to do trade down there.”
“Huh.” Rarity idly fidgeted with her hooves. “Maybe seaponies need dresses as much as ponies on the land do. Perhaps this siren body wouldn’t be as much of a hindrance to my craft as I thought.”
Melody giggled. “That’s the spirit,” she said, lightly brushing Rarity’s shoulder. “So you’re enjoying it, I take it.”
“It’s been a very… different experience, I would say.” Rarity looked her scaly limbs over and felt the powerful muscles coiling in her tail. “Obviously, I have concerns about how such a body would interfere with my normal life and routine. But, all things considered, it’s not too bad. In all honesty, I’ve quite enjoyed my brief time as a siren so far.”
Melody snickered and smirked. “I told you, sirens are better than ponies.”
“Maybe one day I should find some way to transform you into a pony and then you could experience the marvels of equine civilization,” Rarity said, sticking her tongue out through her beak. “Life on land is a magic all its own.”
“I might take you up on that offer one day, should you find a way to do it.” Melody looked at the tuna between her hooves and shrugged. “Are you sure you don’t want something? You’re probably hungry after everything we did down below, I would think.”
Rarity eyed the fish warily. “I’ve eaten fish before as part of a cultural thing,” she said. “But I’m still wary about it.”
“Why?” Melody asked. “You just said that you’ve eaten it before.”
“It’s less the food and more the situation,” Rarity said. She pointed to some of her numerous fangs. “I don’t know how you live with these things in your mouth all the time. They just feel… I don’t know. In the way. All the time. And their purpose… specifically designed to shred flesh?” She shook her head. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, we wouldn’t get very far with flat pony teeth,” Melody said. “There isn’t a whole lot of plant life to eat down beneath the water. Most everything eats something else that swims or crawls or whatever. As sirens, we’re just the top of the food chain.” She held out the remains of a tuna to Rarity, offering the juicy underbelly. “Take a bite. I guarantee you’ll like it. Tuna’s a siren’s favorite.”
“Not ponyflesh, as sailors would like to believe?” Rarity quipped. Swallowing hard and feeling her stomach rumble, she reluctantly took the tuna from Melody’s hooves. Grimacing at it, she hesitated for a few seconds before deciding to close her eyes and get it over with. Her sharp beak sliced through the flesh of the tuna like a hot knife through butter, and immediately the juicy and fatty meats began to swarm over her tongue in a sensation of flavor.
“Well, what do you think?” Melody asked, excitedly watching the white siren. “It good or what?”
Rarity locked in place as the savory tastes rolled up and down her tongue. She felt almost ashamed of how delicious the tuna tasted. At the very least, she could blame it on having a siren tongue… but that didn’t make the gutted fish she held in her hooves any less appetizing at the moment.
A few minutes later, and Rarity had reduced the tuna to its core skeleton, her teeth and beak crushing whatever bones she accidentally bit off to tiny splinters she could swallow without any problem. Her pointed tongue ran over the edges of her beak, and she blushed some under Melody’s amused stare. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll admit… it was very good.”
Melody chuckled and scooped up a few clams in her hoof, popping them into her mouth like candy. “I told you you’d like it,” she said.
“Oh, do be quiet,” Rarity said with a huff. Eying some more of the seafood Melody had left on the stones, she gently shouldered her way closer to the harvest and started scooping up some fresh catch with her hooves. “This is my siren body doing this, not me.”
The green siren laughed while Rarity quickly set about filling her gut with seafood. “Right… I’ll be sure to let everypony know if they ask.”
Feasting upon fish flesh and making a meal out of formerly living animals was not something Rarity had ever imagined herself doing. But, with the emptiness in her stomach gnawing at her, desperate siren times called for desperate siren measures.
Soon enough, Rarity had finally taken the edge off of her hunger, and she tried not to think about what she’d just done. The less she thought about it, the less sick she felt imagining the pounds of meat sitting in her gut. Though to be honest, she didn’t know if sirens had stomachs like ponies did, or gizzards like reptiles and some fish. Hopefully, it wouldn’t really matter… assuming she could eventually be changed back into a pony.
Melody wiped some fatty juices off of the sharp edges of her beak and smiled at Rarity. “Feel better?”
“I wouldn’t precisely say better,” Rarity said. “But I’m not hungry anymore. Apart from a gnawing emptiness in my chest.” Grimacing, she rubbed at the heartstone embedded in the white scales below the base of her neck. “I’m going to make the logical assumption that it’s tied to this thing sitting in my scales.”
“Sirens need more than just food to sustain us,” Melody said. Her hooves gently pushed off of the rocky lip of the pool, and she drifted back into the open water. “We need magic, too. We’ll starve if we don’t get enough of either.”
“Then I suppose I’ll need to collect some soon,” Rarity said. She too left the bones of the fish on the rocks and joined Melody over the open hole in the ground, her fins idly paddling back and forth to keep her in place. “Though hopefully it won’t come to that. When we get back to the island, you’ll be able to change me back, right?”
Melody winced and dropped a few feet into the water. “I… will certainly give it my best effort.” Clearing her throat, the siren sheepishly smiled and flicked a slender ear toward the water. “Speaking of which, we should probably get going. It will take us some time to swim to your friends.”
Rarity nodded, and Melody flipped around to dive straight down into the water. Grinding the two halves of her beak together in the best impersonation of pursing them she could do without proper lips, Rarity soon followed suit, pausing just beneath the water’s surface to flush the air from her lungs and open up her gills. Though this was only her second time changing between air and water, Rarity felt a lot more comfortable with it, and she simply let her body’s ingrained muscle memory do most of the work for her. Still, the sensation of drawing water through slits in her neck was… unsettling, even after doing it for a couple of hours earlier.
Once Melody was sure that Rarity had adjusted properly, the siren set off once more down the series of hallways and tunnels under the water that made up the bulk of the sunken island. This time, however, she immediately pitched up when she came to a collapsed ceiling in one of the rooms, and Rarity hastily followed her through the winding corridors and narrow passages of the rock. It was a tight fit for a siren, even for a smaller one like Rarity, but soon she could see light at the end of the passageway. Melody slipped out first, and it wasn’t very long before Rarity was wincing at the bright sunlight striking her in the face.
Once she exited the tunnel, she swam straight upwards until her head broke through the surface of the water. At that point, her diaphragm harshly compressed to force any water out of her airways, resulting in two jets of vapor bursting out of her nose. Her gills sealed up, and by the time Rarity drew her first wet breath into her lungs, Melody was already smirking at her, her side resting on the white sands of the atoll.
Rarity blinked a few more times to let her slitted eyes adjust to the light, and she hazarded a glance through her translucent fins at the fiery ball of light in the sky above. After spending so much time beneath the earth and in the water, it felt simply remarkable to have the sunlight on her scales and the wind catching her tall dorsal fin like a rigid sail. Even Rarity could tell that deep beneath the sea was no place for a siren. Living near the surface of the water, where she could enjoy the elements and the beautiful sunny days in the tropics, was where she belonged.
Melody’s smirk turned into a wince as Rarity moved her body about. “Your scales are so bright,” Melody said, holding a fin over her eyes to try and shield them. “I’m going to go blind just looking at you.”
Rarity looked down at her body and noted that, indeed, her glistening scales caused her body to glow like a beacon. They reflected the sunlight in a dazzling display of pearlescent light, and even Rarity had to admit she was difficult to look at. Maybe it was because her scales and form were so new, but she certainly hoped that eventually, she wouldn’t be as reflective in the future.
“It wouldn’t be proper if I wasn’t dazzling, I would think.” At least her fins themselves were royal purple like her mane and tail had once been, so she wasn’t completely blinding from head to hoof… or antennae to fins, as it were. “Maybe once my scales weather some and lose their glossy sheen. They are still young and fresh, after all.”
Melody nodded her agreement. “Yeah, they should dull over a few days. Swimming through seawater is a good way to wear the polish off of anything.” Then, taking a deep breath, the green siren lifted herself up on her hooves and propelled herself into the sky with a slap of her tail. Though Rarity was at first amazed that Melody could even force her enormous body airborne that easily, she was more amazed when the siren didn’t immediately come crashing back down to the ground. Instead, she hovered in the air, her tail wriggling like it was the only thing keeping her defiant against the force of gravity, and she looked down at Rarity’s surprised face. “What? Did you forget we can fly, too?”
“I… it certainly wasn’t at the front of my mind with everything else I’m still trying to wrap my brain around.” Rarity blinked and looked back at her own tail. “I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know how.”
“It’s all a matter of willpower,” Melody said, swooping down until she was hovering just above Rarity’s head. “All you have to do is get a good jump or breach out of the water and just… keep swimming. Treat the air like it’s water and you’ll be fine. The motions aren’t even any different between the two.”
“I’m sure it’s a lot more complicated than you’re making it out to be, you’re just so used to it,” Rarity grumbled. Nevertheless, with a dramatic sigh, Rarity flipped about in the water, swimming back down to the bottom of the lagoon to give herself enough of a run up to allow herself to more easily breach the water and catch some air. “Here goes nothing…”
Striking out with her powerful tail, Rarity rapidly whipped it from side to side to build up speed. She tucked her legs against her body, turning herself into a slender and scaly torpedo, minimizing the drag on her figure as she reached the surface. Her beak broke the water first, followed quickly by her antennae and her fin, and she gave her tail one last powerful flick before it too left the water. A cloud of droplets followed her, and soon Rarity was soaring through the air, sailing higher and higher…
…and higher…
As Rarity continued to paddle her tail, she realized she wasn’t coming down. She instead continued to climb, gaining altitude at a surprisingly efficient pace. While it was nowhere near as fast as a pegasus could climb, it was certainly a lot faster than she would have imagined she could fly with her heavy siren body. And it was practically effortless, too, part of some innate magic in her being. Whether it drew from the magic in her heartstone or not, all Rarity knew was that it didn’t take much effort to fly.
“I-I’m doing it!” she proudly shouted, laughing to herself in shock and surprise as she continued to climb. “I’m doing it! This is… this is amazing!”
Below her, Melody began to lunge up to her, her whole body moving in a graceful, reptilian manner. “Don’t go so high!” Melody warned her. “Just because we can fly doesn’t mean we’re that good at it! We were just meant to use it in short bursts to hop over small islands and trees as we needed!”
“What? Then how do I get down?” Rarity asked, but in her mounting confusion and worry, she stopped paddling her tail. Gravity swiftly reestablished its dramatic hold over her, and soon she felt herself falling back to the earth. She wailed and flailed her limbs as she fell, the sensation of the air whipping her antennae about confusing her and making her nauseous, before she suddenly slammed back into the water with a massive splash and spray of water.
A few seconds later, Rarity reemerged on the surface, groaning and rubbing her neck. Melody’s concerned expression changed to one of relief when she saw Rarity was alright, and she dropped down into the water with her. “While I hope you enjoyed that brief bit of flying, try not to overdo it next time,” she said.
“I think I’ve learned my lesson,” Rarity agreed. “But it was fun.” She looked around and noted that, thankfully, she was on the correct side of the atoll, so she wouldn’t have to repeat the process all over again. Rolling her scaly shoulders, she quickly looked around until she could see a blur of green fronds on the distant horizon, somewhere off to the north. “Right. Now that we’re back out here and I’m finally reoriented, it’s time to go home,” she said. Whipping her tail out, Rarity began to glide across the surface of the water, her slitted eyes set on the home island out in front of her. “This way, Melody! It’s time to introduce you to the family!”
Even though Rainbow Dash had promised herself nothing but sleep, sleep, and more sleep once her immediate business upon returning to the island had been taken care of, she at first tried to push it off even longer. She didn’t think there was any way she could fall asleep until she knew that Rarity was safely back on the island with her and not trapped under the water in the sunken temple, held hostage by unforeseen complications. But once she was lying in one place, unable to even summon the energy or willpower to pace, it hardly took the Sandmare more than five minutes to usher Rainbow away to a peaceful sleep, entirely devoid of dreams. Her mind was simply too tired to form any.
And it felt like it had hardly been a full minute between closing her eyes and somepony gently shaking her awake with a hoof on her shoulder. Moaning, Rainbow tried to rub away some of the drool on her chin with her fetlock, and her wings batted the pony ruining her sleep away from her. “Go away,” she groaned, trying in vain to roll away from the offending pony. “I haven’t slept in friggin’ days. I’m gonna be a moon zombie at this rate.”
She heard a masculine chuckle, smooth and sweet. “Well, Miss Dash, I’m merely doing what you asked us to do,” Clever Ruse said.
“I’m pretty sure that was ‘don’t bother me because I need some friggin’ sleep.’”
“Ah, yes, but the second part was to wake you up when Rarity and Melody arrived at our island, am I correct?”
Rainbow Dash sat bolt upright, her momentarily flailing limbs releasing a torrent of sand around her. Clever Ruse took a step back and shielded himself with his pale magic, deflecting the worst of the surprised mare’s sudden awakening. Rainbow hardly wasted any time before she was trying to reorient herself around the island, to remember what direction on the compass rose she’d fallen asleep in. “Really? Are they here? I don’t see them!”
“That’s because they’re still approaching the island,” Ruse said. He took a step back and gestured off to the side, helpfully orienting Rainbow to the shore. “Stargazer spotted them from his perch up in the clouds. They should be here in a few minutes, judging by the speed they’re moving.”
Rainbow scrambled to her hooves and set off at a gallop to the beach with hardly an acknowledgement for Ruse. “Awesome! I gotta see them! Catch ya in a bit!”
And then she was off, her wings swirling the sands as her feathers briefly brushed the ground. With a few strong flaps, she quickly darted up above the trees, even passing a startled squawk from Chirp as she blurred through the fronds. Whether or not the other survivors in the camp noticed her sudden and abrupt departure, she didn’t know, nor did she care. She only had her sights set on one thing: that beautiful white siren that was her marefriend. Somehow.
She briefly hesitated in midair. That would make one very confusing and strange story to try to explain to her parents when she finally got back home. ‘Yeah, hey mom and dad, I’m dating a fish who’s not really a fish!’ Shaking her head, Rainbow rolled her eyes and put those thoughts aside for now. She had more important things to think about.
Like welcoming Rarity and Melody back home. As soon as she got some altitude, Rainbow was able to spy the two sirens moving through the water, mostly by their large fins sticking out of the waves. A deep emerald green and a rich royal purple moved side by side like oversized and colorful shark fins, and Rarity in particular seemed to glow from beneath the waves with her shiny opalescent scales. They’d be at the beach in a few minutes, and even though Rainbow wanted to do nothing but fly right out to them and meet them halfway, she ultimately decided to touch down on the sand and wait for the two to pull themselves to the shore. After all, it would probably be better for everyone involved if she could mediate between the curious and/or fearful ponies on the island and the powerful and mythical sea creatures coming in from the shore.
Of course, Gyro and Hot Coals were still down by the water’s edge, so Rainbow went to them to wait for Rarity and Melody to arrive. The two grease monkeys both had their attention focused on the swelling water gradually making its way to them, and they only spared Rainbow a momentary glance before they went back to watching the water. Rainbow sat down next to them, but she couldn’t still her fidgeting wings. “They’re finally here,” Rainbow said, excitedly swaying back and forth. “If they’re coming here, they must’ve found what they were looking for!”
“You really think so?” Gyro asked. “You really think they found the last statuette and we can finally go home?”
“I doubt it’s going to be that simple,” Hot Coals said. “There’s going to be some catch. I know it.”
“I can’t expect anything anymore, honestly,” Rainbow said. “Things I thought for sure would happen haven’t happened, and things I never thought could possibly happen, have. There’s really no way to predict anything anymore.” But, nevertheless, she sighed and added, “But I’m looking forward for this to be done and over with. It’s gone on for long enough.”
“It would certainly be a really fucking long story,” Gyro said. “Might as well wrap it up now, right?”
“Good luck with that,” Coals said once more. “There’s still another act left to this. I can feel it.”
Nevertheless, a small crowd began to gather at the edges of the water, word having gotten out that the sirens were coming. Soon, Rainbow, Gyro, and Coals found themselves holding front row tickets to the arrival as the sirens’ fins got closer and closer. Excited murmuring made its way up and down the beach, and it seemed like everypony was ready just to catch a glimpse of the sirens. Yet even Rainbow knew they would be getting much more than that—it would be a spectacle none of them could ever forget.
And soon enough, the shallows of the waters around the islands finally forced the two sirens to breach the surface. Melody broke it first, followed by Rarity, and the two of them forcefully blew water out of their noses and squinted through the rivulets running off their scaly eyebrows. All the ponies on the beach craned their necks back as the sirens rose up to their full height, and soon they were all smiling at the grandeur in front of them.
“Amazing…”
“I never thought I’d see anything like this…
“They’re so beautiful up close…”
Rainbow could only grin as her eyes met with Rarity’s slitted sapphires, and she quickly took to the air to rise up to eye level with her marefriend. There, she flew forward and hugged Rarity’s hardened beak, grinning as she did so. “Did you get it?” she asked.
Rarity proudly held up a cleft hoof, within which rested a tiny earth pony figurine. “I did,” she said, smiling at Rainbow. The two of them regarded it for a moment before Rarity added, “We can finally go home.”
Rarity let Rainbow take the earth pony figurine out of her hoof and watched how the petite pegasus looked it over. “You just… got it?” Rainbow asked, admiring the work that had gone into carving the little totem. “Just like that? No problems or anything?”
“Apart from opening the door, it was fairly straightforward,” Rarity said. She rubbed her shoulder as an achy pang reminder her of just how complicated that ‘fairly straightforward’ path had been. “The Ponynesians had put some work into hiding the figurine and the sarcophagus it was stowed in, but I was able to figure it out without too much trouble.”
“You’re sure you didn’t release some sort of horrible curse?” Gyro asked, staring up at Rarity. When Rarity tilted her head down, Gyro blinked and roughly shook herself. “Sorry. I just can’t get over the fact that you’re… this.”
“You can blame Melody for that,” Rarity said, gesturing to the larger siren, who still kept herself in the shallows surrounding the island instead of pulling herself onto the beaches like Rarity did. “And as for any horrible curses, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t sense anything magical happening, and nothing changed when I opened the tomb.”
“What was in the big coffin?” Ratchet asked, managing to overcome his awe at the sight of the two sirens to ask his question. “Did you see?”
Rarity shook her head. “I couldn’t see into it, because it was too cramped. But I think it was the body of the previous moon god’s avatar when the Ponynesians slew him.”
That sentence roused a chorus of confused murmurs. Blinking, Rarity chuckled to herself when she realized that none of the other survivors knew what exactly had happened beneath the tomb on the archipelago, and neither did they know any of the lore or history of the islands and Ponynesian history like Melody did. “Right, I suppose there’s quite a lot to explain. I forgot that not everypony has had a hundred year old siren to explain everything to them.”
“Knowing about that… might be helpful,” Gyro said with a sarcastic lilt. “Not all of us are so well informed.”
“Then perhaps Melody can explain it better later.” Rarity smiled down at the survivors, then at Rainbow Dash. “In the meanwhile, I think it’s about time that we get all the figurines together and get ready to go home, wouldn’t you all agree?”
“Heck yeah!” Rainbow exclaimed, and her wings blurred as she spun about in the air and darted back into the interior of the island. “Let me get the others!” she shouted as she flew. “We’ll be out of here in no time!”
While Rainbow dashed off into the interior of the island, Rarity shifted her attention to Melody and the survivors, who still seemed to be in some kind of awkward standoff fueled by awe and anxiety in equal measures. Her strong legs slid her siren body across the sand until she could touch Melody’s shoulder with her tail and gently encourage the green siren to come closer to the shore. “While she’s doing that, you all should get to know each other better,” Rarity said. “Everypony, meet Melody Glow. She’s very friendly, and I promise you, she won’t bite.”
Melody parted her lips just enough to smile, but enough to keep her teeth mostly hidden. Rarity figured after the sort of reception her and Rainbow had given the siren upon meeting her for the first time, Melody knew it was a good idea to hide the full extent of her fangs. Rarity started wondering if maybe she should do the same as well, even if the rest of the survivors already knew her by name and person, if not so much by her new body.
“And Melody, this is Ratchet, Clever Ruse, Stargazer, Doctor Gauze, Gyro, and Hot Coals,” she said, pointing to each pony in turn. “And of course you know Champagne and Rainbow.” Frowning, she looked up and down the beach. “Is that everypony?” she asked. “There aren’t more of us left?”
“The others are dead and gone,” Ratchet said. “We lost them at the tomb.”
“There are still the pirate brothers, Black Flag and Jolly Roger,” Clever Ruse said. “But they’re in hiding, at the moment.”
“They were also getting into the rum,” Gyro said. “I bet they’re passed out somewhere. At least that means they won’t bother us for the time being.”
“Quite.” Rarity shrugged. “Well, Melody, at least you won’t have to deal with them. I haven’t met the pirates yet, but that sounds like a good thing.”
“Trust me, it is.” Gyro glanced back into the interior of the island, presumably where she figured the pirates had to be hiding. “They’re nothing but trouble. We half expected them to come out of the trees shooting pistols and being stupid when you two showed up.”
Rarity narrowed her eyes at the line of palm trees as if she expected to spot some movement on the other side, but there was nothing. She’d been away from her home island for so long that she’d nearly forgotten how thick the foliage could be inside it. “Well, perhaps they’ll have some time to calm down before they meet us, then,” Rarity said.
“They wouldn’t be able to hurt me,” Melody said. “My armor is too thick. Rarity would be more vulnerable, since her scales are still hardening.”
Light shimmered against the beach and the trees as Rarity moved her forelegs about. “Perhaps my scales will dull some, then.”
“Yeah,” Gyro said, shielding her eyes. “They’re pretty bright.”
While the conversation momentarily lapsed as everypony waited for Rainbow to return with the other figurines, Clever Ruse braved a few steps closer to the swash zone of the beach and to Melody, who still lingered just out of reach of the island. “You’re a real siren then, eh?” he asked her, approvingly looking her over. “I’ve always wanted to meet one of you.”
Melody blinked in surprise. “Really?” she asked. “I thought all ponies were terrified of sirens and hated us.”
“Not all, darling,” Rarity assured her.
Ruse shook his head. “I’ve been fascinated with the mythical and the magical all my life. Nopony I knew had ever seen a siren before, and ponies as a whole don’t know much about you. SO I wanted to become a marine biologist when I was a colt and maybe meet one of you some day.” He chuckled and brushed his hoof over his chest. “Turns out I didn’t have the best grades or attention span in school, so that was little more than a pipe dream. But I’ve always been interested.”
“Oh.” Rarity thought she saw Melody blush slightly, and the siren awkwardly crossed her forelegs in front of her chest. “Then I hope I don’t disappoint.”
“You are the furthest thing from disappointment I can imagine,” Ruse said, sitting down on the sand in front of her. “May I hear you sing, if you don’t mind?”
“Uhmmm…” To Rarity’s surprise, Melody glanced at her like she was asking if it was okay. “Maybe? Perhaps not right now, though, it’s probably not the best time, right?”
“Right,” Rarity hastily agreed, saving the strangely embarrassed siren. “Perhaps later tonight when we don’t have anything else to do. It will be a good way to celebrate removing the barrier.”
“Tonight sounds great, then,” Ruse agreed. He glanced over his shoulders at the rest of the survivors on the beach. “I assume we’ll all be excited to hear it.”
Blue wings blurred across the sand, and Rainbow Dash returned in a hurry, dropping three figurines from her forelegs. “Phew! There they are! I had a little bit of trouble finding the pegasus one, because we got that so long ago. But they’re here! That’s all of them!”
Rarity lowered her head closer to the sand to get a better look at the three figurines. Sure enough, a celestial pegasus, a dark unicorn, and a stout earth pony stared back up at her with varying expressions and levels of malice. She couldn’t believe that they were all in one place—all save for the final figurine, already deep below the surface of the island.
“I never thought I’d see them all together,” Rarity said. “Yet here they are.”
“Now we just gotta put them under the island!” Rainbow gathered them up again and immediately took off, her wings inadvertently blasting sand at Gyro and Hot Coals. “Come on, guys! Let’s get the heck outta here!”
Rainbow Dash flew across the island as fast as she possibly could, the excitement at the prospect of going home simply too enticing to make her slow down and wait for her friends. Besides, it wasn’t like she needed their help anyway to go and place all the statuettes. It would be simple enough to carry the three inside and set them up where they needed to go, so long as the tide wasn’t too high.
Which it wasn’t, Rainbow was happy to see, but she didn’t know if it was going in or coming out. She simply hadn’t been paying much attention on her way back to the island, and she definitely wasn’t conscious or coherent enough to notice while she took her nap. On the bright side, at least, it looked like it was near its lowest part, which meant she had plenty of time to go in, place the statues, and go out.
Before she could dive into the water, however, heavy wingbeats stirred some of the grass around her hooves. Rainbow looked over her shoulder to see Champagne landing behind her, a somewhat concerned look on her face. “You probably shouldn’t go and do that alone,” Champagne said. “It would be a good idea to have somepony with you.”
“I mean, I guess,” Rainbow said with a shrug. “I’ve got this on my own, but I don’t mind if you really want to come along. You’re gonna have to get wet, though, because the cave entrance is under the water.”
Champagne trotted up to Rainbow’s side and peered down at the rocks. “So it is. I never would have guessed that there was an entrance to an underwater cave here. How did you and Rarity even find it?”
“We were bored,” Rainbow said, “and we had a lot of time. We wanted to look the island over, and we just kind of stumbled across it. This was after Rarity wondered if there was some kind of magic keeping Princess Luna from finding us in our dreams, so we knew something was going on. I guess we’re just lucky that we found this here, because that confirmed our suspicions. If we had to travel to another island just to do that…” she shrugged. “I don’t know if we would have. We might have just hidden out here for months before we even worked up the courage or will to check some of the others out.”
“What’s it like in there?” Champagne asked. “It certainly doesn’t look to hold the same grandeur as some of the other ruins around these islands.”
“That it definitely doesn’t,” Rainbow said. “It was little more than a pair of glorified hallways, a tiny staircase, and a big open room underneath the island’s hill. But there’s a table down there with some pedestals for little pony figurines, and we found a crystal pony figurine on one of them. That’s how we knew what they were for.” Rainbow regarded the three statuettes she held against her chest and smirked. “And now we’ve got all of them. This whole thing’s finally about to be over.”
“Do you really believe that?” Champagne asked. “Is it going to be that simple?”
Rainbow pursed her lips in thought and stared out over the ocean. “We’ve suffered enough crap,” Rainbow said. “If this isn’t the end, then I don’t know what I’ll do. If this doesn’t work…”
“Do you even know if it will work?” Champagne asked. “What proof do we have?”
Rainbow frowned. “Nothing,” she said. “This has all just been… just been a desperate gamble, really. It’s the only thing that makes sense. If this doesn’t work, then we’re back to square friggin’ zero. I’ll have no idea how to get back home.” She inhaled and sighed. “But Melody says that these statuettes do control the barrier around the island. And I’d trust what she has to say—she’s been here for decades, so she knows what she’s talking about.”
Huffing, Rainbow slowly began to hobble down the rocks on three legs, holding the statuettes against her chest. She stopped at the edge of the water, Champagne close behind her, and she tossed a quick look back over her shoulder. “It’s just a quick swim, but wet is wet all the same. You sure you wanna go?”
“I don’t see why not,” Champagne said. “Out here, my coat is either stiff with salt or sand. The salt’s a lot more palatable to taste when I’m preening my wings.”
“Heh. Fair enough.” Briefly wiggling her tail, Rainbow tensed her muscles and took a breath before jumping into the water. The splash of cool liquid running up and down her back briefly made her shiver, but she nevertheless held onto the figurines. From there, it was just a simple matter of using her wings like paddles to push herself through the water, and then hauling herself onto the rocky ledge on the other side.
There, she briefly set the statuettes on the ground so she could shake some of the excess water out of her coat and feathers. Not too long later, Champagne arrived, slightly disoriented after making the plunge and trying to find the cave entrance underwater, but there nevertheless. Rainbow reached over and helped the other pegasus out of the water, and patiently waited on the rocks while Champagne shook herself from soaking wet to merely wet. Grimacing, Champagne squinted through the meager light inside the cave, and her eyes fell on the tunnel leading deeper inside. “That’s very small,” she noted, “and very cramped. You weren’t kidding when you said it wasn’t that impressive.”
“Nope.” Rainbow took the figurines again and once more began to move forward. “It’s as plain as plain gets. There was some paint and stuff in here once, but it’s really hard to make out anymore.”
“Strange,” Champagne said. “The ponies that lived here… they didn’t really do a whole lot of painting.”
“Yeah. So?” Rainbow cast a look over her shoulder as they walked deeper into the shrine. “Maybe they didn’t have the time to carve stuff like they usually did.”
“Maybe.” Champagne shrugged, her eyes lingering on the faded pastels decorating some of the recesses of rock. “It just seems odd that a people that almost exclusively worked with carvings would suddenly paint something like this.”
“Eh, I guess.” Rainbow shrugged mid-step. “We’ll worry about that later, though, okay? We’re basically here.”
A few more steps and Rainbow came to the remains of the cave-in her and Rarity had cleared on their last visit to the shrine. The skeleton of the unfortunate explorer still rested under a pile of rocks, and Champagne shivered when she saw it. “I see you weren’t the first ponies to venture down here?” she asked.
“Nah. I’ve got his notes lying around somewhere back at camp. They were kinda dry reading material, but at least they were something to read. It helped stave off the boredom for a brief bit.” Rainbow gingerly stepped past the corpse and through the hallway, already trying to see anything through the darkness that lied beyond. She knew there were torch sconces along the walls up ahead of her, but she didn’t have her flint and tinder. At least with the sun shining brightly outside, there was just enough residual light to make out what she was doing. “You don’t have a light on you by any chance?” Rainbow asked. “I forgot it’s super dark in here.”
To her surprise, a brief shower of sparks momentarily illuminated the hall behind her. She turned around to see Champagne strike another with the flint and steel, each piece held in the feathers of one of her wings. Smirking, she trotted past Rainbow and deeper into the tunnel. “Rarity warned me that I might need these,” she said. “I grabbed them on my way after you.”
With Champagne to lead the way, the two pegasi entered the final shrine, and Champagne soon found a sconce to light to shed some illumination on the chamber. While she went around finding the little stone bowls full of fuel to light, Rainbow trotted to the center of the room. There, she briefly paused at the immaculately carved table in the middle of the room, still so crisp and clean compared to the damp and decaying structures around it. “We’re going home,” she said, and pushing off of the table, she began to walk around to the pedestals surrounding it.
One by one, Rainbow placed the figurines in their appropriate places, matching each one to the relevant carvings beneath the platform. She took her time to adjust them as nice and neat as she could, until all four figurines faced the middle of the table. And then, wingtips quivering with excitement, she pranced back and forth and waited.
Nothing happened.
It took her almost a full minute before the excited smile on her face turned into a look of confusion. “Did… did something happen?” she wondered aloud. She double checked the figurines, her brow furrowing more and more. “I put them all in the right place.”
“Maybe there’s something more we need to do,” Champagne said. “It can’t have been as simple as that. Maybe a word of power of some kind? That seems like the sort of thing ancient indigenous ponies would use.”
“Yeah, but what would that word be?” Rainbow shook her head. “They didn’t leave written records. I doubt they even had an alphabet. So how the crap are we gonna figure that out?!”
Growling, Rainbow stomped her hooves and yelled in frustration. “This was supposed to be it!” she shouted. “We’re supposed to be going home! We did everything, everything! Why can’t we go home?!”
Champagne quickly moved to Rainbow’s side and tried to calm her with a hoof on her shoulder. “Breathe, Rainbow Dash,” she said. “This isn’t over yet. We have all the time in the world to sort this out.” When Rainbow stopped pacing and shouting, Champagne looked her in the eyes. “Let’s go back to the rest of the group,” she said. “We can discuss what happened there. Getting the figurines was likely just the first part of lowering the barrier. If there’s some kind of ritual that we must perform, then I think we can figure it out between all of us.”
Rainbow deflated, her wings drooping and their tips touching the floor. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “It’s at least worth a shot…”
Champagne spared a disappointed look at the figurines around them. “I was just as hopeful as you were,” she admitted. “But just because it didn’t work, doesn’t mean we should give up. We must have expected it to not be so simple. I don’t think anypony thought we were just going to plop these down and go home.”
“I hoped that would be it,” Rainbow said. “I hoped that would be the long and short of it. After everything we’ve been through…”
“We’ll figure it out,” Champagne assured her. “I promise. Now let’s get back to the others.”
At her urging, Rainbow reluctantly followed her out of the chamber. She briefly thought about collecting the figurines as she left, but figured down here would be the safest place for them. As it was, only her, Rarity, and Champagne knew where this place was. Nothing would happen to them.
But that was just the problem. Nothing had happened. And if they couldn’t figure out what to do from here…
Well, then they were never going home. It was as simple as that.
Gyro was amazed at how quickly the day had passed. Between her excitement at finally reuniting with Coals and the whirlwind of events that culminated with all of the figurines finally making their way back to the island, she felt like the day had blurred by. Now, the sun was beginning to set, and her stomach began to remind her that it was about dinnertime.
But she knew they weren’t going to eat anything soon; the other survivors and Melody had fallen into casual conversation as their mutual anxiety over each other’s presence began to melt away. While Gyro was amazed to see a living siren up close, just like everypony else was, the fact that one of those sirens was merely her friend in a different body blunted some of the awe for her. And, of course, she couldn’t actually walk across the beach and talk to Melody, what with her legs being how they were and everything.
So instead, she and Coals lay on the beach while Rarity pulled herself onto the sand next to them. It felt awkward to have a pony she was normally taller than tower over her in a draconic form, but underneath the scales and fangs and fins, the creature was still Rarity. And Gyro figured that Rarity was already having a difficult enough time as it was to adjust to her new body, so she didn’t want to make it any more awkward by acting differently to her.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to have her curiosity sated in the meanwhile, however. After a moment to admire the beauty in Rarity’s body, she smirked up at the pony-turned-siren. “So, how’s it feel?”
Rarity chuckled and slowly shook her head from side to side. “I’ve had that question asked of me so many times today.”
“Different? That’s it? C’mon, there’s gotta be more to it than that.” Gyro tried to imagine what it would be like to be as large as Rarity was now, to have huge teeth and scale-covered flesh, to have a large and powerful tail and fins instead of hind legs. “I would’ve thought it’d be awesome and stuff.”
“Oh, I think I’ve quite enjoyed this little sample of it so far,” Rarity said. “All of my senses feel heightened. My vision feels sharper, my hearing seems clearer, and I can smell so much more of the island, even though my nose is merely two holes drilled through my hard beak. It makes me feel like I’ve lived all of my life until this moment inside a box, and only now am I finally able to experience the world without some barrier dampening my senses.”
“Better be careful,” Hot Coals said. “At this rate, you’re never going to want to change back.”
“Well, it certainly has its limitations,” Rarity said. “Even though I can breathe in both water and air, I don’t think I can stray too far from the sea, or at least a body of water. I’ll dehydrate if I do. For things like that, the equine form is quite superior.”
“And it’d be difficult to make and wear dresses like that,” Gyro said.
“Yes, my passion would be hampered to quite an extent,” Rarity admitted. “I don’t have access to my simple telekinesis anymore, or any other basic unicorn spells I used to design my dresses or run my shows. But I’m sure I could find the replacements for those in song, since that’s where my magic comes from now.”
“Have you tried it out much?” Gyro leaned a little bit closer. “Doing magic with your voice sounds awesome. I wish I could do that.”
“Your voice already is like magic to me,” Coals quipped.
Gyro giggled and nuzzled against his side. “You’re such a flatterer.”
“Only if it’s deserved.”
“Heee…”
Rarity smiled as the two had their moment, but she answered after a few seconds anyway. “I’ve tried, but I don’t have a lot of magic in me,” she said. She tapped the green stone in her chest. “Melody used this to turn me into a siren. It was actually the heartstone of another siren; I don’t know what happened to her, but I found it on the archipelago. I’d need to sing and collect magic before I can use that magic in song.”
“Seems a little counterintuitive to me,” Coals said. “You need to sing to get magic, but you need magic to sing?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Rarity said. “Melody would be able to explain it better. She’s the actual siren, I’m just an imposter. A pony in siren’s scales.”
“But you can sing though, right?” Gyro asked.
Rarity proudly nodded, and she opened her mouth and let a few notes of a scale escape through her beak. They were all clear, perfect, and exquisitely tuned. It was sound in its purest form, completely devoid of any of the imperfections other living things forced on it in their imitations. Noting their awestruck looks, Rarity laughed lightly and idly swished her tail. “I feel like I just know how music works now,” she said. “I don’t know what we call them in our musical parlance, but I know every scale and every rhythmic pattern in all of music, plus a few that are unique to sirens. I’ve certainly never heard them used before in our music. But according to Melody, sirens were born from the first song to ever be sung, so it likely has something to do with that.”
“Sirens are very musical creatures,” Gyro said. “It just makes sense.”
“I’ll likely sing with Melody later tonight,” Rarity said. “I need to replenish my magic if I’m going to stay in siren form much longer.”
“Are you going to stay like that for a while?” Gyro asked. “I doubt Rainbow would be very happy about that. You’re probably a lot harder to bang as a big fish dragon, I would imagine.”
“I’ll likely have Melody change me back soon,” Rarity said. “Once it’s clear that I no longer need to be a siren to help her with anything around these waters. And, assuming, of course, that she can even change me back in the first place.”
“She might not be able to?” Coals asked. He frowned in concern. “That doesn’t sound all that reassuring.”
“It’s not, trust me. She warned me that she might not be able to undo this on her own once she transformed me, but it was the only way to get the final figurine. And, in all honesty, it’s not that bad.” Still, Rarity’s shoulders sagged slightly in worry. “I don’t know what I would do if I were to spend the rest of my life as a siren, though. Especially considering they live for a thousand years…”
Rarity’s slitted eyes darted further up the beach, and she straightened her considerable neck and smiled. “Rainbow, darling!” she exclaimed, grinning and standing up on her forelegs. “Did you do it? Is it over?”
Gyro and Coals looked behind them to see Rainbow and Champagne trudging toward the water. The fact that they were trudging instead of galloping or flying told Gyro that not all had went according to plan. Suddenly worried, she tried in vain to make eye contact with Rainbow, to glean something from her demeanor. “What happened?” she asked the pegasi as they joined them down by the water’s edge. “What’s going on?”
“We placed the statuettes,” Rainbow said.
Rarity blinked. “And? That’s a good thing, right? It should be over now.”
“But it isn’t,” Rainbow said. “Did you feel anything change?”
Rarity frowned, and the antennae sprouting from her forehead drooped slightly. “I didn’t sense anything change around the islands…”
“Exactly.” Rainbow sighed in defeat and plopped down on the sand. “We’re not done yet. The barrier isn’t down, and I’m all out of ideas.”
“There’s something more we need to do,” Champagne said, “but we don’t know what it is.”
“And until we figure that out, we’re stuck here,” Rainbow said. Her eyes swiveled right to Gyro as she added, “There’s no way home.”
“You’re absolutely sure nothing happened? Like, one hundred and ten percent sure?”
Gyro blinked at Rainbow in disbelief. The pegasus and Rarity had promised so much to her when they first rescued her so long ago. They’d promised that the figurines would be the way to get home, and all they had to do was find them on their respective islands. And now they’d done exactly that, but nothing had changed. The skies hadn’t suddenly split open, airships hadn’t appeared on the horizon, and the princesses remained scarce. And unless something had quietly happened in the background, all their efforts had been for nothing.
“I didn’t feel anything, and Rares didn’t feel anything,” Rainbow said. “If something happened, we would have known.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Gyro asked her, searching the blue pegasus’ face for some hint or clue that might tell her the situation wasn’t as hopeless as it seemed. “I refuse to believe for a second that there’s nothing we can do. There has to be something. There just has to!”
“Whatever it is that we must do, we must figure it out first,” Champagne said. “That’s why we came back up here. Maybe between all of us, we can figure something out.”
“Unless Melody has some more information that might help us, we’ll be shooting blindly in the dark,” Rarity said. “There’s so many possibilities that we need to explore to figure out what to do that we could try for years and never get there.”
“Then we’ll just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks,” Rainbow said. “But now’s a good time to start thinking.”
The pegasus fluttered over to the other group, and a few moments later, they began to move back down the beach toward Gyro. In the meantime, the engineer furrowed her brow and tried to think, but she hardly knew much about the history of this place or what had gone into raising the protective wards around the islands in the first place. But there had to be some missing component, something that they had to do to finish the ritual. Placing the figurines was likely only the first step. Something more had to actually activate their power, but what that was remained a mystery.
A few moments later, Gyro found Coals and herself making up the edge of a circle on the beach. The wonder and awe that had dominated the survivors’ faces while talking with Melody had given way to uneasiness and worry. No doubt the news that placing the figurines beneath the island only for them to not do anything had shocked them as much as it had Gyro. All of these ponies had believed in Rainbow and Rarity when they promised them that getting the figurines would be the way home. And she knew that all of them were wondering if they had been right to trust the former element bearers, if it had been a good idea to open the tomb in pursuit of one of those figurines instead of leaving it and the horrors it contained alone.
Rainbow Dash sighed and sat down on the sand. “So, yeah. It didn’t work. Not yet, at least.”
“Can you explain what you mean?” Ratchet asked.
“I mean exactly that,” Rainbow said, glaring at the ground. “Me and Champagne placed all the statuettes and stuff. Nothing happened.”
“It’s… maybe not as hopeless as Rainbow is making it seem,” Rarity said. “We think that maybe there’s something else we need to do to finish the ritual. To be honest, it doesn’t seem like something as powerful and old as this would be resolved by placing four figurines on pedestals, in hindsight.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Stargazer asked, anxiously twitching his wings, letting the feathers spread and close every few seconds. “These ponies that set this thing up in the first place didn’t leave instructions, did they?”
“If only,” Rarity said. “We’ve never found any writing or records left by these ponies other than the carvings and glyphs they’ve left in their temples and ruins. Presumably the answer to removing the ward would lie somewhere in one of those.”
“Do we really have the time or means to go and scour these temples for a hint that might tell us what to do?” Clever Ruse furrowed his brow and looked between the ponies gathered in the circle. “If we take too long, that tomb on the archipelago is going to open again, and then it will all be over for us.”
“We don’t,” Rainbow said. But her focus shifted to Melody, who blinked in surprise. “Thankfully, we know somebody who’s had plenty of time to study the ruins around here.”
“Me?” Melody asked. She shook her head. “I was just as surprised as the rest of you when this didn’t work. I only know about how and why the ponies who lived here erected the ward. They didn’t leave anything that would say how to take it down. Why would they? They obviously intended for it to be permanent.”
“But there have to be clues as to how to take it down.” Rarity tapped her beak in thought, and then she nodded at Melody. “If you know how they erected it, then maybe that will tell us how it should go down. Can you explain how it happened?”
“I’ll do my best…” Melody’s fangs tugged on the edges of her scaly lips as she collected her thoughts. “I already told you all about the moon spirit’s avatar a few minutes ago and all that history, so you know why the Ponynesians put the barrier around the island in the first place. How they did it exactly is a little more vague, but I’ve been able to piece it together over eighty years. After the avatar was slain, the Ponynesians took their remaining population and sacrificed some of their essence into the figurines that we collected. Somehow, those four figurines were imbued with the power of their respective races, and together, that energy maintains the barrier, with the shrine beneath this island serving as a focus.” Melody frowned. “How exactly this island focuses that magic, I do not know. I’ve never seen the shrine; it’s too small for me to get into.”
“There weren’t exactly many clues down there either,” Rainbow said. “There’s just a large table that has a map of the four major islands here, and a bunch of pedestals around it that we put the figurines on.”
“There are a lot of runes and carvings along the walls,” Champagne said. “They presumably focus the magic in some way, but I can’t read them.”
“I doubt anypony can,” Ruse said. “It’d take a scholar some time to even figure them out.”
Gyro’s ears perked. “Didn’t you have a journal from an explorer that you found, Rainbow?” she asked.
Rainbow shook her head. “Yeah, but he died the day he found out about the shrine under this island. He never had time to translate the glyphs and stuff like he was going to. The very last entry in the journal says he was going to come back and figure things out, but he never got the chance.”
“Well, fuck that, then.” Gyro frowned. “Are you sure that he died the day he wrote that journal entry? He didn’t leave any other papers or something anywhere else?”
“Not that we ever found,” Rainbow said. “And I doubt they would have lasted very long out here. He’d been dead for a long time by the time we found this place.”
“So, it sounds like we’re back to square one,” Ratchet said. Sighing, he stood up and paced a few steps away from the group. “Well, we have until the next full moon to sort things out. Perhaps it’s best if we give it some time to think it over. Today, for the first time, we’re all finally back on one island, back together again, and we can afford to take a night to relax. This puzzle isn’t going to go anywhere, and we still have plenty of time to work it out.”
“We could just try smashing the things,” Ruse said, his lips mischievously quirking. “That might get us somewhere.”
“We should probably wait until we’ve tried everything else,” Rarity said. “Once you smash something, it is very hard to un-smash.”
“Eh, I’ll keep it on the backburner.” Yawning, Ruse also stood up and turned his attention toward the interior of the island. “In the meanwhile, it’s about dinnertime, and I think we could all do with a hearty, family meal.”
“That sounds good to me,” Rainbow said, the prospect of food already seeming to chase away the worst of her doldrums. “Thinking burns a lot of calories.”
“I’m sure it does for a pony like you,” Rarity said, winking at Rainbow. “Melody and I will be here at the beach. It’s not like we can go into the camp anyhow.”
Gyro watched them all go, including Coals, who promised to bring her back some food so they could eat dinner on the beach. Apart from a tiny acknowledgement, Gyro didn’t let that disturb her from her thoughts. Maybe it was her feelings of incompetence with her legs still on the mend, but she was determined to figure out the answer to the mystery of the figurines. Maybe in that way, she’d be able to contribute and help the others out. She had always enjoyed puzzles anyway, and this one had the greatest reward for solving it: the chance to finally go home.
With stakes like that, how could she possibly spare thought for anything else?
Rainbow Dash frowned into the fire while Ruse worked on dinner. After placing the figurines had failed to lower the barrier or change the situation around the islands in any perceptible way, her hopes for getting home in the next few days had vanished. Until they figured out what they needed to do with the figurines to finally lower the barrier, they were trapped on the islands. And if they didn’t do it fast enough, then the tomb on the archipelago would open, and the moon god and its avatar would murder them all. Or worse.
A shiver ran down her spine. Being sacrificed to some evil and dark god on an altar, her blood dripping from her veins on obsidian stone…
She would’ve said she’d been reading too many Daring Do novels, but, well, there weren’t exactly many Daring Do books to read out in the middle of nowhere.
A pony bumped Rainbow’s shoulder, and she looked to the side to see Champagne leaning over. The Prench mare’s face was twisted with concern, and her teeth nervously flashed for a moment. “Are you alright, Rainbow?”
“No, but thanks for asking.”
Champagne pursed her lips. “Quand on a touché le fond, on ne peut que remonter.”
Rainbow blinked. “Is that some kind of Prench wisdom?”
“It is,” Champagne said with a little smile. “It means, ‘When we’ve sunk to the bottom, the only way to go is up’.”
“Huh.” Rainbow stared into the flames for a few seconds. “Kinda fitting.”
“Indeed. And it certainly feels like we’ve hit the bottom.” She looked up as Ruse offered her a coconut shell halved into a bowl with some admittedly thin stew in it and flashed him a smile with her perfect teeth. Rainbow wondered for a moment if CelestiAir had hired her for her teeth alone. Cradling the bowl against her chest, the Prench mare shrugged. “Sure, this complication took the wind out of our sails, but we’ll get over it. We’ll pull through it. I’m confident in that.”
“I’m glad at least you are,” Rainbow said. She barely acknowledged the ventriloquist when he gave her a bowl of stew as well. “I feel like I’ve run out of the ability to hope anymore.”
“Giving up so easily?” Ruse asked her, his magic setting aside a bowl for himself. All around the camp, ponies were still chatting, leaving the three alone to talk around the fire before they decided to get dinner themselves. “I never would have imagined such despair from you, Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow frowned at her half shell of soup. “I’m not giving up,” she said. “I’m just… reconsidering.”
“Reconsidering what?” Ruse asked, sliding closer to the two mares. “Trying to go home? Wondering if you should just put a bullet in your brain now and end it?”
Rainbow glared at him, and all he bothered to offer her was a nonchalant shrug in response. “I thought about it,” he said. “I thought about that a lot. Once we managed to get our first pistols from the pirates, back when we were still fighting Squall’s crew, it was so very, very tempting to just end it all. I’ve struggled with depression in the past. When I was fighting with Champagne and all the others, I hit my low.”
Champagne slowly nodded. ‘Yes, it was… not pretty. We were all worried about you.”
“And Ratchet had a talk with me,” Ruse said, “and that helped to sort things out. But I realized that eating that bullet would’ve been the quitter’s way out. And I’m nothing if not a stubborn bastard who doesn’t know when to give up.”
Rainbow felt her wings tremble. She wanted to say that she’d never entertained those thoughts… but that’d be a lie. Had she ended up on the island alone, had Rarity died in the crash or the pirate attack… she didn’t know if she would’ve made it this long. Not only because Rarity had a logical mind and knew how to pull her own weight, but because the loneliness and hopelessness of the situation might have been too much for her. It was a terrifying thing to think about, so she swallowed her worries and tried to push them somewhere else.
“I’m just… I’ve been on this island for fifty days,” Rainbow said, glancing at the updated calendar plank sticking out of the sand not too far away. “Almost two months. I had hoped that we’d be gone before two months ticked over, but now it’s not looking likely.”
“Celestia, has it really been two months?” Champagne asked, astonished. “It feels like it’s both been much longer and much shorter than that.”
Ruse nodded. “I know what you mean. It feels like I’ve been here for forever, and also like I’ve only been here for a few days. There’s just been so much that has been happening constantly with very little downtime in between. Relaxed days like these were very hard to come by on the archipelago when Squall’s pirates were hunting us down like dogs.”
Rainbow sighed and stuck her muzzle in the soup, staking several gulps directly from the source without any utensils or fine cutlery to eat from. It was pretty good soup for an empty stomach, despite the fact that it’d been watered down some to make the rations last. She didn’t know how much longer the rations salvaged from the Concordia’s galley would last, but hopefully they’d last long enough for them all to get home and enjoy real food again. “You’re not really helping,” she said, broth dripping from the hairs of her muzzle.
“Then allow us to be more helpful,” Ruse said, resting a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Don’t give up now. Sure, be frustrated about it, but at the end of the day, we’re going to need to get back to it. We’ll get a nice day off now to think about it, and then we can think about it for the next twenty-seven days. That’s how long we have until the full moon comes back and whatever’s in that tomb maybe escape. And if we can do something like pile clouds or brush in front of the door so the moonlight can’t hit it, we’ll be able to go on indefinitely! We’ll have all the time in the world!”
Rainbow blinked. “Wait… why didn’t I think of that?”
“Think of what?”
“Covering the tomb!” Rainbow stood up, nearly spilling her half shell of soup. “If I take some pegasi and fly back to the archipelago, we can probably get the thing covered up and everything! That way, when the full moon comes around, we can just stop this moon god from getting outside! It’ll be perfect!”
“What if it doesn’t work that way?” Champagne asked. “What if it’s not that simple?”
“It won’t hurt to try,” Rainbow said. “We don’t lose anything if it doesn’t, other than some time and energy. It’s getting out next full moon if we don’t do anything, but it might not if we do something. Isn’t that worth it?”
“I’d say it is,” Ruse said. “Buy us more time.”
“Great! Then that’s settled!” Rainbow sat back down on the sand and punched Champagne’s shoulder. “You’re getting drafted again, girl!”
Champagne sighed and stared down at her bowl. “Merde.”
“Yeah! That’s right, get excited!” Rainbow wiggled her tail some and dived back into her meal with renewed frenzy. “I can grab Stargazer and maybe that asshole pirate, and the four of us could fix that up very quickly. It’ll be perfect!”
Ruse blinked. “You actually want to take the pirate with you?”
Rainbow shrugged. “I could always use another set of hooves. And if I’m taking all of our pegasi with me, I might as well split up the dynamic dumbass duo. That’ll stop them from trying anything.”
“It’s worth a shot, then,” Champagne said. Frowning at her meal, she quickly wolfed it down and stood up, her eyes settling on the stockpile of fruits sitting near one of the huts. “I might as well eat up and try to get some rest for another long flight tomorrow.”
“Hey, it’s not so bad!” Rainbow tried to assure her. “Think of all the exercise you’re getting! Your wings will be in great shape by the time we get back home!”
All Champagne shared with her was a dirty look and something muttered in Prench under her breath.
Rainbow giggled to herself and polished off her meal. “She likes me. I can already tell.”
Rarity tried not to think too much about the fish she carved into with her beak and teeth. While the rest of the survivors had gone just inside the trees to go and have their own dinners, Rarity remained on the beach with Gyro while Melody hunted some dinner for them. After all, she needed to consume a lot more as a siren than she did as a pony, and she seriously doubted that the survivors would be able to scrape enough food together to adequately sate her needs. And, on top of that, she was pretty sure her body was exclusively carnivorous. Oats and fruits wouldn’t get her the nutrients she needed, not like fish did, and it’d probably make her very sick to her stomach.
Not that fish was any better, but that was mostly a result of her mentality, not her body.
It wasn’t too long before ponies started trickling their way back to the beach, their bellies full of simple stew and fruit. Once more, the lively conversation returned, though it was tempered here and there with idle brainstorming about ways to finally lower the barrier. Most of the ideas thrown around were simply guesses and hopes without any evidence to back them up, but that was mostly where they were at, now. They needed to try everything if they were going to find some way to get back home.
As soon as Rainbow Dash stepped back onto the beach, however, Rarity knew merely from the way she carried herself that the pegasus had come up with some new daring plan. Whether it was merely a foolhardy attempt to get home or an actual, cohesive plan remained to be seen, but Rarity knew one was just as likely as the other with her. She certainly prayed to Celestia that it was the latter and not the former.
“Alright, everypony, listen up,” Rainbow said, naturally assuming the mantle of leadership like she had become so used to since ending up on the islands. “We’ve got twenty-seven days or something until the next full moon, so we’ve got plenty of time to figure something out. And I’m gonna give us even more time. If this works, we’ll have all the time in the world.”
“If what works?” Gyro asked. The gray mare lifted her front half off the sand and cocked an eyebrow at Rainbow. “What sort of crazy idea did you come up with now?”
“Actually, it was Ruse’s idea,” Rainbow said, sparing the ventriloquist a glance. “I want to take our pegasi and fly back to the archipelago, then cover up the tomb with something so the moonlight can’t hit it. If we go and do that, then we might be able to keep the doors shut forever!”
“Wasn’t there supernatural weather that kept the tomb concealed from the moonlight?” Stargazer asked. “We weren’t able to manipulate it on our own, and it was summoned specifically to protect the tomb. Why bother trying to block the tomb ourselves when we can just let whatever the Ponynesians did do it for us?”
“Because we don’t know if that still works,” Rainbow said. “I kinda did a number on it when I used a Sonic Rainboom to destroy the clouds. I wouldn’t be surprised if I just busted the enchantment entirely.”
“Do you think it will actually work?” Ratchet asked her. “Flying back to the tomb and covering it yourself, I mean.”
“No idea, but it’s worth a shot,” Rainbow said. “Maybe we can find some more clues about what we need to do while we’re there as well. There are a lot of ruins around these islands, and one of them has to give us an answer.”
Rarity nodded. “There were some shrines above the tomb that no doubt the rest of you are very familiar with,” she said. “I saw some carvings inside one that depicted an abbreviated version of what happened on these islands. Presumably there are more that might tell us something important.”
“If there are, we wouldn’t really know,” Ratchet said. “While we did look at them some, our efforts were more focused on tracking down other survivors and trying to withstand the onslaught of death Squall threw at us nearly constantly.”
“So it’s totally worth checking out.” Rainbow fluttered her wings some. “I figure, if we go there and do all that stuff, we’ll at least buy ourselves some more time, and maybe figure out what to do next. Speaking of which, anypony have any ideas on that front?”
“Nothing particularly helpful,” Melody muttered, her fin drooping slightly as she hung her head. “I’ve tried remembering everything I’ve studied over the years, and I’m still drawing blanks. There has to be something I saw somewhere!”
Rainbow fluttered up to the siren and placed her hoof on her beak. “Hey, don’t worry about it, girl,” she said, trying to calm her before she could get too worked up. “Nopony expects you to remember everything. You already know so much more about this place than any of us do.”
“I just wish it was something helpful,” Melody said. “I haven’t been able to help you out with something you haven’t already figured out for yourselves.”
“You warned us about the dark spirit and why this barrier is up in the first place,” Rarity said. “It might not seem like much, but that knowledge can at least temper our decisions and help us figure out what to do next.”
“So what do we do next?” Ratchet asked. “We should start trying to do things tomorrow at the earliest.”
“I’d say, get a team down into the shrine beneath the island to look around and stuff,” Rainbow said. “Bring some torches and stuff, and head in there as soon as the tide goes out. Just take a look around and gather notes on the place. Maybe we’ll find what we need to do there.”
“In the meanwhile, I can swim back to the sunken ruins at the atoll and investigate those,” Melody said. “Rarity can help me, if she wants.”
“Well, two sets of eyes down there would certainly be better than one,” Rarity said. “I’ll help.”
“And what should the rest of us do?” Doctor Gauze asked. “It doesn’t sound like everypony will need to go beneath this island to look things over.”
“Maybe we can go looking for clues up here,” Gyro said. “If there were ponies that ended up stranded here before, like that explorer Rainbow mentioned, then maybe they found something that we’re missing. We’ve just gotta comb the place over.” She turned her attention to Rainbow. “If you can get me that guy’s journal, I’ll look through it, cover to cover. Maybe I’ll find something you missed.”
Rainbow shrugged. “It’s worth a try, at least.”
“Then that’s settled.” Rarity smiled some now that they actually had a plan of action. There was nothing worse than sitting about with idle hooves when there was work to be done. “Rainbow will take a team to the archipelago, Melody and I will go to the atoll, and some of the rest of you will go beneath the island. I think that’s something we can work with.”
“Yeah it is,” Rainbow heartily agreed. “So for tonight, let’s just rest up and everything. I figure if we head out tomorrow before lunchtime, we can cover stuff up at the archipelago, maybe spend the night there, and head back the next day. Melody and Rares, you two can figure out your own schedule.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ruse said. Then, smiling at Melody, he casually meandered down the beach to sit by the siren’s side. “Now, I believe we were promised a performance tonight from our lovely siren ladies, weren’t we?”
Melody blinked, and the corners of her lips pulled back into a smile. “Why… I suppose I did promise you that, didn’t I?”
“Oh, please don’t feel pressured into it,” Ruse said. “I wouldn’t want to force that on you.”
“Oh, no, it’s no pressure at all!” Melody flashed her teeth for a fraction of a second, but closed her lips again before she could possibly frighten any of the ponies sitting around her. “I’d love to. And it would be good for Rarity; some magic might be good for her, too.”
“It would certainly help plug the hole in my chest,” Rarity said, rubbing at the heartstone sticking out of her scales. “And having some magic might be useful in the future. But I don’t know any songs.”
Melody chuckled and shook her head. “You don’t need to know any songs. They’re already inside of you. All you have to do is let them out.”
Gyro snickered. “In other words, ‘believe in yourself’.”
“Well, that’s the long and short of it, really. Don’t worry about the notes; you’ll know what to do.” Melody briefly rubbed one of Rarity’s shoulders with a cleft hoof, and then she turned her attention back to the ponies around her. “I do feel like I should warn you… we won’t sing any happy songs. That’s not what we draw our magic from.”
“The song surely won’t matter when it comes from a creature as beautiful as you,” Ruse said. “It’ll be perfect no matter what.”
Rainbow Dash snorted and laughed. “Better be careful there, Mel, I think he’s getting sweet on you.”
Melody blushed some and stammered slightly. “O-Oh. Well, uh…” She coughed and smiled. “Right! Song time. If you’ll just give us some space…”
In a few minutes, everypony began to move from the beach to the lagoon on the south end of the island. Melody had specifically requested that they all move to that spot because the acoustics were better there; she simply wouldn’t perform someplace inferior to that, where the crooked lines of trees would create tiny, distorted echoes of her voice. Though Rarity didn’t see what the big deal was, she decided to trust the siren’s authority on those matters. Music was her domain, after all, and far be it from her to question it.
As the two sirens swam around to the lagoon, Rarity nervously cleared her throat. “So, um, pardon me for asking, Melody, but… how am I supposed to sing with you if I don’t know the words?”
“There are no words,” Melody replied. “Only notes.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Yes, okay, if you want to be technical. But then how am I supposed to sing with you if I don’t know the notes?”
“You know the notes,” Melody assured her. She grinned at Rarity, twisting her shoulders slightly to slice through a swell making its way to shore. “Every siren does. Even you.”
“I find that hard to believe.” Rarity felt her tail brush against the sand beneath them; the water was still shallow here, and if she kept slapping her tail into the sandy floor on accident. “I didn’t grow up hearing these songs. I don’t know what they sound like, except the two I heard from you.”
Melody just chuckled and rounded the rocky ridge sheltering the lagoon from the ocean beyond. “Just listen to the music inside of you,” she said, “and let it out. That’s all you need to do.”
Rarity sighed and followed Melody into the lagoon. “Well, if this is anything like spontaneous musical numbers back home, then it shouldn’t be too bad…”
Both sirens pulled themselves into the shallow waters of the lagoon, resting on their stomachs about halfway between the rocks sheltering it and where the water’s edge lapped at the sand. Rainbow Dash was the first one to meet them there, as Rarity expected. While they waited for the rest of the survivors to show up, Rainbow flew over to Rarity and perched herself on her nose like a colorful blue sparrow. “So, I’ll get to hear your beautiful singing voice again, eh?”
Rarity rolled her eyes and ended up looking past Rainbow; it was hard to focus on the pegasus standing on her nose without her eyes going cross. “I’m glad you think my voice sounds good, darling.”
“You’ve got the best one out of our friends,” Rainbow said. “I’m definitely not that good at singing, and Applejack’s talents lie elsewhere, to be honest. But you probably could have been a music star if you wanted to with your voice.”
“Thank you for the flattery,” Rarity said. She shook her head, remember too late that Rainbow was standing on her beak. When the pegasus squawked in alarm and fluttered backwards to avoid falling to the ground, Rarity sheepishly smiled at her. “Perhaps you shouldn’t do that.”
“Eh, it was fun. I do like riding my marefriend,” she said with a wink.
Rarity chuckled back. “I don’t think you’d be able to reciprocate very easily.”
Rainbow’s flirty grin dropped for a moment. “Yeah, that’d… probably be very bad,” she said, looking Rarity over. “Forget I said that.”
It wasn’t too much longer before everypony else started to make their way down to the lagoon as well. They arranged themselves in a small circle around Coals and Gyro, who’d managed to cross the island with the help of the others so they could listen to the sirens’ music as well. Within a few minutes, everypony was settled down and ready to begin, and Rainbow flew back to join them on the beach.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Ruse announced, claiming a front row seat to the show. “Should we expect anything odd?”
Melody shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s like to listen to a siren’s music when she’s drawing emotions from you. I’ve always been on the other end.”
“We’ve heard you sing before,” Rainbow said, “but you didn’t know it at the time. It’s hypnotizing, almost.”
Melody nodded. “Then I’ll try to keep my songs clean of those scales. I didn’t know I had listeners recently, so I ran through my usual favorite songs without thinking. But I’ll just try to let you enjoy the music and maybe pull a little magic for Rarity’s sake. She could use it.”
Rarity brushed the gemstone sticking out of her chest. “I wouldn’t say I need it, I’m sure I’ll be fine without it…”
“You’ll feel a lot better when you have some magic in you.” Melody lightly grasped Rarity’s shoulder and smiled. “Trust me.”
“If you say so…”
Melody then turned back to the ponies assembled on the beach. “I’m ready to begin. Rarity, just follow along. You’ll know what to do as it happens.”
Then Melody closed her eyes, almost like she was meditating. After a moment to watch her, Rarity attempted to do the same. Squeezing her eyes shut, she lit her ears twitch listening to the very breaths of the ponies gathered in front of her. She could feel the sand shifting beneath her chest as she drew in a deep breath, her lungs filling with air that she’d soon turn into beautiful music.
And then Melody began to sing, and Rarity felt the siren’s voice begin to resonate within her. But instead of compelling her to act or simply sit and listen, it made her want to sing. It built in her chest and her throat like a pressure, a geyser trying to burst through her vocal chords. Gritting her teeth, Rarity resisted the alien pressure on her core until she couldn’t anymore. So she opened her mouth…
…and music began to flow.
It wasn’t even a simple of assorted musical notes; it was a song in its own right. While Melody obviously led the song, her voice quickly ascending and descending the scales, changing its rhythm as she pleased, Rarity’s notes were slower, lower, more supportive. Rarity felt like a background singer to Melody’s breathtaking performance, but she didn’t complain about that. If anything, she was glad that Melody could effortlessly lead the way, and her body knew how to react.
And then she felt a tingle between her lungs. Slowly, a trickle of magic entered the heartstone in her chest, like a small stream of water pouring into an enormous basin. It tasted bittersweet for as much as it had a taste, but that was the only way Rarity could describe it. The sad and lonely music her and Melody sang harvested sad and lonely emotions from the ponies listening, and when Rarity cracked one of her eyes open, she song the excited looks on the survivors’ faces had turned to something more introspective and mellow.
When the song finally reached its conclusion, a feeling of guilt took hold of Rarity’s gut. Her music had made her friends sad and long for home. She felt horrible for twisting their emotions in such a way, and she didn’t know if the revitalizing and energizing spark of magic in her stone was worth it.
Melody also seemed similarly concerned, which surprised Rarity. But then again, how often did the siren feed on the emotions of ponies she was friendly with? Most of the time, her magic had been harvested from minotaurs that she never knew or met personally. But this was different.
Her eyes fell, along with her fin. “I’m sorry for that,” she said to them all. “I’m so sorry. I should have warned you more.”
“Warned us about your beautiful music?” Ruse looked up at her and wiped his eyes. “It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Melody blinked. “But… it makes you sad.”
“A lot of beautiful things make us sad,” Ruse said. “We’re sad because they’re so beautiful and perfect. Much like your songs. The world doesn’t deserve to hear something like that. It’s not worthy.”
The green siren didn’t know how to react. “I don’t…”
Rarity found the strength in her to smile and hug Melody. “I guess sometimes, feeling sad is a good thing. It certainly beats being angry and frustrated.”
“It reminds us of what we have to go back to,” Ratchet said. “It’s good to have reminders like that. When we remember all we have to live for, we can do anything.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “Your music is awesome. You two should keep singing!”
“Really?” Melody asked. “I-I don’t want you to suffer…”
“Who says we’re suffering?” Gyro said, a little moisture clinging to her eyelashes. “I think after all we’ve been through, we need this.”
Melody looked at Rarity as if to question what she was hearing, and Rarity slowly nodded in agreement. “I suppose the audience has spoken,” she said. She softly smiled and winked at the green sea creature. “They want an encore.”
The two sirens kept their performance up for an hour… or maybe it was all night. Rainbow didn’t really know. The music gripped her and twisted her heart, driving knives of ice into her chest as pangs of homesickness clawed at her breast. The haunting melodies of siren song clawed at her brain, dragging out her emotions and twisting them into the magic they needed to live and perform incredible feats.
If she hadn’t been helping Rarity by listening to the music for so long, Rainbow might have tried to tear herself away earlier. While it was beautiful and unlike anything she could ever have dreamed of experiencing, the notes left her feeling drained, haggard, and weak. The tears dripping down her muzzle were difficult to stem, even for a mare who didn’t like crying.
Eventually, however, the wonderful torment did come to an end. The final notes of the final song drifted away into the wind and the night sky, vanishing among the stars, and then all was quiet save for the gentle crashing of waves around the island… and a few sniffles from the audience. It was like the lagoon had been placed under a trance, and nopony had the willpower to break it with imperfect, grating noise after the wonder of the sirens’ songs.
It was some time before Clever Ruse seized that mantle and that responsibility. “Thank you for that,” was all he said at first. A few seconds of effort later, and he managed to summon a few more words. “That was something I’ll never be able to forget.”
“I’m worried I overdid it,” Melody said. “Siren music is powerful. Very powerful. I can’t really control the emotions I prey on too easily.”
“Eh… no harm, no foul,” Rainbow insisted, forcing herself to stand if only to prove she was stronger than the music. “It was very good. Great stuff.” She shook her head and let her shoulders sag some. “Hopefully we’ll be able to hear it again under better circumstances. Like after we get the barrier down.” She turned questioning eyes to Melody and Rarity. “Can you do happy songs? I know you eat sad emotions and stuff, but what about the other side of the coin?”
Melody rubbed her hooves together. “I used to sing happy songs to myself to try and keep my spirits up.”
“And? How about now?”
“I… haven’t sung them in quite a while.” The green siren lowered her head. “I didn’t have a good reason to until late.”
“Then maybe we can hear one sometime,” Rainbow said. “I know I’d like to.”
“I’d certainly like to right now, but it is getting late,” Ratchet said. Yawning, he stood up and shook out his legs. “There’s no real reason to stay up much after dark out here. That’s one thing I’ve learned from nearly two months of this crap. It’s better to sleep while it’s dark so we can make the most use of the daylight we have. Light is precious when there’s no electricity to go around.”
“Eh, true enough. You guys go on ahead, I’m gonna spend some time with my marefriend.” Rainbow waved to the other survivors as they stood up and started to head back, and soon the lagoon was empty save for her and the two sirens. Turning her eyes to Rarity, Rainbow sat down on the beach and reclined onto her back. “So, where are you and Melody gonna crash tonight?” she asked. “I think the hut’s a little too small for you, now.”
“Somewhere around here would be fine, I’d imagine,” Rarity said. Nevertheless, she glanced at Melody for confirmation. “That wouldn’t be too problematic, would it?”
Melody shrugged. “I usually sleep back on my atoll. It’s nice and secluded there. But it shouldn’t really matter out here. I feel like we can trust these ponies.”
“I’d trust them with my life,” Rainbow said. “We’ve been through a lot of crap in the few short days we’ve known each other.”
“Then I suppose I can sleep here,” Rarity said. “The water is nice and shallow. I think it will be fine.”
“I’m going to sleep down in the water some,” Melody said. “I usually like sleeping in surf a little deeper than this. I feel like my scales get all dried out if I keep them out of the water for too long.” She grimaced and scratched at her body, knocking loose one or two stray emerald scales.
“My scales could probably use some time to dry out and harden.” Rarity shrugged and laid her head down on the sand next to Rainbow. She followed it with a large yawn, her fanged maw stretching wide and revealing her horrific teeth to the world. Grunting, the fins at the base of her jaw twitched, and her slitted eyes turned to the sky. “It’s been a very long day.”
“That it has,” Melody said. She patted Rarity on the back and started to pull herself back out to sea with her tail. “I’ll be on the other side of the island where the water’s a little deeper,” she said. “I’ll get us some breakfast when the sun comes out. I imagine you aren’t exactly ready to catch and kill fish with your teeth yet.”
Rarity shuddered. “Yes, I think I’d rather avoid that experience for the time being. I’m still hoping this will only be a temporary stay. Though I do appreciate you helping me collect some magic.” Her cleft hooves clawed at the sand around her as she settled into a more comfortable position. “It at least is helping me patch the empty void in my chest.”
“Perhaps tomorrow I’ll teach you how to use it,” Melody said with a smile. Then, once she finally entered the open water, she waved at Rarity. “See you in the morning!”
“You too, darling.” Rarity flipped her tail in Melody’s direction, and then she closed her eyes. Her nostrils blew two warm jets of air out of her beak, and the pointed tip sliced a narrow trench in the sand. “It is nice for it to just be the two of us, again.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said. She looked at Rarity, whose scales glowed like a moon in the darkness of the light. “All those nights apart weren’t that fun.”
“I’ll say. A lot of horrible things happened on the archipelago. Almost from the minute we arrived.” She shook her head, her chin pushing up sand as she moved it. “Maybe if you hadn’t have flown off on your own we wouldn’t have had such difficulties there.”
Rainbow shrugged. “It all worked out in the end. We just… got a little messed up.” She grimaced and sucked on the chips and gaps in her teeth. At least through the hectic chaos of the last few days, that particular remodel of her face hadn’t been bothering her as much. “I’m gonna need to have Twilight fix my face when we get back home. I can’t really do photo shoots for the Bolts when my teeth look like one of Applejack’s cousins.”
Rarity giggled. “I’ll need to see Twilight for the same, then,” she said. “A missing ear and an eye scar do not a beauty model make.”
“You’ll always be beautiful no matter what,” Rainbow said.
“Thanks, darling.” Rarity smiled and shifted her head to the side so Rainbow could nuzzle it and rest against it. “It isn’t perfect, but at least we’re together.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed, nuzzling Rarity’s beak. “We just need to enjoy it while it lasts.”
Rarity slightly nodded. “You will be safe tomorrow, will you?” she asked.
“Of course I will. We’re in the home stretch now. I don’t want to mess it up, trust me.” Rainbow closed her eyes and listened to Rarity’s breathing. “I don’t even have to ask you to be safe, right?”
“I do try to be cautious.” Rarity drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out, letting her body settle into the sand. “We’ll get through this okay. I believe in that.”
“We’ll get through it more than just okay. We’ll do it and be awesome.”
Rarity smiled. “That we will be, Rainbow. I have no doubt in my mind.”
Black Flag groaned and clutched at his skull. It felt like somepony had snatched a hammer and chisel and was making a desperate attempt to escape. His mouth was dry, his legs hurt, and every breath he took rewarded him with a whiff of something vile and acidic.
He cracked a bleary eye open, and the first thing he saw was an empty bottle of rum lying in the sand not too far away. It took him some effort to sit up enough to paw the bottle over to him. A tiny trickle of alcohol ran around in the bottom of the glass, and just the mere sight of it made him grimace. He must’ve had—no, definitely had—way too much to drink last night. But could anypony blame him? He certainly couldn’t blame himself. It’d been too long since he’d had his last drink. Hangover or not, getting shitfaced was worth it in itself. It helped him forget some of the shit he had to deal with out here and passed the time. After all, one way or another, he’d make it back to Equestria faster if he couldn’t remember half of his time here, right?
Groaning sounded off through the underbrush from somewhere behind him. Flag turned around, careful not to move his head too much lest he aggravate his hangover, and spotted his brother leaning against a coconut tree, obviously much worse for wear. Sand covered much of Roger’s coat from his chin to the base of his neck, and a few speckles of dried vomit decorated his coat here and there. Flag knew that somewhere there was probably a spot in the sand that he’d puked in the night before, with a not very good chance that they’d actually bothered to cover it up afterwards.
Flag slowly moved to a tree where he could sit with his back to the bark and his eyes facing forward. After a moment to shiver through the overwhelming feeling of awful sitting in his gut, he managed to crack a smile at his brother. “Do you think we overdid it last night?”
Roger grimaced and grunted. “Not at all,” he said. “I fucking needed that. Fuck the hangover. All this shit, all these fucking moon zombies and shit, fuck. If I didn’t have any of that rum, I was gonna start drinking some of their fucking blood and seeing if I could get trashed off that.”
“Well, we’ve got a crate to go through at least. That’ll last us a brief while.”
“At the rate we went through that bottle last night, I’d say it’d only last us a little more than a week. How many bottles were in that, you figure?”
“Eight, I think I counted. Seven, now that we killed that one.” Flag kicked the empty bottle away from him. “It’s not gonna last all that fucking long.”
“A Celestia damned shame.” Jolly groaned and closed his eyes. “Those other bastards better not get into our fucking crate. I’ll kill them if they do, I swear. I don’t care how many of them there are, that’s our fucking booze.”
“For once, I’m inclined to agree with you.” Black Flag shook his head, his mind slowly starting to pick up the pieces and fragments of memories from what had happened the night before. “Say, did you hear music last night?”
“Music? You sure you’re not still fucked up?” Roger grimaced and attempted to kick sand at his brother, but only succeeded in brushing up a small pile. “I didn’t hear no fucking music.”
“I don’t know why I asked you, you weren’t in no fucking position to remember anything last night.” Flag shook his head, but the more he thought about it, the clearer he heard that haunting melody that seemed to drift over the entire island at some point the night prior. He also realized that there was not one but two voices that filled his hazy memories from the night before. “It was a duet.”
“A duet?” Roger made some attempt to sit up, using his wings for extra support, but that ended in failure almost as quickly as it started. “Fuck, didn’t that rainbow cunt say that she was bringing sirens back to this island?”
“I think so, yeah.” Flag did remember Rainbow Dash saying something about that when she returned from the south yesterday afternoon. Of course, he was already getting drunk at that point, but it did sound familiar. “Think the monsters ate them?”
“Wouldn’t that be lucky for us.” Jolly Roger finally managed to sit up, and he started scratching sand out of his coat with his wingtips. “You know it ain’t gonna be that fucking easy.”
Flag shrugged. “Then I guess on the bright side, if they’re friendly, that’s good for us.”
Roger scowled at his brother. “Good for us? How so? If they’ve got not one but two giant beasties that could snap us up in a bite, then we’re super fucked. We don’t stand a fucking chance against that.”
“We never fucking did in the first place,” Flag said. “It’s good for us because now we don’t need to fool ourselves with trying to figure out how to kill them.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Roger growled.
“I’m saying that it’s fucking over, dickhead.” Black Flag managed to fling himself onto his hooves, only teetering for a moment as his hangover struck him with a horrible bout of vertigo. “Ever since we joined up with these fucks, you’ve been trying to figure out how to kill them. They don’t fucking trust us, and if anything, it’d be your fault if they decided to murder us right now.”
Roger stood up as well and stumbled over until he was nose to nose with his brother. “Forgive me for trying to keep our asses out of the fire, brother,” he said, leering. “If I wasn’t quietly making plans—!”
“It’s not fucking quiet because they know you’re up to fucking something.” Flag stomped his hoof in frustration. “And because they know you’re plotting, you’re doing the fucking opposite of saving our lives. You’re putting them in even more danger.”
Sighing, he pointed back in the vague direction of the island’s camp. “I tried to humor you because I don’t trust them either. Nopony trusts anypony. But at this point, it’s over. They have sirens now. Either they kill us when we go back to their camp, or they don’t, in which case they don’t plan on killing us. They wouldn’t need us around anyway if that was the only thing keeping us alive, because they’ve got two big and powerful sirens. A couple of pirate noponies don’t mean nothing to them no more.”
Roger narrowed his eyes at this brother. “You go back there, it’s your fucking funeral.”
“And what the fuck are you going to do? Hide out here? Fly away?”
“If I have to, then yeah.”
Black Flag growled in frustration and turned away from his brother. “Fucking whatever. You do you, asshole. Me? I’m sick of all this shit. I’m going to get a drink because my mouth’s as dry as the fucking sand, and then I’m going to see what’s going on at the survivors’ camp. If I don’t die, great. If I do, also fucking great. At least it means this experience is done with.” He spared a moment to glare back over his shoulder at his brother. “You can come along and get over yourself or fuck off and run like the bitch you are.”
“I’m not a coward for wanting to live,” Roger spat back at him.
“You’re a coward for not wanting to try anything other than murder.” Flag looked away and shook his head. “Ma would be so fucking disappointed in you.”
“Don’t you fucking bring Ma into this.”
“I’m not the one who was too busy to drop everything and go see her on her deathbed.”
Their conversation abruptly ended at that remark. Jolly Roger stared at Flag, his eyes drilling into the back of his head, while Flag calmly held his ground but refused to look in his brother’s direction. They stood as still as statues while the birds called and sang around them, neither daring to move or be the first to break the silence. They held that position for what felt like almost a full minute before Flag heard heavy wingbeats from behind him. Sighing, he turned around, but his brother was gone.
“And fucking good riddance,” the pirate muttered to himself, before he too vanished through the undergrowth of the island, making his way back to the pond in the center.
Rainbow Dash had pleasant dreams that night. She didn’t really remember what they were, but they probably involved flying. All of her good dreams involved flying.
The cold reality of her situation woke her back up the following morning when a gentle lapping of saltwater washed over her nose. Rainbow immediately woke up, flailing and sputtering as her body’s reflexes tried to save her from drowning in a quarter inch of water. After a few seconds of confused thrashing, Rainbow finally fell back on her rump, hooves digging into the damp sand, and managed to catch her breath.
“Mmrfff… stupid tide,” she grumbled to herself. Over the course of the night, she must’ve changed positions so her face was to the lagoon, and the rising tide had brought the water right up to her nose. Her coat was covered in sand, and she briefly tried to rub some of the most irritating bits off before giving up on that. Walking through the water would be her best bet, she knew. It’d be a lot simpler as well.
So she stood up and trudged her way down to the water. Rarity was still asleep on the shore, a considerable trench worn through the sand around her large siren frame. Not too far away, the ground had been scuffed up from where Rainbow had fallen asleep. She was just glad that Rarity hadn’t accidentally rolled over onto her in the middle of the night. Not only would it have crushed her, but Rarity probably wouldn’t have realized until the following morning. Rainbow decided to file that away for consideration on sleeping with her big scaly marefriend in the future. Getting flattened into pega-paste probably wouldn’t be good for their relationship.
After a brief splash through the lagoon to get the worst of the sand out of her coat, Rainbow immediately set her focus on breakfast. While there was some grass a little bit further up the hill she knew she could munch on, there was also an army of sand crabs scuttling across the sand, moving in and out of the lagoon’s waters as they searched for tiny morsels of food. Licking her lips, Rainbow immediately set off after them, using the shallow waters to her advantage to find, trap, and crush the crabs before flipping them into her mouth. She’d been too busy to snack on the crustaceans as of late, but their meat would be good protein for fighting off the atrophy of her wing muscles. A diet of the same three fruits and grass simply didn’t cut it. At least the survivors had food from the Concordia, but that wouldn’t last very long.
It wasn’t too much later before Rarity finally began to stir. Her tail started to kick at the water, accidentally dousing Rainbow in a shower of seawater, and her forelegs began to move. A minute later, her eyelids opened, revealing glittery slit sapphires that wandered across the beach before finally settling on her. They shut again as soon as they made eye contact, and Rarity’s scaly brow dropped downward as she groaned. “It’s late, isn’t it?” she asked. “I already know it’s several hours past the dawn.”
“Yeah, it’s probably something like that,” Rainbow said, glancing up at the sky. “We needed the sleep I guess.”
Rarity slowly lifted her head off of the beach, her jaw quivering as she stretched out taut muscles. “Shame. I wanted to get to see the dawn. I was thinking about swimming out into the sea for a little bit until I could watch the sun rise up from the blue horizon. It would have been a pretty sight.”
Rainbow shrugged and took note of the weather: spotty clouds and a thick layer of moisture, promising rain sometime in the next day or two. “It’s another day,” she said. “Another dawn. We’ll have a few more yet, I think.”
“Who knows if we’ll be able to enjoy them with the same level of serenity as today,” Rarity said. “We have no idea what we’ll be facing from here on out.”
“What are you talking about?” Rainbow asked, fluttering up to her. “We know exactly what we’ll be dealing with. Moon mummies, possibly a few possessed ponies, a masseuse turned into a scary dark alicorn, and an evil moon god spirit thing! Maybe a few minotaurs for good measure! The real headscratcher is figuring out when we’ll have to deal with all this crap.”
“When?” Rarity echoed.
“Yeah! When!” Rainbow dropped onto Rarity’s nose, making her marefriend flinch. “We know everything that we’ll have to deal with, we just don’t know for sure when we’ll have to deal with it. I mean, yeah, full moon and everything, but that’s mostly just when we think all this crap will go down. Or it could happen on the new moon! We really don’t have any friggin’ idea.”
“That’s… not exactly reassuring, is it?” Rarity asked. “I’m not exactly sure what you were attempting to say there, but now I feel worse, not better.”
Rainbow blinked. “I don’t really know, to be honest. Just pointing something out, I guess.” She shrugged and idly tapped her hooves on Rarity’s snout. “At least we’re getting to the end of it. One way or another.”
“Indeed.” Rarity sighed, the little motion of her head forcing Rainbow to tentatively extend her wings in case she needed to catch herself. “Hopefully we’ll be able to go back to our friends and give them a happy ending to this story.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Rainbow sighed and shook her head. “Jeez, how are the rest of the girls even going to take this? This definitely isn’t a campfire story for the faint of heart.”
“I imagine it will take some time to explain it all to them, and certainly not in one sitting. We might need to gloss over some of the darker parts for Fluttershy’s sake.”
“She probably wouldn’t take the moon zombies part very well.”
“Or the fight with Squall.”
“Or the minotaurs.”
“Or burying Jetstream.”
“Or…” Rainbow blinked. “Jeez, what parts of this story would be good to tell her?”
“Maybe the ones with Chirp,” Rarity said, her eyes wandering through the trees. “Though I don’t see the little fellow. I wonder what he’s up to.”
Rainbow shrugged. “He’s probably hanging around the camp looking for freebies,” Rainbow said. “I mean, if it’s breakfast time already, then where else would he possibly go?”
“Good point.” Rarity turned her attention further inward and rose on her legs. “Then I suppose we’ll find Melody somewhere around there as well. We might as well join our friends and get something to eat before we truly get started with the day.”
“Yeah. Way ahead of you.” Rainbow lightly kicked off of Rarity’s snout and hovered in front of her. “I’ll see you on the beach, then.”
Rarity nodded. “Yes, that sounds good to me.”
“Maybe we’ll find out what happened to the pirate brothers.”
Not even a minute later, Rainbow Dash touched down in the middle of the camp. Though sunrise had already happened a few hours ago, it seemed like everypony had decided to be just as lazy as her. Case in point, they were only just starting to serve breakfast. At this hour, Rainbow figured it was probably a brunch. That put a little grin on her face; she loved brunch. It was an excuse to eat two meals in one sitting. For a mare who always kept herself to a busy schedule of training, goofing off, and napping, it helped free up a little more time in her day.
Of course, free time wasn’t something that she had to worry about too much out here on the islands. Without the trappings of modern society, there were only the bare essentials of survival to occupy her time, plus searching for a way back home. Between those two things, that still left a lot of free time that would otherwise pass by in boredom. Maybe she could try to organize a few buckball games the next time they weren’t doing anything. With a coconut as the ball and some palm frond baskets as the goals, they had everything they needed to pull it off.
Champagne nudged Rainbow’s shoulder, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Some food?” she asked, offering a simple bowl to Rainbow. “It’s just plain oatmeal, but there’s some fruit to top it with if you want. You’ll have to forgive us; we don’t have any brown sugar out here, if that’s how you like your oats.”
Rainbow smirked and happily snatched the bowl in her wing. “Eh, what can you do?” she asked, peering into the bowl. Brown sugar or no, the oatmeal certainly smelled delicious, and Champagne had already given her a pretty good idea: topping the bowl with some fruit. Thanking the Prench mare for the food, Rainbow trotted past her and to one of the huts, where she fished out some drying fruit from one of the baskets and dropped a few sugar apple cloves into her coconut half shell. Sure, it was crude, but appearances didn’t affect taste at all.
Minutes later, with a decent enough brunch to much on in addition to the sand crabs she’d devoured that morning, Rainbow made her way down to the beach, where a small crowd of survivors was already growing. There, she saw Melody and Rarity working on a haul of seafood for their own breakfast, while some of the survivors watched with morbid curiosity. While Melody of course didn’t care about ripping apart meat with her teeth, Rainbow had to try very hard to suppress a giggle at Rarity’s expression. She knew that Rarity didn’t really want to tear into fish with her teeth but was only doing so because she had to to survive. Sirens were carnivores, and Rainbow knew Rarity certainly wouldn’t get very far by trying to strip the island of all its fruit for a single meal.
She made her way to Rarity’s side and sat down on the sand, making sure to stay upwind of the pile of fish Melody had brought to the beach. Rarity decided to use her presence as an opportunity to distract herself from the laborious task of eating meat and set aside the tuna she was eating in favor of conversation. “I wish I could eat oats,” she said, eyeing Rainbow’s bowl.
“I’d trade you but I don’t think you’d get very far,” Rainbow said.
Melody shook her head. “It can’t be that bad,” she said. Fish bones crunched in her beak as she finished off the rest of a tuna. “The tuna here is really meaty. I’m just glad that there’s a school that stays close enough to the islands for me to lure in with a song.”
“It’s all in your head, Rarity,” Gyro said, sitting not too far away. Rainbow noted with some excitement that the mare had seemed to develop enough back strength to sit up on her own without using her forelegs to support her. “Just pretend it’s a big, juicy, uhh… apple or something.”
“It certainly doesn’t crunch like an apple,” Rarity grumbled, “even if it does taste good.”
“If it tastes good, why all the fuss?” Coals asked, positioned by Gyro’s side.
“Because it’s the principle of the thing.”
Rainbow snickered and took a few more bites from her bowl. “Always the drama queen, right, Rares?”
“It’s less drama and more that I’m trying to maintain some of my equine standards while in this body.” Rarity sighed and splashed her fin in the water. “I dearly hope you can change me back after we go exploring the sunken temple some more, Melody.”
“And I thought you were enjoying yourself,” Melody said.
“The novelty is beginning to wear off, I fear.” Rarity shrugged. “There are advantages for each of my forms, but returning to the comfort and familiarity of my pony self would be wonderful.”
“She just doesn’t want to get too used to being a siren,” Gyro said, her lips quivering and creeping into an amused smile. “She might end up preferring it.”
Rainbow Dash snickered at that, though movement through the undergrowth toward the north side of the island caught her eye. Raising an eyebrow, she saw Black Flag slowly blundering his way out of the interior of the island and emerging on the beach. The pirate held his face in a perpetual grimace, and judging by the way he walked, Rainbow figured he must have been vvery badly hungover. Smirking, Rainbow set her bowl down on the sand and crossed her forelegs as the pirate trudged closer. “Sorry, but we don’t have any coffee for that hangover of yours. You’re on your own.”
“Fuck off,” Flag grumbled, ultimately sitting on his flank not too far from the ponies and sirens gathered on the beach. Groaning, he flopped down onto the sand, his cheek resting on the sun-warmed sediment. “If somepony could bring me something to eat, it would be very much appreciated.”
Rainbow glanced at Champagne, who was merely watching what was happening on the beach out of curiosity. “Hey, Champagne, can you get him some oatmeal?” she asked the Prench mare. “He could really use something to eat.”
Champagne nodded and disappeared back through the trees separating the camp from the beach, and Rainbow chuckled at the pirate. “Did you learn your lesson?”
“Mmmrrrff… Fuck off, again. And no.”
“At least he’s getting what he deserves,” Rarity observed.
Black Flag managed to lift his eyes enough to spy the two sirens watching him from afar. “If you’re planning on eating me, just do it now and get it over with,” he said. “I’d rather die too hungover to care about it than when I’m sober enough to worry about it.”
“Dude, we’re not gonna kill you,” Rainbow said, shaking her head. “I’ve been trying to make that clear since we started working together. Sure, we got off to a rocky start, but right now, we need everypony’s help. And I’m still looking to get all of us back to Equestria safe and sound when this is all done with.”
The pirate flicked his tail across the sand. “Well… good to hear from you. But what about the rest of your friends?”
Rainbow glared at Gyro, who was currently frowning at the pirate with borderline murderous intent. “They’re not going to hurt you or your brother, either,” she said, making sure to get a nod of reluctant agreement from the gray mare. But as soon as she said that, she turned back towards the interior of the island and cocked an eyebrow. “Speaking of which, where is your brother, anyway?”
“What do you mean ‘he’s gone’?” Rainbow asked, frowning hard at the pirate. “Where the crap is he gonna go?! What happened between you two?”
The pirate shrugged, one of his forehooves idly tracing patterns in the sand. “We had a fight. The hangovers didn’t help. But there was a very heated disagreement about how we’ve been getting along with you so far and then the topic turned to our late mother. He flew off and I didn’t bother to see where.”
“Flew off?” Rarity asked, her eyes already wandering over the skies to try and spot the renegade pirate. “Do you mean to somewhere else on the island?”
“I already told you I wasn’t paying attention,” Flag growled at her. “He could be anywhere for all I know. I certainly don’t care enough to find out.”
“But he’s your brother,” Gyro said. “I would’ve thought you’d have some compassion for each other, even if you are filthy pirates.”
Flag shot her an irritated glare, no doubt exacerbated by his hangover. “He’ll either get over himself or he’ll get himself killed. He’s always been a raving, murderous lunatic who’s so paranoid others will try to kill him in his sleep that he’d rather murder everyone around him just to be safe. When our mother was dying, he was having too much fun killing and raping his way across the skies to be bothered to come home and take care of her in her final months.” He fell silent for a moment, but soon declared, “A pony like that doesn’t deserve a real family.”
Rainbow winced; if she had siblings, she didn’t think she could be so harsh or callous toward them, even if they weren’t… exactly all there or the best individuals. Still, though, Black Flag’s parting with his brother was both a good and a bad thing. Good because it split the dangerous pair up, but bad because now there was nothing to temper the more dangerous and unpredictable of the two. Rainbow didn’t know whether to be thankful for the current situation or worried. “That sounds kinda harsh, dude.”
“Whatever. It is what it is.” Black Flag’s ears momentarily perked as Champagne arrived with a bowl of oats, and he took it from her hooves with a surprising lining of gentleness to his gruff and irritable pirate exterior. After a moment to gobble down some food, he grimaced and lowered the bowl. “Fuck. Never liked plain oats that much. You sure there’s no brown sugar or something for these?”
Champagne rolled her eyes and walked away with a huff. “Some ponies…”
Rainbow could only slowly shake her head. “We got what we got, dude. Brown sugar wasn’t on the list, apparently.”
“I’ve never had sugar before,” Melody said, her hoof scratching her chin. “There are a lot of pony foods I’ve only heard about before but never had the opportunity to try. It’s fascinating how two different sapient species could be so polarly different and unknown to each other, right?”
Rarity grimaced and squirmed in place. “As a person who has experience with both cultures, I’d say they don’t cross with good reason.”
“So, it’s true that you really were a pony before all this?” Black Flag asked, pointing to Rarity. “I heard something like that, but I didn’t think it was true.”
“It is,” Rarity assured him. “My name is Rarity Belle. Maybe you’ve heard of me. Maybe we even had an encounter on the archipelago before Rainbow and I vanquished Squall. I was at the camp the night before, and I think I remember your voice amongst those who chased me across the island.”
“That was you?” Flag asked. When Rarity nodded, he shook his head. “Then you’re due more credit than we’d given you. You were clever to lose us in the channel like that. And you’ve got some big fucking stones for a mare to go fight Squall and come out on top of that.”
“I hope that’s not a super big problem or anything,” Rainbow said. “To be fair, she was the one who wanted blood, not us. Can’t help it if she’s the one who ended up drowning in it.”
“Squall got what she deserved, in the end,” Flag said. “I never really liked her much as a pony, to be honest, and I was her right hoof aboard our barge. But she was a good captain, and she kept us together and kept our raids profitable for all the years we served under her. I’d say she’s in a better place now, but I know for a fact that bitch went straight to Tartarus when she died.” He eyed Rainbow and Rarity. “I’m just amazed that two civilians like you were able to bring her down.”
Rainbow shrugged in response. “It’s better to be lucky than to be good, I guess. Plus, I had a bone to pick with her after all the friggin’ torture you all put me through.”
After a few seconds of pregnant silence, Flag shrugged. “If you’re expecting me to apologize for all that, then I’m sorry to disappoint. From the moment I bashed you over the head and hauled you back to camp to the moment you escaped, you’ve been nothing but trouble.”
The pegasus blinked and rubbed a sore spot on the back of her head. “You did that? You friggin’ asshole…”
“You should just be happy I recognized you from the airship,” Flag said. “I knew you were worth something so I didn’t just kill you immediately under Squall’s orders. It’s the reason you’re still standing here today.”
Rainbow Dash silently grumbled to herself. “Fine, whatever. We’ll just write it off as water under the bridge or something.”
Flag slowly nodded his head once. “I suppose now that everyone is back from the other islands, I should ask what the current plan is. Did you get everything we needed to go home?”
“Well, we thought we did,” Rainbow said, tapping her hooves together. “But the reality is a lot more complicated than that.”
“Complicated? How?”
“We got all the figurines we needed to lower the magical wards around these islands,” Rarity said, “but nothing happened when Rainbow positioned them where they were supposed to go. We concluded that there had to be some piece of a ritual we were missing, so we’re going to be splitting up to figure out what that is.”
“I’m taking all the pegasi back to the archipelago to search the tomb there,” Rainbow said. “Rarity and Melody are going to the south to check out the underwater ruins on the atoll. Everypony else is gonna hang out here and do some searching of their own. I was hoping to have your brother on my team to help cover the tomb entrance so the moon can’t hit it when the next full moon comes around, but if he’s just flown off somewhere…”
Flag shrugged. “He might be back. He might not. I suppose we’ll figure that out in a few hours.”
Rainbow sighed and nodded. “It’s not really ideal, but whatever. We’re gonna start moving out in the early afternoon, after lunch and stuff. Give everypony a chance to get organized before we go and do our things. If you wanna help, you can talk to Ratchet about it. He’ll get you sorted out.”
Stretching her wings, Rainbow flopped onto her back, sand sliding through her feathers. “I’m gonna chill on the beach for a bit before I get everypony together. I need to rest my wings a bit longer after all this flying back and forth flying I’ve done the past few days. Feel free to do… whatever.”
Flag nodded and turned his attention back to the oats in front of him. “I suppose having a plan and doing something is better than sitting around doing nothing all day…”
Once more, Rainbow Dash relished the feeling of air beneath her feathers. She only truly felt like she was in her element when the great blue skies surrounded her and the air filled her wings like sails, carrying her from one part of the world to another just like that. And while she was only moving between one island and another in a chain, the mere freedom and joy of flight always left her feeling alive in a way nothing else possibly could.
Beneath her, the blues and greens of the shallow tropical waters rolled and swelled with the waves bouncing between the islands. They dazzled and glittered with the noon sun’s light, and beneath their glossy surface, Rainbow could make out the faint white contours of sand and rocks as the land declined deeper into the sea. A few small outcroppings of coral dotted the sea floor here and there, outposts of the larger and fuller body far to the south. If Rainbow squinted, she could see some larger fish wandering through the water, looking for their next meal. She idly wondered if there were any sharks in these waters. She certainly hadn’t seen any, and the fish didn’t seem all that nervous or bothered. Then again, fish didn’t seem bothered about anything, especially not from so high up.
She lifted her head and looked around, the wind tossing her rainbow mane across her face. Behind her, Champagne and Stargazer flew at either of her flanks, all three of them ascending together as the home island dwindled behind them. They’d only taken off fifteen minutes ago, and Rainbow knew they still had another hour or two before they landed on the archipelago. That would still give them six or seven hours of sunlight to work on covering the tomb before the moon began to rise. They’d be fine.
Still, she hated the sinking feeling in her gut as she flew away from the island, knowing that the band of survivors, her friends, were all splitting up to try and find some way home. The horrors she’d encountered and had to deal with on these islands had all taught her that there was safety in numbers, that splitting up would only end in terrible tragedy and danger. It had nearly gotten her killed at Squall’s hooves. But now, three pegasi had taken off to the west, two sirens had flown to the south, and half of the remaining crew made their way beneath the island, attempting to decipher runes and glyphs with no real way to do so. It was a desperate hope, but since the statuettes had failed to change their situation at all, desperate hopes were the only hopes they had left.
But would they find anything? Rainbow Dash honestly didn’t know. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Rainbow wished that Twilight was here with her. If anypony could have made sense out of the dilemma they faced, it would have been the bookish alicorn. No doubt she would have known what to look for or simply what to do to get rid of the wards. She probably could have figured that out solely from feeling the magic in the air. But Rarity, Ruse, and Gauze were no wizards, and they all lacked the magical expertise to figure out what to do, even if they did have horns. They were all on their own, with only their wits and intuition to figure out what to do.
Rainbow Dash did not feel all that confident that she would be particularly useful in those endeavors. Thankfully, she had two ponies with her who were likely more than able to pick up the slack.
With that in mind, she beat her wings harder, rising up another few dozen feet, and letting the calmer airs and thermals ease her flight to the archipelago.
-----
Rarity had hesitated before leaving the island, watching with anxious eyes as Rainbow and her force took wing to the west, until they were nearly too far away to make out clearly. She didn’t wait until they were completely out of sight, because she knew her eyesight was much keener with siren eyes, and she didn’t want to keep Melody waiting that long. But when they were finally reasonably along, Rarity sighed, sunk her head beneath the waves, and pushed away from the sandy beach with a strong flip of her tail.
Melody was waiting for her not too far through the water, her beak grinding while her fins idly waved to keep her in place. Though Rarity wasn’t that good at reading siren body language, she had a feeling that Melody was trying to be supportive or assuring when she smiled at Rarity’s approach. “Are you worried about her?” she asked, gently waving her tail and beginning the trek to the atoll to the south.
“It would be a blatant and pointless lie to say I’m not,” Rarity stated. “I’m sure that you’re aware that we were a romantic couple.”
“I did catch that,” Melody said with a little nod of her head, though the motion was largely lost in the undulating movements of her swimming body. “But… ‘were?’ What do you mean by that?”
Rarity blinked. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. We’re still together and still wildly infatuated, I would say. It’s just… difficult to maintain the physical connections of our relationship when I’m a siren and she’s a pegasus.”
Melody opened her beak to make a little ‘ah’ and chuckled. “Yes, I imagine that would be kinda difficult, wouldn’t it?”
“Quite.” Rarity shook her head. “I’m afraid I’d crush her.”
The green siren at her side snorted in amusement. “I guess it’s a good thing that pony-siren relationships aren’t that common.”
“As in ‘nonexistent,’ then sure,” Rarity said, reflecting Melody’s amused snort. Though there was a layer of sadness that tempered it. “Maybe that will change when relations between our two species improve.”
“Maybe,” Melody said. But instead of adding anything more in her usual wit or cheery excitement like Rarity had grown so accustomed to, Melody remained mostly silent. Instead, Rarity saw that the siren had clammed up, and the fins around her cheeks fluttered uneasily.
A smile slowly broke out on Rarity’s face as she came to a conclusion. “You like Clever Ruse, don’t you?”
“I-I… what?” Melody nervously chuckled, but to Rarity, an expert at reading social cues, it failed to cover Melody’s true feelings. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Rarity asked. She paddled her tail harder to fall in line at Melody’s side so the two could swim shoulder to shoulder. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, darling. It would be quite adorable, in my opinion.”
“B-But it would never work!” Melody protested. “You just said so yourself! He’s a pony and I’m… I-I’m a giant siren. If I tried to touch him, he’d shatter like coral!”
Rarity chuckled; even if she was a century old, Melody still acted like a flustered schoolfilly when it came to discussing romance. “I know you are a very gentle soul,” she said. “You would never hurt Ruse—accidentally or otherwise. And I do say, you two would make a beautiful couple,” she concluded with a wink.
Melody rubbed her hooves together. “W-Well… if you really think so…”
“I do,” Rarity said, grinning at Melody. “I know the two of you would be very happy. So when we come back later, don’t hesitate to talk to him about it. Do it somewhere private, one on one, and just… talk. You’ll sort your feelings out very quickly with nopony to watch you, I think.”
“Mmmm…” Melody smiled softly to herself, and her eyes seemed to drift off into her thoughts. Rarity chuckled to herself and took the lead while Melody absorbed herself in her thoughts. She wanted so very badly for Melody to find happiness with Ruse, as unlikely as such a pairing seemed. In the face of so much desperation, sadness, and tragedy, how could she stand by and not fan whatever sparks of happiness smoldered on the island?
Once the mobile ponies (and sirens) of the survivors had left, Gyro found herself lying in the sand as a whole lot of nothing happened around her. With the island’s de facto leaders both gone, leadership of the remaining crew fell to Ratchet, who took some time to cautiously and carefully plan out his next moves. Gyro wasn’t too irked that it took her boss some time to get things rolling, as the other two teams had to travel to their islands first. They wouldn’t be doing anything except moving for the next hour or two, and so it wouldn’t hurt them all that much if they took a few seconds to stop and think before they acted.
But that still wasn’t something Gyro could easily get behind. She was always an impatient mare, and she recognized that about herself. She was almost as bad as Rainbow herself and, considering how she lived her life at the glacial pace her hooves could move her when compared to the buzzing wings of a Wonderbolt, she thought that was quite impressive. Still, she’d demanded (and received) Uncharted Lands’ journal from Rainbow before she flew off, and now she pinned the book to the sand and leafed through it, voraciously devouring the late explorer’s notes. Sure, there hadn’t been anything interesting so far, but she resisted the urge to simply flip through the book until she found something good. There might be something, anything hiding in the pages of this journal, and she had an entire day to read it over. The journal wasn’t really that thick; she knew she could get through it before sundown, even if she meticulously worked her way through it one page at a time.
Hot Coals sat by her side, his body supporting hers as she leaned against it, his eyes helping to scan through the text as well. Gyro was happy that he’d be with her while Ratchet led a team down beneath the island. Call it selfish, but she wanted the stallion all to herself, and besides, she could still argue that he was too weak and still recovering from his blood loss to go down into the shrine with the others. That kept him by her side, and his pleasant company was more than enough to put aside her boredom at staying behind and reading—especially when she decided that this was how she was going to help contribute to going back home in some way. While her legs were slowly coming back to her and the muscles in her spine started to move and pull with some confidence, she could at least help by doing the time consuming and tedious work so others didn’t have to.
In the center of the camp, Ratchet finally assembled everypony again, moving close to Gyro and Coals so that they could be included in it as well. “There’s only six of us left here,” he said, “so we don’t have a lot of ponypower to split up. Therefore, while the tide is still up, Ruse, Gauze, Flag, and myself will comb over the island, and then head down beneath it when the tide goes out. Gyro and Coals, you two can stay here at the camp and focus on rest and recovery. If we find anything interesting, we’ll bring it back to you two to get a good look at.”
Gyro reluctantly nodded; again, she wished that she could be on her hooves and doing things with the rest of the team, but if she did, she’d likely aggravate her back and only be down even longer than if she took her time and rested it. She could already sit up on her own, which meant she was getting close to full recovery. No sense in setting that back another week. “Don’t try to check back too often,” she quipped, glancing at Coals. “The two of us might want some personal time.”
“You haven’t left each other’s side since Hot Coals woke up,” Ruse flatly observed. “I feel like you’ve had more than ample opportunity for personal time.”
“Well, we are trying to make up for five years…” Coals said with a small smirk, and Gyro giggled with pure delight.
Black Flag cut their good-natured chuckling short by going straight back to business. “What are we even hoping to find?” he asked. “From what I’ve heard, Rainbow Dash and Rarity picked this island clean a month ago.”
“I’d hardly say they picked it clean,” Ratchet said. “They’ve admitted as much themselves. They were busily swept along from one thing to the other and didn’t exactly give the island a complete shakedown. There’s a lot of sand on this small island, and they definitely did not comb through all of it.”
Flag frowned at that answer. “Something tells me that sifting through the sand here won’t give us what we’re looking for.”
“It’s all we can do until the tide goes down some.” Ratchet flicked an ear in the general direction of the hidden entrance to the underground shrine. “Rainbow said that the shrine’s hallways completely fill with water when the tide comes in. It’s going out now, but it will take some time until it’s done.”
“Then I suppose we should get started,” Gauze said, already meandering off toward the north end of the island. “There’s a lot of sand to go through. That will take all day.”
“There was a campsite somewhere in the north that they had found before,” Gyro said as the rest of the crew began to move out. “It was left by the ponies who left this journal. There might be something around there to check out, if you can find it.”
Ratchet nodded. “We’ll give it our best look. At any rate, we’ll be back in an hour or two.”
And then they all began to leave, slipping off through the trees, leaving Gyro and Hot Coals alone in the middle of the camp. Well, not totally alone—she spied the familiar red body of Chirp sitting in one of the trees not too far away, looking disappointed and sad. The poor macaw must have been missing his best friend, flown back to the archipelago after barely a day home. Chuckling, she murmured ‘poor Chirp’ to herself, and then squinted at the journal in front of her. Growling, she pushed it away with her hooves, setting it in front of Hot Coals. “Hold this,” she said. “Hold it out in front of you.”
Coals blinked, but nevertheless did what he was told. “Why?”
“So I can read it,” Gyro said, leaning her head back a bit. “I’m farsighted, remember? My glasses didn’t survive the crash.”
Gyro chuckled to herself as Coals repositioned the book for her to read it better. Of course the farsighted mare was trying to do the reading. Of course. But, if it meant getting them all home, then she’d do it.
“Do you want me to read it?” Coals asked her.
“No,” Gyro said, huffing. “I can do it.”
“You sure?”
“I’m too stubborn to say no. You can read it with me if you want.”
Coals smirked and nuzzled Gyro’s ear. “Sounds good to me.”
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.”
Black Flag took a moment to stand up straight and catch his breath. After some time to search the north end of the island, Ratchet and his crew had managed to find the remains of the long-lost ponies’ campsite, just as they’d been assured. But finding it was only the beginning, only the easy part. Now came actually searching it.
Rainbow Dash had warned them that the camp had been abandoned for years by the time they all ended up on these islands, which meant that they had to be prepared to do some digging, some sifting through the sand before they’d maybe find something. But Black Flag hadn’t exactly thought about what maybe twenty years of storms and tides dragging sand up and down the island would look like. While pieces of an ancient fire weren’t that difficult to find, everything else remotely interesting was buried beneath the sand. And, stranded as they were in the middle of nowhere, there was nothing they could do except try to dig things out with their hooves.
“We should have brought some fucking tools,” Flag said, shooting a dirty look at Ratchet, as if it was his fault that they were laboring in the hot sun with their bare hooves. After all, he was the leader of this expedition, so it was easier for Flag to pin his complaints on the mechanic than on himself. “We’re out here pawing through the sand like fucking animals.”
“I don’t think Rainbow and Rarity left us a shovel,” Ratchet said. He too had stood up straight and arched his back in an attempt to work some of the stiffness and stress out of it. “About the only tools they made on their own were an axe and some knives, and they made those out of stone and shells.”
“We brought some scrap back with us from the archipelago, didn’t we?” Flag asked. “Just get one of your hornheads to magic something together real fast.”
“I don’t think my stage magic would be very helpful here,” Ruse said, but even as he did so, his horn sparkled to life. A patch of sand in front of him glowed, and the unicorn hefted the top six inches of sand into the air. His face twisted in concentration, and he adjusted his magic to let it stream through like a sifter. The sand slowly drained away, and when he was finished, his horn held aloft a few shells, a few pebbles, and a few sticks—nothing of importance.
As the ventriloquist frowned and flung the rubbish away, Ratchet could only shake his head. “We’re making decent enough progress as it is,” he said. “It would likely take us longer to try and make a crude shovel than brute forcing our way through it on our own. The campsite can’t be that large; I sincerely doubt that the previous castaways spread their camp out much more than this general clearing.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t take the clearing Rainbow and Rarity built their camp in,” Doctor Gauze said. “That seems to be the better of the two options. It’s closer to the pond and closer to the hill with all the fruit on it.”
“There’s more cover here,” Ruse said. “The trees are thicker, and their canopies are much closer together. If they were only staying here in the short term, or at least thought they would be, then they probably chose here to keep the worst of the rain off of them.”
“And they’re all dead,” Flag said. “Great fucking work. If they left us anything useful, it will be a fucking miracle.”
“They left us that journal,” Ratchet said. “It’s at least been somewhat useful to us so far.”
“But it doesn’t have any of the answers that will tell us how to get out of this shithole.” Flag sighed and sat down next to the dug-out remains of the old fire pit. “I doubt we’re going to find that just sitting under the sand, waiting for us to dig it out.”
“Well, maybe, maybe not,” Ruse said. Once more, he flared his horn, and once more, he sifted through a patch of sand. But his lips turned into a surprised yet excited smile when a few scraps of paper appeared out of the sediment. “And I think we just found our first something.”
Collecting the papers, Ruse brought them toward the center of the group of ponies, gingerly flicking sand off of the old parchment. He spun them this way and that in his magical grasp, his eyebrows pinching downward more and more with each passing second. As everypony stared down at them in confusion, Ruse fanned them out so he could look at all three pieces of paper… but to no avail.
“What is it?” Flag asked, momentarily taking his eyes away from the papers to glance in confusion at the other three stallions around him. “Some kind of funky drawings?”
“They’re not drawings, they’re rubbings,” Gauze said.
“Rubbings?” Ruse asked. “Rubbings of what?”
“Well, there are symbols on them,” Ratchet said, pointing to some of the strange lines on the faded charcoal rubbings. “They’re definitely not seashells or palm fronds.”
Ruse nodded. “These must have come from the shrine beneath us,” he said. “But what do they mean?”
“They could mean nothing for all we know,” Flag said. “Some pony decided they just wanted to copy the pretty pictures and look at them without the hassle of going down there.”
“Which doesn’t help us all that much, in that case.” Ruse continued to shift through the papers, but he ultimately shrugged and gathered them back together. “Whatever it is, we can let Gyro figure it out. The poor mare is desperate for something to do to help out.”
“I feel bad for her,” Ratchet admitted. “She’s spent so much time injured or trapped since we crashed here. She deserves better than what she’s got.”
“She at least has her legs and will walk again,” Gauze said. “She will be good as new in no time.”
“I can’t imagine not having my fucking legs,” Flag grunted. “It’s all we got as dumb dirt-eaters. The bitch is lucky she gets to keep hers.”
“And she still needs something to keep her wits sharp,” Ruse said. After looking over the campsite some more, he shrugged and started walking away. “Well, I’ve done my part, I’d say, so I’m going to deliver these papers to Gyro and see if she can figure something out with them. The rest of you can have fun playing in the sand.”
Flag scowled at the stallion as he disappeared into the undergrowth. “Yeah, fuck you, too.” Sighing, he stood up and started digging through the sand some more. “We ain’t gonna find anything more than that, I can already tell…”
The afternoon continued to beat on. By the time Rarity and Melody arrived at the atoll, Rarity supposed it must have been about four in the afternoon. The sheer distance between the islands amazed her; it always seemed like it took them longer to go from one to the other than it should. But out here in the ocean, where there was nothing to break up what you could and couldn’t see save for the curvature of the horizon, Rarity felt like her sense of distance had been twisted and warped. ‘Far’ wasn’t something distant like the hills of the valley around Ponyville; ‘far’ meant something beneath the horizon, where the curve of the globe gave it its own enormous mountain to hide behind, a mountain of blue ocean meeting blue sky and spewing clouds from the seam in between.
But, for a siren with a belly full of fish and a heartstone full of magic, it wasn’t that taxing of a journey. If anything, it was mostly peaceful, relaxing. There was a sort of meditative serenity to powering through the water, moving like a dragon of the sea. The rhythmic swishing of her tail was like the steady beat of a song. Everything about her was an instrument in an orchestra, one that defined who and what she was. It felt truly right and glorious.
Or maybe it was just a side effect of being a siren. When a species is manifested out of the pure idea of music, of course they would have many attachments to song, real or merely perceived. Rarity had to wonder how much of that mindset was creeping into her pony mind held in a siren’s brain. It wasn’t exactly that pleasant to think about.
Yet it wasn’t too much longer before they could finally spot the rise of the sand demarcating the edges of the atoll before them. Melody began to swim to the surface and Rarity followed her, momentarily wincing as her muscles forcefully contracted to clear the water out of her lungs and allow her to breathe in the different medium. With their heads above the water, the two sirens approached the island until Melody abruptly coiled her tail and launched herself into the sky, a rainbow briefly appearing beneath her in the cascade of water shed by her scales. She hovered above Rarity, who had come to a complete stop, and smiled. “Well? Ready to try again?”
Rarity remembered her last attempt, and the painful flop that had concluded it. “Hopefully it will go better than the last time…”
Once more, Rarity paddled her tail to give herself some speed, and once more, she burst out of the water. But this time, she at least understood the sensations awaiting her. The momentary vertigo was nothing, and the sense of weightlessness felt natural. She willed herself to fly, and as she moved her tail, she continued to move as if she had never left the water, climbing up to Melody’s level almost effortlessly.
She chewed on her scaly lips for a second before she realized how bad of an idea that was with the swords in her mouth. Her entire body felt tense and rigid, and coming to a hover instead of continuing to climb or fall was much more difficult than she imagined it would be. Grimaching, Rarity held her legs out like they would help her keep her balance and place in the sky, and her eyes blinked to Melody. “I’m… doing the best I can,” she said. “How do you do this so naturally?”
“Practice,” Melody said. “Every little siren tries to fly high enough to touch the clouds when we’re growing up. We can’t actually do it, though; our magic gets weaker the farther away from the sea we get, and we can’t fly for very long.”
Almost as if on cue, Rarity felt her ability to fly falter. Only a grimace and a dedicated effort to stay airborne through sheer willpower kept her from falling back into the water’s surface. Melody saw it, chuckled lightly, and immediately crossed over the atoll’s thin treeline so Rarity didn’t have to hover in place for much longer. “Let’s just get back in the water,” she said, ending her own ability to fly while still in the air and diving straight into the center of the atoll’s lagoon, her body streamlining out like a torpedo.
Rarity grunted in agreement and likewise followed suit, kicking her tail and splashing down into the water with much less grace than Melody. Once she had a moment to adjust, she spied Melody’s tail slipping into the hole in the lagoon floor that led into the hidden underground chambers of the sunken temple, and moved to follow her.
After navigating the aquatic tunnels for a minute, the two sirens ended up at the bottom of the network, where collapsed stone halls seemed to radiate off in different directions. Though Rarity had swam through it once or twice now, she still realized she’d be hopelessly lost without Melody there to guide her around. After all, the siren had spent so much time in these tunnels that she could probably navigate them with her eyes closed.
“So,” Rarity said, looking around them. “Where’s a good place to start?”
“Deeper into the structure,” Melody said, choosing a hall seemingly at random and drifting into it. She let her green eyes wander up and down the stone walls, half-heartedly trying to glean any information from them. “We’re at one of the older points of the temple right now. Anything carved here is ancient history, and it’s not really going to help us. We need to go further if we want to get to the part where they’d actually fought the dark avatar and erected the barrier.”
Rarity nodded and began to follow Melody, frowning at and brushing aside a loose strip of cloth floating in the water as she passed. “I suppose so. Do you think we should go back to where the final figurine was?”
“I was going to go there anyway,” Melody said. “That chamber was created entirely for this purpose. If we were going to find any clues down here, then that’s the best place to go looking. Plus…” She looked over her shoulder at Rarity. “Wasn’t the avatar’s body down here? Didn’t you say something about that?”
Rarity shuddered and remembered the feeling of the other thing that was in the sarcophagus she couldn’t really see and didn’t want to touch. “I think so,” she said. “I’d seen something to that effect on the archipelago in some engravings in a shrine. After the Ponynesians cut off the avatar’s head and its horn, they took the headless body and buried it in here. It showed a temple rising out of the water, but I didn’t know what it was until later.”
“Then if the avatar’s body is down here, we might want to destroy it,” Melody said. “With the moon god starting to draw strength again and trying to take down the barriers, we can’t leave anything for him that might help him do that. I don’t know how he would use his old avatar’s body, especially if he has a new one, but I don’t want that to be our downfall because we thought it was useless.”
Rarity nodded in whole-hearted agreement. “Well, it was still there yesterday. I doubt it’s gone anywhere, sheltered as it is.”
“I hope you’re right,” Melody said, swimming faster along the underwater halls. “I’m afraid of what it’d mean if you aren’t.”
Gyro frowned at the papers Ruse had placed in front of her. “These came from the campsite?” she asked, gently nudging one with her hoof.
Ruse nodded. “They were buried under the sand. I’m just amazed that the weather didn’t destroy them if they’re years old. The sand must have protected them.”
“If anything, I would have thought it would have destroyed them faster. The sand would have held all the water and stuff from when it rained, and the moisture should have melted the papers into mush. For lack of a better term.”
“I’m not going to complain or wonder about our good fortunes,” Ruse said, shrugging. “That we even found something out there is a miracle.”
“But what does it mean?” Coals asked, squinting at the rubbings on the paper. “Why would somepony make these?”
“I was hoping you two would be able to figure that out.” The ventriloquist sighed and rubbed his horn. “We’ve just been doing all the dirty work out near that camp. It’s exceptionally difficult to dig through several inches of sand by hoof and horn. But we’re managing, at least. It’ll be low tide soon, so Ratchet is going to want to check out the shrine while we’ve got a few hours to do so.”
Gyro gingerly pushed the papers toward Coals, who picked them up in his magic. “Thanks,” she said, narrowing her eyes so she could start to read the glyphs now that they were held away from her by some distance. After a few seconds to study it, she proudly turned back to Ruse. “Oh, that makes perfect sense.”
Ruse blinked. “Really? What do they say then?”
“I have no idea, but I’m sure it’d be pretty obvious if I knew what they meant.”
Coals chuckled and Ruse could only groan and shake his head. “I’m not sure why I expected anything else from you, Gyro.”
“That was your first mistake,” the gray mare said with a wink. Then, frowning at the glyphs, she slowly tilted her head from one side to the other. “In all seriousness, though, I don’t really know what to make of these. You sure these came from the shrine beneath the island?”
“Well, where else could they have come from?” the stallion asked. “How else could they have ended up here?”
“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Gyro said, pulling Uncharted Lands’ journal closer to her. “This dude set out years ago to map the seas, and he knew about Ponynesia. They ended up shipwrecked here, and he knew almost immediately where he was, even before he explored the shrine beneath this island. Don’t you think that’s kind of odd?”
“Maybe?” Ruse sat down opposite the two ponies and frowned at the journal. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
Gyro took the notes back from Coals and placed them on the ground. “You obviously didn’t look at the papers too hard, and my eyesight’s worse than yours.” She tapped her hoof on them when Ruse only cocked his head in confusion. “These rubbings are on waterproof paper, and they’re done with graphite. The order of those two is important; the waterproofing was done after the rubbings were made, which is why the moisture hasn’t washed away the graphite.”
Ruse blinked in surprise. “You were able to figure all that out just from looking at it?” he asked.
“I’m very observational,” Gyro replied with a smirk. “Airship maps and papers are all waterproofed to protect them from rain, and since I’ve served on airships for a while, I know all about that. And on top of that, airships are powered by boilers, and though they mostly use coal, simple furnaces use wood, too. I know what charcoal looks like, and that’s not charcoal.”
“So what does all this mean?” Ruse asked. “The papers were waterproofed after they were rubbed, but the ponies here before us couldn’t have done that. They wouldn’t have had the equipment.”
Gyro nodded. “Exactly. So that leaves us with a mystery: how did an expedition that ended up stranded here like… twenty-five years ago or something have rubbings from a shrine on an island surrounded by a barrier that prevents ponies from leaving it once they stumble their way in?”
The three ponies fell silent as they each pondered that puzzle in their minds. Gyro had to admit she didn’t know exactly how to feel. On the one hoof, she’d solved a mystery, but on the other, it’d only created an even bigger one. And try as she might, she couldn’t find a satisfactory answer to the question she’d just posed.
“Do you think that they’re completely unrelated?” Coals asked. “If this guy was an explorer, he could have had rubbings from any other ancient temple somewhere else in the world. It doesn’t have to be these ones.”
“I don’t know,” Gyro admitted. “But I just don’t see how these could have come from these islands.” She shot Ruse an apologetic look. “Your find might be a red herring. Sorry.”
Ruse shrugged and collected the papers again. “I suppose. That’d be just our luck; the one thing we do find turns out to be worthless in the end. Though maybe I’ll hold onto these, because I bet they’d fetch a good price at an auction or something when we get back to Equestria.”
“Celestia, don’t even say that,” Gyro said. “Going back to Equestria sounds like it’s so far away. Besides, I wouldn’t worry about that. I bet we’re going to get a nice compensation package from CelestiAir for the suffering we’ve gone through on their behalf.”
The ventriloquist snickered. “You know it’s going to be a package of lifetime free airship cruises and no actual money.”
Gyro sighed and laughed a little bit as she stretched out her legs and rolled her shoulders. “As much as I hate to admit it, you’re probably right. I know I’m not gonna be able to fly on an airship for a few months after this.”
“I think I’m going to find a job on the ground,” Ruse said. “I don’t know how you can even stomach the idea of going back on an airship after this ordeal.”
“What can I say? I love flying, and I love my job.” Then she turned and nuzzled Coal’s cheek. “And if I get to take this guy along with me, then I won’t have anything to complain about.”
“You’ll still complain,” Coals teased her. “I know you too well to believe otherwise.”
“Eh, yeah, whatever.” Gyro shrugged and pointed to the journal again. “Well, I guess we better get back to reading this. There hasn’t really been anything useful in it so far, but it’s been kinda neat to read about all the stuff this guy and his crew did while they were stuck here.”
Clever Ruse nodded. “If you find anything in it, let us know,” he said, safely tucking the waterproofed but useless papers away in a nearby hut for safekeeping. “I’ll go let the others know about the papers. They’ll probably be disappointed, but what can you do?”
Gyro nodded and sighed. “Yeah. I just hope that Rainbow or Rarity are having more luck than we are…”
Rainbow Dash was almost thankful when they finally reached the island and they could stop flying for a bit. It wasn’t so much that the flying was tiring her, but flying with slower pegasi was irritating in its own right. While she didn’t mean anything bad by her thoughts, she knew she would have preferred to make the journey by herself in half the time.
But they were here now, and the three pegasi alighted on the outcropping of rock that once held a piece of the Concordia’s hull. There, they paused to catch their breath, rest their wings, and take a few swigs of water before moving further inland. Even Rainbow had to admit that her wings felt plenty hot from working them for so long under the summer sun, and she immediately sought some shade to help them cool off instead of letting the late afternoon sunlight continue to heat them.
“Well, we made it,” Stargazer said once they’d all had a few minutes to catch their breath. “I have to say, I would have preferred to take the raft.”
“Don’t complain,” Champagne grumbled. “I had to fly to the south and back in the past two days. You at least got to rest your wings.”
Rainbow couldn’t help herself but chuckle at the annoyed look Champagne shot her way. “It’s good exercise,” she said. “Think of it as Wonderbolt training. You’re gonna have great wings by the time we’re all back home!”
“Maybe I should try out, then,” Champagne said. “Maybe I can dethrone you.”
“Hah! Good luck with that, girl. I’d like to see you try!”
“You could at least settle for being the first Prench Wonderbolt.” Stargazer frowned. “The Wonderbolts don’t usually recruit from outside of Equestria, right?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Not that I really remember, to be honest. I’m sure I learned about it at some point, but immediately forgot about it because it wasn’t important.”
The three pegasi shared a chuckle, but that soon fell into silence as they found they didn’t have the energy to really laugh. After a minute of letting her eyes wander over tufts of grass and rocky crags, Rainbow forced herself to stand if only out of the fear that she’d be too tired to move again if she didn’t. “Well, that’s long enough, I think. Let’s get down to the tomb and get a bite to eat there, or something. There’s stuff we can eat there, right?”
“Grass and some berries,” Champagne said. “It’s not much, but it’s enough for three.”
“So long as they taste good, I’m all for it.” Rainbow let her wings hang limp as she strode to the edge of the rocky outcropping, only picking them up when she could stare down over the precipice to the surf far below her. Grinning, she stood up on her hind legs and held her forelegs out to her sides, letting her body weight pull her over the edge. In a second, she had entered freefall off the cliff, and she kept her limbs loose and limp for a full second before she spiraled out of her dive and caught the air once more.
The rush of the air was exhilarating, and it made up for having to travel across the ocean in a slow and mundane way. As she pulled out of her dive, she immediately set her wings to carrying her momentum into several loops and rolls. Her caterwauling laughter echoed over the archipelago and off of the leafy palms, and before she knew it, her wings finally felt alive again. Sure, she had something she needed to do, but it didn’t hurt to goof off now and then. She really needed to unwind before she could focus on work, especially after a long flight.
After a few minutes to have her fun, she began to drop down into the trees once more, spying a bit of stone through the palm fronds to clue her into the location of the ruins. After checking to make sure that her friends were still with her, Rainbow spotted a decent gap in the canopy and dropped right through it, flaring her blue feathers and fluttering a few times to slow her descent. Then, tucking her wings against her sides, she dropped to her hooves on top of weathered and pitted stone, standing in a clear spot amongst the ruins of leaning columns and piles of rubble.
Stargazer and Champagne set down behind her, and Rainbow immediately began to stroll through the shadowy remains of the temple atop of the tomb, her eyes shifting left and right as if she expected a horde of mummies to burst out of the shadows and devour them all. “Everything looks fine,” she murmured, mostly to herself, but that didn’t keep her wings from relaxing in case she needed to fly skyborne immediately. “But don’t get too comfortable…”
Champagne swallowed a lump in her throat and hurried to Rainbow’s side. “Do you really think they all came out?” she asked. “The door shouldn’t have opened, right?”
“It shouldn’t have,” Rainbow said. “It’s not the full moon. But I’m not going to take any chances.”
Stargazer nervously chewed on a wingtip as the three pegasi passed by ruins and rubble, where each shadow could conceal a desiccated and mummified corpse full of rotting teeth ready to rip them to pieces. Even the birds and other wildlife seemed quiet, and Rainbow’s ears twitched as they desperately sought for some noise to listen to other than her heartbeat in her chest and her ragged breathing past her muzzle. She worried that if she didn’t hear something, anything, then she was going to go insane, moon mummies or not.
But at last, the trio of pegasi made it to the edge of the stairs leading down to the tomb door. They all hesitated there, seemingly too afraid to proceed forward, each glancing at the other as if they expected somepony else to take the first step. But ultimately, Rainbow pressed forward, her wings twitching and shivering at her sides. Approaching the steps from the side, there was no way to tell if anything had passed through there recently; there was no sand to mark hoofprints in, only dead stone. A chill ran up Rainbow’s spine, and she felt like an icy hoof of death pressed down on her back. She expected to see a hundred snapping maws as soon as she peered over the edge of the stairs, and she held her breath as she stepped forward until she froze right at the very edge.
Champagne fidgeted in place behind Rainbow, shifting her weight from one hoof to the other. “W-Well?” she asked, her voice nervously tripping over itself in her anxiety. “What do you see?”
Rainbow’s nostrils flared, and her wings sagged as she let her breath out. She fell back onto her haunches, took a deep breath, and smiled. “Nothing,” she said. “The door’s still closed.”
Rainbow Dash could hardly describe how relieved she was to see the tomb doors still closed. She had fully expected them to be open somehow, just because things always seemed to go wrong or get more complicated for them just when they thought they were starting to get things under control. The recent disappointment after collecting all the figures was just the latest such example, and Rainbow was glad to see that things hadn’t gone from bad to worse.
Yet.
The prospect of future difficulties, however, was not something Rainbow wanted to focus on at the moment. Pushing those thoughts out of her mind, she simply lied down on her back at the edge of the drop into the stairs and sighed with relief. Champagne and Stargazer slowly crept up to her, almost as if they were afraid Rainbow was lying and they’d see an open door at the bottom of the steps, but they relaxed as soon as they laid eyes on the untouched stone below them. Assured in the knowledge that they hadn’t stumbled into a mummy-infested deathtrap, all three pegasi took some time to relax and recover their nerve before moving again.
“I was one hundred percent thinking that the door was going to be open,” Stargazer said. “Just because, you know?”
“I feel that,” Rainbow said. “I didn’t know if it would still be closed either. But it is, which means we don’t have anything to worry about.”
Though Champagne had relaxed some, the Prench mare still carried a nervous edge to her movements. “What if it’s just closed because it’s daytime?” she asked, her eyes wandering to the sky, which was beginning to turn faintly yellow as the sun continued to descend. “If it opened last night or the night before…”
“Then there’d be a lot more mummies wandering about here,” Rainbow said. “Plus, we’d probably already have our backs broken by Nightmare Masseuse’s Hooves of Fury. I think it’s safe to say it hasn’t.”
Stargazer sadly shook his head. “I forgot about Soft Step,” he said, eyes downcast. “It’s been such a frantic fight for survival these past few days that I’ve hardly had any time to think about her.”
“Me as well,” Champagne admitted. “That poor mare…”
Rainbow slowly nodded her head once. It was easy to forget about while planning, but they’d lost a good number of ponies to this tomb right here, and Soft Step was one of them. But she hadn’t died; she’d become something far worse, a twisted slave to an evil moon god. “Maybe we can still save her,” Rainbow said. “I don’t know how, but we could.”
“I’m not sure there’s anyway to undo dark magic like that,” Stargazer said. “Whatever happened to her, that’s way beyond our league.”
“But not beyond the Princesses’,” Rainbow said. “When we get out of here, maybe they can fix her!”
“You really think we’ll be able to get Soft Step out of here when she’s like that?” Champagne asked. “I think we’ll be lucky if she doesn’t kill us!”
“Maybe there’s still something of her left inside of that body,” Rainbow said. “When I saw her at these doors during the full moon, when she was trying to get out… I felt like I saw something of her in her eyes. Maybe.” She sighed and shut her eyes. “Or, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just imagining it because I want it to be true.”
Stargazer smirked at her. “You just want her back so you can get more massages, right?”
Rainbow glared in his direction. “So what if I do? Her massages were great. I think I’m gonna try to get her to come back to the Wonderbolts when this is all over. And we remove that horn from her head and make her normal sized again, at least.”
“Having an alicorn masseuse could be pretty great, though,” Stargazer said. “The Princesses could make her the Princess of Spas.”
“I think she’ll have to wait in line for Starlight Glimmer. She’s probably next on the list. Heck if I know.” Rainbow Dash sat up and stretched out her wings, then forced herself to her hooves. “Anyway, let’s go snag something to eat quick, and then we gotta get this thing covered before the sun goes down. I really don’t want to get caught with our tails between our legs by the door just randomly opening up while we’re trying to cover it.”
Champagne tilted her eyes skyward and nodded. “It looks like there’s some cloud cover moving in from the west, but it’s fairly spotty. I’m not sure if it will hold through the evening.”
“That’s probably my fault,” Rainbow said. “I did kinda break everything with my Rainboom. I wouldn’t be surprised if I made the enchantment go haywire and stuff.”
Stargazer chuckled. “Rainbow Dash, Wonderbolt flyer, breaker of very ancient magic.”
“You forgot ‘overall badflank’.”
The three pegasi chuckled at that, but soon Rainbow started walking away from the tomb, her eyes scanning the ground for green things to eat. “So, where the crap are these berries and stuff? I’m friggin’ famished.”
Champagne and Stargazer also stood up and quickly trotted over to Rainbow’s sides. “This way,” Champagne said, taking the lead and picking her way through the crumbling ruins of the temple site. “There were a few bushes closer to one of the channels. They should still be good.”
“What, you think they’re gonna be turned into moon mummies, too?” Stargazer teased.
Rainbow laughed at the absurdity of it all. “Zombie plants. If we saw that, I think I’d just give up right away.”
“Be careful what you say,” Champagne said. “We’ve been bit in the flank too many times already.”
Rarity frowned at the carvings in front of her, her tail idly swishing back and forth in thought. So far, hers and Melody’s search of the sunken temple had been far from fruitful. They passed by most of the depictions and carved history in the walls, sparing them only cursory glances while they passed. While Rarity would have loved to spend some time to try and decipher the long and surely colorful history of the Ponynesian civilization, that was something that would have to wait until after the immediate threat of being murdered by the moon god had passed and they’d finally figured out a way to lower the barrier. There would always be time to check that out after she finished what she needed to.
But now they’d left most of those behind, and the two sirens had slowed down as they approached the chamber where they’d recovered the figurine from. Now, they floated in place, back to back, as they tried to make sense of the carvings on opposite walls. Rarity’s looked like it depicted an alicorn shooting magic from its horn, magic that swirled around an island and started to drag it into the sea. There were some glyphs and runes carved into and around the picture, but again, they had no way they could make sense of it all. Rarity may have been bilingual, even going so far as to learn basic Gryphonnic for her upcoming (and now almost certainly cancelled) business propositions with the griffon fashion market in the Confederacy, but no language she knew could possibly help her with the ancient texts she saw in front of her.
“I don’t think the answers are in this panel,” Rarity said, turning away from it. “It does show the avatar sinking islands, which confirms what we—or, I guess, you thought. I have to wonder, though, just how many islands there once were out here before all this nonsense broke out.”
“I tried to count them once,” Melody said. “You can see the mounds and ruins beneath the water, rising out of the seafloor. Not all were as prominent as this atoll, but only because they weren’t nearly as large as the structure that was sunken here.”
“Oh?” Rarity blinked. “Well, how many did you find?”
“Only three others,” Melody said, “though those were just the ones inside of the barrier. Obviously, I couldn’t go outside of it to see if there were any more. But I think there likely were. A civilization wouldn’t be able to achieve such feats of engineering without room to grow and develop its brightest minds.”
“I’m still amazed that they were able to accomplish all this,” Rarity said. “The mountaintop they leveled for their sun temple is beyond amazing. Not even the best architects and engineers in Equestria could hope to replicate their work. Everything is cut to perfection, and they shaped their shrines from the stone around them rather than cutting blocks and hauling them to their final destinations. It’s beyond impressive. It’s an art in its own right, and I certainly can appreciate art.”
“I’d imagine that when you have nothing better to do with your time, you can accomplish quite a lot,” Melody said. “These temples and shrines took generations to build, and they were never really finished. Even if the Ponynesians hadn’t been destroyed by their civil war, I doubt they would have ever finished these structures. They obviously meant to keep adding onto them, and they only would have stopped when they were unable to build more.”
“Which makes you wonder just how much more they could have built up this records hall,” Rarity said. “I’m going to make the logical assumption that you’ve mapped out the entirety of this structure, so you know how big it is.”
“Yes, and it is very large,” Melody said. “The Ponynesians probably worked on it since they first figured out how to cut stone and support structures. Thankfully, they cut most everything to dimensions large enough for sirens to pass through, otherwise we’d have problems here.”
Rarity nodded and swished her tail, feeling the fin on the end brush against the stone below her. “Thank Celestia for that. Though I do say, if we don’t find what we’re looking for soon, that won’t be much help to us.”
“Yeah.” Melody grinded her beak and looked around, her hoof brushing over the stone in front of her. “This panel isn’t particularly useful, and we’re starting to run out of daylight. Our eyes might have good night vision, but it becomes pitch black down here awfully quickly.”
“Hence why I assume you prefer to sleep in the water, as you mentioned last night,” Rarity said.
Melody nodded and smiled. “There’s nothing better than sleeping under the moonlight, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I’ve certainly gotten a new appreciation for it with all the time we’ve spent trapped on these islands,” Rarity said. “I tried to avoid it as much as I could before ending up here. Now, camping with my friends should be a breeze. Nothing I haven’t done before!”
The two sirens chuckled, and Melody led the way to the next set of carvings. So far, they’d gotten a lot of history, but nothing immediately helpful to solving their predicament.
The next set of carvings they stopped at seemed to show the war in its waning stages. Rarity saw a few familiar panels that she recognized from the shrine on the archipelago, giving an abbreviated history of the downfall of the moon god’s avatar and its subsequent dismemberment. She grimaced at the carvings, not so much because of their detail, but because of how casual it seemed. But then again, while the Ponynesians might have been great architects, putting emotion into their simple carvings was not exactly their strong suit. Still, they got the job done, and in a plain enough fashion that the events they depicted weren’t too confusing to sort out.
“This is what I was looking for,” Melody said, stopping in front of a panel closer to the end of the hall. Rarity swam over to her side and scrutinized the carvings Melody pressed her green hooves against. “This is where they created the figurines. I’ve stared at this many times before, but I’ve never been able to figure out anything particularly useful from it.”
She backed away, letting Rarity get a better look. The carving depicted three ponies standing side by side, one from each race, along with the severed head of the fallen avatar. In front of those three ponies stood crude figurines representing their races, with the crystal figurine in front of the head. Lines of power seemed to go from one to the other, and the ponies themselves seemed weak and struggling to stand. Glyphs and symbols surrounded them, but there was little else to help Rarity understand what was happening. The next panel over only showed the four figurines placed in a circle and surrounded by a wavy glow of power, presumably for when the barrier first went up. If there was a clue, it’d be here, but Rarity wasn’t exactly seeing it.
“I don’t understand,” Rarity said. “Does any of this help us?”
“I don’t know,” Melody admitted. “But it’s the best we have to go on. I’m not sure there’s much else that’s here to help us. I certainly don’t remember there being much.”
Rarity rubbed her chin. “We might as well take one last look around and commit these to memory before we go back. And before we do, I want to take a look at that coffin I popped open yesterday. Just to be safe.”
Melody nodded in agreement. “We’ll just have to open the doors again like we did before and hope nothing jumps out at us.”
The thought of a headless alicorn corpse slipping through the door to attack her made Rarity shiver. “Yes, quite. On second thought, maybe we should leave the doors alone. It’s not worth it.”
The two sirens shared a chuckle at Rarity’s joke, but it was an uneasy one at best. No doubt Melody wanted to keep the doors closed as much as Rarity did, but they had to open them one way or another, just to be safe.
It was not particularly something Rarity was looking forward to.
Gyro reluctantly nodded at the pirate confronting her. “Yes, they’re nothing. At least, as far as I can tell. They couldn’t possibly be from here, for the simple reason that they would have to get out for this crew of ponies to even have them in the first place.”
Black Flag scowled and sat down in the sand across from her and Coals. “It’s not possible that somepony could have stuffed it in a bottle and thrown it into the ocean, is it?”
“It… well, I don’t actually know,” Gyro said. “The barrier keeps living things trapped here, but I don’t know about other stuff. I’d imagine there’d be a lot more garbage floating around here if it could drift in from anywhere and get caught inside the barrier.”
“So it’s possible.” Flag shrugged. “That’s all I need.”
“That’s all you need?” Gyro cocked an eyebrow at him. “How does that help you? How does that help any of us? Can you read it?”
Flag shook his head. “Not in the slightest. But it’s good to have something we can at least pretend will help us, isn’t it? It’ll keep us going when this shit inevitably fails.”
Gyro could only bite her lip and frown at the sand in front of her. Sure, it was helpful in the short term to hope that the things they found would be useful, but wishing something was useful and it actually being useful were two entirely different things. “Well, we’re not going to destroy them,” she said. “There’s no reason to. I just don’t think they’re going to help us out. I don’t see how they could.”
All around her, the camp bustled with lethargic activity. The four tired stallions had returned from the campsite to the north with very little to show for it. They’d found a few useful trinkets, like a barely functional compass so filled with sand its wheel could hardly turn, but little else. After combing through the sand for hours, the papers were the only really interesting or useful thing the expedition had found, and Gyro had already concluded that they were practically worthless. Now, they prepared to go beneath the island to the shrine hiding in the stone, leisurely moving about as they did so to rest and recover for what was sure to be another grueling experience.
Flag grunted and shrugged. “Whatever. Maybe we’ll find something beneath this island. At least that’s actually important to what we’re attempting to accomplish, so I’m expecting it to be a little more fruitful.”
“I would certainly hope so,” Ruse said with a sigh. “If this doesn’t come up with anything, then we’re out of luck.”
“We’ve been out of luck for a long time now,” Flag grumbled. “This really isn’t telling us anything new.”
“I don’t know, I’d say it’s been pretty lucky.” The ventriloquist smirked and tilted his head back, where the dying light was beginning to make way for the stars. “We all got to get to know each other better and throw aside our differences in the name of love and friendship and harmony!”
The pirate scowled at Ruse. “You have to be the most un-funniest comedian I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m only a comedian through my medium,” Ruse said with a shrug. “It’s hard to do the whole standup act without getting a little hoofing action in front of an audience. Voyeurism, as the kiddos call it these days.”
Gyro and Coals snickered, and Flag could only roll his eyes and stand up. “I bet you’d be funnier if I shoved my hoof up your ass.”
“Sorry, but you’ll have to wait in line,” Ruse said. “I’m sure there’s a whole slew of ponies who want to do that after any number of my routines.”
“So long as you don’t let that siren do it,” Flag retorted. “I don’t think even an asshole like you could take it.”
For once, Ruse fell quiet, seemingly at a loss for words. “Well… that’s a different matter entirely,” he said.
“Yeah, it is. It’s fucking nasty if you ask me. It’d probably be like sticking your dick into a clam.” The pirate snorted in amusement and began to walk away from the group with a flick of his tail. “I’m going to take a shit before we get down there. Nopony come looking for me, because you’ll probably regret it.”
Gyro watched the pirate go, slowly shaking her head. “I don’t know how we got that asshole to work with us, but I still don’t like it,” she said once he was gone. Her frown turned to Coals. “How did you even deal with this guy for five years?”
“I kept my head down,” Coals said. “Squall usually beat it down if I raised it up too often, anyway. I did my job, the pirates had a good engineer, and that was peaceful enough.”
“I couldn’t have done that,” Gyro said. “I’d probably have blown up the entire boiler in a point of protest and just left the ship stranded for the navy to find.”
Coals chuckled and tightened his grip around Gyro’s shoulders. “Then it’s a good thing for the both of us that I have better survival instincts than you. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here together.”
“I guess even the shittiest situations have their silver linings.” She sighed and glared sideways at Ruse, who was making kissing sounds with his magic and tapping his hooves together. “You are such a fucking colt, Ruse, I swear to Celestia.”
“Adolescent humor has always been the peak of comedy,” the ventriloquist said. “And you act like you’re perpetually sixteen, Gyro. I was just playing to my audience.”
“I’m gonna be sixteen until I’m sixty,” Gyro said. “At which point, I’m just gonna become a crazy, senile grandma and make myself my family’s problem.”
“I didn’t know you were planning on having foals,” Coals said.
“Only with you, big guy,” Gyro said, nuzzling his chin. “When we get out of here, we’re gonna move to a big house and have like six kids. I always wanted a big family. It means there’s a better chance I’ll make a foal I like.”
Coals sighed and Ruse broke out in a fit of laughter. “You better be careful, dude. You get to screw her raw six times, but she gets to screw you for the rest of your life.”
“I’m not sure that’s a trade I’m willing to make,” he said, teasingly shying away from Gyro. “I was kind of hoping we could just get a dog instead.”
Gyro tapped her chin in thought. “I suppose a dog can fetch your newspapers for you…”
As they chuckled, Ratchet strode closer and looked the three ponies over. “Well, Gauze almost has dinner ready, so we should eat up and get ready to move out,” he said. “Once we get something good in our bellies, we’ll hit the shrine and see what’s down there while the tide is still low. We’ve got some torches ready to give us light, and hopefully we’ll find what we need before the water comes pouring in.”
Ruse sighed and stood up, roughly shaking out his limbs. “You two are lucky,” he said to Gyro and Coals. “You don’t have to do any of the hard work.”
“It wouldn’t be right if I had to, anyway,” Gyro said. “Haven’t you ever heard of chivalry?”
“Chivalry’s dead,” Coals said, “and mares like you killed it.”
“Yeah, well… nyehh!” Gyro stuck her tongue out at Coals. “I just want to be a pretty, pretty princess of steam engines and bearing grease. Is that too much to ask?”
“Yeah,” Ratchet said with an amused shake of his head. “You’re about as far from princess material as anypony can get. Your coltfriend would make a better princess than you.”
Gyro huffed and crossed her forelegs while the stallions shared good-natured laughter at her expense. “We’ll see who’s laughing when I throw you in my lubricant dungeons, how about that…”
Rainbow Dash could only imagine how awful she smelled. Her body was drenched in sweat, old and new, dried and still glistening. The smell of salt and the smell of sand clung to her mane and tail, along with the odor of crushed leaves and bits of grass that stuck to the hair on her body. Her hooves were covered in dirt and mud, though she had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t all dirt and mud. The wildlife on this island was awfully busy, and it certainly didn’t have anypony to clean up after it.
The three pegasi had spent the entire afternoon trying to cover the moon door, and it was much, much harder than she’d first anticipated. Unlike actual trees back in actual Equestria, the palm trees here didn’t provide a lot of material for them to easily cover the door with. There were no branches to hew off of the trees and use to simply drag a bundle of leaves in front of the door. There were only palm fronds, and each frond was connected to its parent tree individually. It meant that it took them so much extra effort for so little in return, for once they got the palm fronds off of the tree, they’d have to weave them together to form something solid and strong enough to cover the door and still stand up under its own weight. It wasn’t like they had much they could use to hang the fronds over the door.
So the three pegasi worked together as best as they could to quickly erect an effective shield over the door. Rainbow Dash had, of course, volunteered to do all the hard work, namely breaking off palm fronds and dropping them into a pile in front of the door. Champagne attempted to strip them down and weave them into a sturdy mat that would block most of the moonlight, and Stargazer smeared mud over the mats to further proof them against the moon. After a few hours of work, they’d managed to get nearly half of the door covered, but there was precious little time left to finish their job before the moon began to peek through the trees.
It was ultimately too much for Rainbow to take. Groaning, she simply let go of the palm tree she’d perched herself in and fell over backwards, landing safely in the pile of fronds she’d dumped at the foot of it. Her whole body ached, she was hungry, and she felt like if she fell asleep, she’d never wake up. “This is stupid,” she said. “This is a stupid idea. Who came up with such a stupid idea?”
“I’m pretty sure you did, Rainbow,” Stargazer said. He sighed and looked down at his mud-covered hooves. “I’m sitting down here playing in the dirt because of your plan. If you’re complaining about it, maybe I should have done so sooner.”
“It’s just…” she gestured over her shoulder to where the door was situated, not bothering to actually crane her neck around. “This clearly isn’t working. There’s no possible way we can get this thing all covered by the time the moon hits tonight. Not with these stupid palm fronds.”
“Do we really have any other choice?” Champagne asked. “I’m weaving as fast as I can, but it’s very hard to make something that will stick together.”
“If there were some tarps and stuff, that’d be perfect,” Rainbow said. “But we didn’t bring any with us, and I don’t think the pirates really had anything like that back at their camp. I don’t really want to go looking around, though, because seriously, eff that. I’m too tired.”
Champagne and Stargazer glanced at each other. “I never thought I’d hear Rainbow Dash complaining about how tired she was,” Stargazer said.
“Especially after how much she tries to push poor Prench mares to keep up with her,” Champagne added.
Rainbow tilted her head back until she could glare at the two of them, albeit from an upside down position. “Meh.”
The other two pegasi put aside their work with sighs and looked up at Rainbow. “So what do we do now?” Stargazer asked. “Do we just give up on this?”
“No, but there’s gotta be a better way to do it,” Rainbow said. “At the rate we’re going, we’ll never make it in time. It’s just taking too friggin’ long.” She frowned up at the sky. “We’re not gonna get it done with this stupid tree stuff. We need to improvise something more. Something better. Something… something only us pegasi can do.”
Her voice trailed off, leaving Stargazer and Champagne to glance at each other. “Uh… what do you mean, Rainbow?” Stargazer asked. “We’re the only ones out here, so of course it’s only something we can do.”
“Maybe we should have brought Ruse with us,” Champagne said. “His magic could have covered this door somehow.”
“We don’t need Ruse!” Rainbow indignantly stated. Glowering, she merely pointed up to the sky. “All we need are those!”
Stargazer and Champagne craned their necks back. “The clouds?” Stargazer asked. “You want to cover the door with clouds?”
“Yeah!” Rainbow said. “We can work them! We’re pegasi, after all! It’s what we do!”
“We tried moving those clouds when we tried to open the tomb,” Champagne said. “They wouldn’t budge. How do you expect to move them now?”
Rainbow spun about until she was sitting on her haunches and looking down at her companions. “Because I broke the enchantment with my rainboom, remember? I blew it to pieces. Those clouds up there are mostly natural now. They’re not magically summoned and held in place by some sort of old ritual. They’re just clouds, and long before we had a weather factory, us pegasi could only move what nature gave us.” She pointed up at the sky again. “They might not be nice artificial clouds, but they’re still clouds. We can still move them. And if we just tear off a chunk big enough to cover the door and pack it down, it’ll last through the night. Then we can finish our more permanent solution tomorrow when the sun comes up again.”
“It could work,” Stargazer said. “So long as we can actually work with the clouds.”
“Well, we don’t have anything to lose by trying,” Rainbow said. “It’s not like we can waste time on it if we’re already wasting time with this stupid affair.”
She stood up and spread her wings, quickly launching herself into the sky. “Come on, you two, I’ll need your help for this!”
Rainbow Dash, Champagne, and Stargazer all struck their hooves down, pummeling the rough cloud beneath them. Their hooves cleaved a narrow trench in the surface of the cloud, which Rainbow immediately began to force open with her forelegs before the cloud could close itself up. “Come on, get in there!” Rainbow shouted, encouraging the other two to jump in right alongside her. Grunting and groaning, the three pegasi slowly wedged the block of cloud off of its parent body, attempting to shear it off like a glacier would calve an iceberg. Only, the section of cloud they were working with was much smaller than a glacier, and it was only the three pegasi against a surprisingly stubborn cloud.
“Why is this so difficult?!” Stargazer groaned. The stallion wedged his back into the gap so he could push with his hind legs and wings, slowly but surely opening the gap more. “I thought you said the magic was gone!”
“I never said that!” Rainbow protested. “I just said that it might be! And it is! Kinda!”
“Kind of? That’s not really helping us, is it?” Champagne’s cheeks puffed out as she exerted herself to break the cloud free. “It’s still so difficult to break off!”
“The clouds aren’t purely held together by magic anymore,” Rainbow said, relaxing her limbs and buying herself a few seconds of rest before she continued to push. “You can tell by how they feel! They’re softer, spongier! It’s like… slightly warm ice cream!”
Stargazer blinked. “…what?”
“What?” Rainbow echoed back at him. “It’s true! It’s like… you’ve got some warm and mushy stuff on the outside, but the core is still solid and kinda hard! That’s basically what these clouds are doing!”
“I never thought I would hear clouds likened to ice cream,” Champagne said.
“You are obviously not a weathermare. You get that spiel a zillion times as a newbie.”
Stargazer grunted in frustration. “Look, can we stop worrying about whether or not the clouds are ice cream and start worrying about getting this chunk split off?”
“My thoughts exactly.” Rainbow grimaced and once more extended her limbs, putting all of her muscle into calving the tiny piece of cloud before they could drift too much farther away. The section of cloud was hardly larger than the door, and Rainbow hoped to compress it even more when they brought it to ground level. But she didn’t even know if it would become easier to work with once they broke it off of its parent cloud, or if it would remain rigid and continue to resist their weather magic.
But they kept at it, even as the sun continued to vanish behind them. Little by little, the flaming orb dipped below the horizon until it vanished entirely, leaving only a fading yellow glow to the sky. To the east, the sky darkened to a deep blue, then on to black, and a pale white glow began to rise out of the ocean, slowly lighting up the horizon as the stars began to appear, one by one. The noise of the archipelago beneath the three pegasi began to fade away, replaced by the pounding in Rainbow’s chest, the sound of her heart urging her to work faster.
“The moonlight’s going to get onto that door in a few minutes!” Rainbow shouted, redoubling her efforts to break off the cloud. “C’mon! We gotta get this thing off! Push!”
“C’mon!” Stargazer shouted, fully arching his back and sliding down deeper into the wedge. “We almost have it!”
With one last valiant effort, the three pegasi managed to split the cloud the entire way through. Rainbow Dash immediately twisted over herself to push it away from its parent cloud before it could stick back together. Her wings frantically buzzed to move the cloud, but thankfully for her, it began to move much more easily now that it had been separated. Stargazer and Champagne quickly joined at her sides, and the three pegasi began to push the cloud down into the heart of the archipelago.
“Sweet Celestia, we finally got it,” Stargazer said. “I didn’t think we’d ever break it off.”
“I knew we would,” Rainbow Dash said. “Mostly because I’m too stubborn to give up.”
The three pegasi dropped with the cloud as fast as they could, dumping it in front of the moon door. “Good!” Rainbow shouted, already hopping on top of the cloud. “Now help me pack it down! Jump!”
She felt the cloud attempting to resist her hooves as she jumped up and down on it, but she persisted anyway. With the help of her friends, they managed to take the puffy white cloud chunk and push it down more and more, thickening the spaces in between to hopefully stop the moonlight from getting through. It went from white and light to thick and gray in a few minutes, and when Rainbow nervously glanced over her shoulder, she saw the faintest trace of the moon beginning to peek through the trees.
“Put it in place now!” she shouted, jumping off of the cloud and beginning to push it over the door. With Champagne guiding it from the top and Stargazer assisting her below, they were able to get it to cover the part of the door that wasn’t protected by the mud-covered mat just before the moon could shine its light more directly on the tomb.
They took a few steps back to admire their work, and Rainbow let out a deep sigh of relief. “Holy crap, we did it,” she said. “We actually did it.”
“Why didn’t we try that earlier?” Champagne asked. “We could have saved ourselves the rush.”
“Because I was stupid and thought we could cover it up with the fronds and stuff in time,” Rainbow said. “Besides, the clouds aren’t going to last. We’ll have to keep an eye on this thing the entire night to make sure it doesn’t go away while the moon is still up. And tomorrow, we’ll have to finish what we started so we can actually leave this place behind.”
Stargazer nodded. “At least it’s done,” he said. “And we can focus on searching some of the other shrines around here while the moon is up to illuminate them.”
“Maybe they’ll have something we need,” Rainbow said. “It’s about time we pulled our own weight.”
“Then let’s get started,” Champagne said. “We might as well do it now before we get too tired to look some more.”
“That’s the spirit.” Rainbow fluttered out of the stairwell and started looking around at the structures nearest the stairs. “There’s gotta be something good in one of these!”
-----
Deep beneath the water and many miles away…
Rarity used her hooves about as much as her fins to slowly make her way down through the tunnels, following Melody’s lead. It was simply easier to navigate the cramped quarters in such a way, especially the closer they got to the weighted door. She still didn’t feel entirely in her element in her siren body, and she couldn’t effortlessly push herself along with tiny flicks of her tail like Melody did. She felt somewhat jealous at the ease which Melody could move herself, but it also reminded her that she was still a pony. If she got too used to this, then turning back to normal might be more complicated than it needed to.
“We’re almost there,” Melody said. “Just another hall and around the corner.”
“Good.” Rarity grimaced through the water. “I prefer the bigger spaces in this structure, not these cramped corridors. The sooner we’re done with them, the better.”
Together, the two sirens swam down the last hall. Rarity raised a scaly eyebrow at the tattered strips of cloth she saw floating in the water or resting along the floor. For some reason, she didn’t remember them being there before, and a sinking feeling settled into her gut. “Uh, Melody, darling? How often does trash and garbage end up down here?”
“Not all that often,” Melody said. “Why?”
“Because there’s all this cloth in here, and I’m starting to wonder—oof! Goodness, dear, why did you stop?”
Melody didn’t respond; her eyes were locked on something around the corner, and her jaw was slack. Suddenly very worried, Rarity hurriedly pushed her way past Melody through a cramped space in the bottom of the tunnel, just barely large enough to allow the two sirens to coexist side by side. There, peeking her head around the corner, Rarity saw what had caused Melody to fall silent.
The door laid in ruins. Chunks of stone had been scattered all about, and the chains themselves were broken and shattered, links dotting the ground. The fake collapsed ceiling in the chamber beyond had been completely torn down, actually collapsing the structure and exposing a stone sarcophagus that had been split in half. Other bits of cloth were pinned under rocks or floating in the water, and Rarity swore that she saw a crushed limb or two sticking out of the collapsed ceiling.
But worst of all, the sarcophagus was empty. Completely empty.
“Something happened while we were gone,” she said. “The body’s gone.”
“There are corpses here,” Melody said. “You can smell the stink.”
Rarity wasn’t sure she wanted to, but she was sure that there was a tickle of something rancid on her nose. “They got out of the tomb last night,” she concluded, her already white face paling further. Her hooves covered her face in nervous worry, and her tail flailed about in anxiety and panic. “We have to tell everypony,” she said. “They need to know now!”
Rarity gnawed on her hooves in worry, likely doing more damage to them than she had anticipated thanks to her hardened beak. She’d burst around the corner and now swam in place in front of the shattered doors and split sarcophagus. Her blue eyes traced every structure and every shadow in the darkening temple, expecting a headless corpse to fling itself at her and rip her to shreds with its bare hooves. The situation had abruptly changed, and instead of scouring the sunken temple for more knowledge that could help them lower the barrier, they now had to warn everypony else before it was too late.
Melody swam forward into the chamber, her slit eyes gliding over the debris as she studied it in detail. “What are you doing?” Rarity asked her, too terrified to go deeper into the chamber. “We have to leave, we have to warn everypony, now! We can’t stay here! It’s too dangerous!”
“I just want to know what happened,” Melody said, beginning to dig through some of the debris. “It won’t help us to go swimming back to the islands screaming that the end is near without knowing how or why this happened. That’s not going to be very helpful to our friends.”
“I think the how and why is pretty straightforward!” Rarity impatiently swam forward and started to tug on Melody’s large dorsal fin. “Somehow, those horrid mummies Rainbow said so much about got out of their tomb and made their way here! Maybe Soft Step was with them, too!” After a few tugs, she swam back and started tapping her hooves together in borderline hysteria. “Rainbow and the others could have flown into a trap and been killed! O-Or maybe Soft Step is already at the home island completing the ritual to lower the barriers and destroy the world! We’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so is everypony else!”
“Then we need to know how to stop this,” Melody said. She lifted a large boulder and flinched backwards when a corpse snapped its jaw at her. Crying out in alarm, Melody slammed the rock back down on it, crushing its skull into paste and making the limbs twitch. Black blood began to drift up into the water, and Melody immediately shied away from it. “On second thought, maybe we should just go,” she said, continuing to glide backwards so the blood couldn’t get to her. “I think we’ve wasted enough time here as is.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Rarity said, turning about and following Melody out of the temple. The two sirens picked up speed as they navigated through the hallways, and Rarity couldn’t keep her eyes still and her attention focused straight ahead. How long had the sarcophagus been empty? Where was the body, where were the mummies, and where was Soft Step? Nothing had happened on their home island last night, and there hadn’t been any activity around the temple. So where could they be, and what were they doing?
Melody, it seemed, was at least having a more productive train of thought than Rarity’s own worried ramblings. “I wonder if nothing happening until we put all the statuettes together was a coincidence or not,” she said. “After all, we did all the hard work for the moon god. Do you think he was merely waiting for us to get them all in one place for him?”
Rarity thought back to her horrifying conversation with the dark spirit, and her subsequent escape from the final chamber. “I feel like he might just be that cunning,” Rarity said. “When I was about to escape from the final chamber, some of his thralls nearly got me. They started to hypnotize me with their glowing eyes. But then this darkness intervened, and I couldn’t see them anymore. It was all I needed to escape.” She swallowed hard. “I think the moon spirit wanted me to escape with the unicorn figurine. And now we’ve gone through the trouble of getting them all for him, and I even inadvertently gave its horn some blood…”
“So this is all part of his plan,” Melody said. “We put everything in position for him, and we’re all divided instead of together. And you and I, arguably everybody’s best defense against his minions, are as far removed from the shrine as we possibly can be. They’re vulnerable without us, and I’m willing to bet that the moon god has to be moving on it tonight.”
The two sirens twisted their way back to the central chamber with the tunnel that led up to the surface above them. “Rainbow Dash and the others might be in terrible danger at the archipelago,” Rarity said, already moving toward the exit ahead of Melody. “I’m going to swim there as fast as I can.”
“I’ll go with you,” Melody said. “Just in case.”
Rarity shook her head. “No, I need you to go to our home island and make sure everypony there knows what’s going on. They need to know as fast as possible, and I imagine you’re a faster swimmer than me. They need to get ready to defend the shrine from the moon god’s avatar, because if she gets inside…”
Melody nodded. “Right. Okay. I’ll keep an eye out for any mummies on the ocean floor, too. We might have passed some going here and didn’t notice because we weren’t looking for them.”
“Exactly what I’m worried about.” Rarity shook out her shoulders and pushed her way through the last bit to the surface. “I’m not sure if it would be a good thing or not to not see them on my way to the archipelago…”
The two sirens breached the surface, and Melody put a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Just worry about finding Rainbow and the others, then getting back to the shrine as fast as possible. We still have a chance to stop this.”
Rarity took a deep breath to try and calm herself. “Right. Of course we do. We just need to play catch up…”
“We can do it,” Melody insisted. She squeezed Rarity’s shoulder some. “We just have to trust that we’re not too late.”
Black Flag carefully picked his way along the rocky west shore of the island. With evening quickly beating on and the moon starting to rise on the opposite horizon, the ground had turned shadowy and treacherous in a matter of minutes. If he wasn’t careful with where he placed his hooves, it would be all too easy to lose his balance, tumble down the rocks, and possibly break something. The last thing he needed was to break a leg out here and be stuck on the island, useless, next to the traitor and his insufferable marefriend.
“Rainbow Dash said it was somewhere around here,” Ratchet said. The older stallion had taken the lead like he always did, and led the group of four along the coast. “Just keep your horns near the waterline and we should find a gap in the rocks hiding a cave.”
Flag lazily turned his eyes closer to the water, where Gauze and Ruse walked among the rocks, their horns providing illumination for the area. They moved at a slow and ponderous pace, and Flag sighed, shaking his head. “While I always wanted to play explorer as a colt, I’d like it if we could hurry the fuck along,” he growled at them. “I don’t have all night to deal with this bullshit.”
“Really?” Ruse asked, smirking up at Flag. “Where you got to be? You have a date or something?”
Flag scowled down at the annoying performer. He wanted nothing more than to just rip that idiot’s stupid grin off his face in as bloody a way as possible. “I’ve been hungover almost all fucking day,” he growled down at him. “The only date I have is with the Sandmare so I can catch up on some lost sleep.”
“We’ll try not to keep you up too long past your bedtime,” Doctor Gauze said, his voice as flat and disinterested as ever. Flag couldn’t exactly pin down his thoughts on the doctor; he seemed hardly moved by anything, almost to the point of boringness, but he carried a simple wit with him that only showed itself at the most opportune times, cutting through a conversation like a surgeon’s scalpel. He could be infuriating to deal with, but thankfully, the doctor made it his own initiative to avoid dealing with idle conversation as much as he could. If anypony, he was the one Flag liked the most out of this motley band of civilians he’d found himself stuck with.
They proceeded onward for a bit longer until Gauze came to a stop down by the water’s edge. “Here,” he said, pointing to a slight overhang of rock. “This must be the entrance. There are echoes coming from underneath these rocks.”
“Good job,” Ratchet said, clambering his way down the rocks to join Gauze by his side. He lowered his head almost to the water level and peered into the overhang. “Yeah, that looks like what we’re after. Wish there was a better way to get into it.” He stood up and shrugged, then turned to the rest of his team assembling behind him. “So, Gauze and Ruse, which one of you two wants to go in first so we can get a light in there?”
Ruse quickly placed a hoof over his nose. “Nose goes!” he proclaimed, snickering and looking at Gauze expectantly.
Gauze just slowly turned his head to the side and deadpan stared at Ruse in response.
After a few seconds, Ruse’s amused smirk fell off his face and he sighed, lowering his hoof to the ground. “You’re no fun,” he grumbled before stepping forward to the edge of the rocks. Taking a breath, eh stupidly grinned and stretched a leg out over the water. “At least it’s tropical, so it isn’t that cold!”
The unicorn simply leaned forward until he dropped into the water with a splash. Moments later, he stuck his head back up, horn glowing, and shook some of the seawater out of his eyes. “See? Not so bad! The water’s even deep enough to dive in!”
“Just get in the hole,” Flag growled at him, already more than impatient with Ruse’s antics.
Ruse chuckled and started to swim into the cave. “Wouldn’t be the first time somepony’s said that to me…”
While Flag refused to take the bait from the obnoxious ventriloquist, Ruse swam into the cave, taking his horn light with him. The waters beneath the rocks began to glow, shifting as the unicorn climbed out of the water on the other side. “Ooh, it’s nice and cozy in here. I might make this my secret hideout or something!”
Ratchet chuckled and shook his head. “If you want to get wet to get to your hideout whenever it’s low tide, then be my guest.” He glanced over his shoulder at Flag and Gauze. “See you two on the other side.”
He too jumped into the water, and Flag sighed and shortly followed suit. After all, there was no reason to delay any longer. He was going to get wet, and the sooner that they checked the shrine for anything to help them, the sooner he could get back and catch some much needed sleep.
The water was cool, but at least it wasn’t uncomfortably so; that was the benefit of being in the tropics, after all. Still, Flag quickly navigated his way into the cave and broke the surface, hauling himself back up onto the small ledge of stone waiting for him. There, he shook himself off, the water leaving his shoulders splattering against the stone walls of the cave and Ruse standing next to him.
Ruse held up a hoof and frowned. “Hey, watch it, I don’t need to get more wet.”
“I can throw you back in the water,” Flag said.
“That would have the opposite desired effect.” Ruse chuckled and made way for Gauze to climb up onto the platform, and together, the two unicorns used their horns to brighten the room. Ruse whistled as he looked around and nodded his head approving. “This is a pretty neat space. I can’t believe it’s just been hiding here under our noses the whole time.”
“There’s more to it than just this room,” Gauze said, already striding past Ruse and going down the sole hallway in the chamber. “We need to go deeper inside if we ant to find something useful.”
Ratchet shrugged and began to follow him. “Can’t say I disagree with that. Let’s go see what we can find before the tide comes in again and gets us trapped inside.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t that be the worst?” Ruse asked, following them inside. “Can’t think of a worse fate than being stuck down here with everypony’s favorite bundle of sunshine and piracy!”
Flag rolled his eyes and set off after them. “If we remove your head, I think we could improve it…”
Gyro frowned at the journal held aloft in Coals’ magic in front of her face. The little book had seemed to promise her so much, but she didn’t know why she trusted it. Rainbow Dash had said that it didn’t have anything useful, and after spending the day reading it cover to cover, twice, she had to reluctantly conclude that she was right. She’d even scrutinized the pages and shook the thing out just in case there was something that she missed, but there’d been nothing. It was as empty and useless as those waterproofed papers Ruse and the others had found at the campsite.
Scowling, Gyro laid her head down on her crossed forehooves. “That’s it,” she growled. “I read this thing over and over, and there’s nothing. Nothing that will help us. Couldn’t we just get fucking lucky and find something useful somewhere?” She rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky, where the stars had begun to poke tiny white holes in the expanse of black canvas stretching above them. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that the others have either had more luck than us or they’ve somehow had even worse.”
Hot Coals chuckled and closed the journal now that Gyro wasn’t actively reading it anymore. “Well, when you put it that way, you can’t possibly be wrong,” he said.
“Technically right is the best kind of right.”
The stallion scoffed and looked the journal over. “I suppose we were asking for too much,” he said. “The author died while investigating the shrine beneath us. It’s not like he had a lot of time to really work on it, right?”
“I guess.” Gyro blew air out of her nostrils, knocking aside a few strands of her mane that had draped themselves over her face. Idly, she wondered whether it was time to hack her mane off with a knife or not to keep it out of her face, though she cursed herself for letting her thoughts wander like that. She’d spent so long trying to glean anything from a stupid book that she felt scatterbrained and antsy to do something else, anything else, other than think and try to tease clues out of thin air. Maybe it was time that she called it for the night, or at least did something else to occupy her thoughts and cling onto her sanity—what little of it she really had left after everything she’d been through in the past month or two.
Hot Coals seemed to sense that Gyro was anything but thrilled with the outcome of her efforts into the journal, because he leaned over and nuzzled her snout. “You’ve been working hard, Gyro,” he said, smiling down at her. “Harder than anypony else, really. I’m sorry that nothing came from it.”
“You and me both.” Gyro sighed and closed her eyes, reveling in the feeling of no longer straining them to read something without her glasses. “Have we just been wasting our time?”
Coals’ ears perked, and an eyebrow climbed up his forehead. “Hmm?”
“With all this.” Gyro vaguely gestured around them. “Splitting up and searching for clues and stuff. We’re never going to figure things out. Even if there’s something that explicitly says exactly what we have to do to get the figurines to lower the barrier, nopony knows how to read it. Melody doesn’t even know how to read this stuff, and she’s been here for almost a century. We’re just… just jerking off, really.”
“We’re not ‘jerking off’,” Coals insisted, sliding over until he was lying halfway on top of Gyro. “We’re being productive together.”
A rosy heat built in Gyro’s cheeks. “I suppose when you put it like that…” She chuckled and closed her eyes again. “I’m just worried that we’re spending all our time on this stuff and we’re not going to find anything.”
“Well, what were we going to use that time for, anyway?” Coals asked. “Counting sand?”
“I might actually kill myself if it comes to that to pass the time.” Gyro fluttered her pale blue eyes and let the corner of her mouth crawl upwards. “I’ve got a much, much better idea.”
“Oh?” Coals waggled an eyebrow at her, already seeming to know where Gyro was going. “Mind letting me in on the secret?”
“Yeah, but I can’t tell you here.” Gyro pushed her muzzle forward and kissed Coals, long and sweetly, before pulling away and winking at him. “We should go somewhere more private. Like Dr. Gauze’s hut. It’s not like he needs it for anypony else, right? I mean, we’re the most injured ones here.”
Coals glanced at the hut and smirked. “Yeah, I think that sounds like a good idea,” he said. He rolled off of Gyro’s stomach and stood up, offering the mare a hoof. “But can you stand yet? I don’t want to have you break something if you’re not ready for it.”
Gyro scoffed and rolled over. Her forehooves were easy enough to position on the ground, but it took her considerably more effort to get her hind legs situated under her. Coals watched her with a worried expression on her face as she seemed to try and muster the energy to stand, and he flinched when she yelled in exertion. But her hindquarters rose on shaky legs, and even as her tail lashed out at the sand, Gyro soon stood before him, almost at her full height.
“You… I didn’t think you’d be able to stand yet,” Coals said. “I thought you’d be out another few days!”
Gyro smirked at him, though it was laced with pain. “That’s… earth pony magic for you… Gah!”
Coals immediately moved to Gyro’s side as she wobbled on her weak legs. “Earth pony magic or no, I don’t think you really should be standing. I’ll carry you to the hut.”
“No!” Gyro hissed at him. “I can… I can walk. I can do it.” Grimacing, the engineer took her first shaky steps, slowly pulling her body across the sand. “I already had to learn to walk once here… I can do it again!”
Little by little, bit by bit, Gyro muscled her way to the doctor’s hut through sheer determination and a shipload of stubbornness. Though she stumbled a few times, she always had Coals’ shoulder to support her, and she needed it more than she would have liked to admit. But soon enough, the two of them stood in front of the empty hut, and Gyro gave her coltfriend a wink. “I think I’ve deserved more than my fair share of fun after that.”
Coals smiled and nibbled on her ear. “Let’s see if we can get you properly rewarded, then.”
And the two slipped into the hut, leaving the campsite dead and still behind them.
There was nothing like a good meal after a hard day’s frantic work to finish a project before the deadline. For Rainbow Dash, it was doubly so when that deadline would have meant her death and the deaths of all her friends on the islands. Unfortunately for her, the archipelago barely had what she could consider a good meal, and she was frankly disappointed by the service. It had to be the worst celebratory dinner she’d had in a long time, but in all honesty, she couldn’t complain too much about the reward. Not dying was a very strong prize for all her hard work.
So instead, she tried to breathe, smile, and relax in the afterglow of her success with Champagne and Stargazer. The three pegasi had harvested a bounty of grass and other plants of questionable edibility, along with a very, very small supplement of berries for a little flavor to their otherwise bland, green meal. Rainbow had wanted to snag a coconut or two from the trees, but it would have taken far too much work to open them up and get at the meat inside. So instead, she could only glower at the coconuts from below and again curse herself for not bringing a little something extra to snack on from the home island.
At the very least, their makeshift door block seemed to be working. Rainbow had poked around it a little bit after they’d positioned the cloud, and hardly any moonlight could make it through the compacted water vapor, if any. The entirety of the door from top to bottom was shrouded in shadow, and it remained still and impassive. Even still, Rainbow had to be honest with herself; was the door staying closed because of them, or because it wasn’t the full moon? They still didn’t really know for sure, but she stood by her decision to block it up as best as they could. They just didn’t know, and it was far, far better to be safe than sorry and mummy food.
“Well, Rainbow?”
Rainbow’s ears perked and she blinked in surprise. Champagne and Stargazer were both looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to fill in some bit of a conversation she hadn’t been paying attention to while wading through her own thoughts. She coughed once and let a silly smile settle on her muzzle. “Uhhh… yes, one hundred and twenty percent.”
Champagne chuckled and shook her head. “You weren’t listening, were you.”
“Guilty as charged.” Rainbow snickered and sat up, stretching her wings and arching her back. “Sorry, I was kinda zoned out. What were you saying?”
“We were just talking about what we’d do when we got out of here,” Stargazer said. “I said that we’d get to meet the princesses—all of them—but Champagne doesn’t think so. So I wanted to know what you thought.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Rainbow said. “We’ll meet all of them. No doubt about that. In case you’ve forgotten, Princess Twilight is, like, my best friend, and me and Rares are pretty tight with the others. We’ll get a whole parade up to the castle when we get back!”
Champagne’s wings fluttered and she rubbed her hooves together. “A parade? That sounds fun! That is certainly one way to reward us for staying alive and saving the world!”
“I’m gonna have a long talk with Princess Luna and Twilight after this,” Rainbow said. “If we’re dealing with some kind of moon god that can destroy the world, I wanna know why we’ve never heard about it. Heck, I wanna know if it was even gonna be a problem in the first place! Maybe Luna just could’ve whooped its flank as soon as the barrier went down, easy peasy!”
“Do you really think she could’ve just taken care of this whole mess herself?” Stargazer asked.
Rainbow’s smile faltered into an unsure shrug. “I mean, I’d like to think so. She’s super strong and stuff. But in all honesty, the princesses get beat around by a lot of crap. I’m pretty sure something that’s powered by blood sacrifices and is an actual, like, god might be a little bit too much for anypony to deal with. Even the princesses.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing we’re trying to keep it contained here.” Stargazer lifted his head to the sky, where some of the stars were visible through the canopy of palm fronds. “But can we actually stop it, though? If Soft Step is an alicorn, and she’s bent entirely to that thing’s will…”
“We have two sirens,” Rainbow reminded him. “I’m pretty sure Melody and Rarity can thrash her around if need be. Maybe they can even restrain her, knock her out!”
“And then what do we do?” Champagne asked. “How do we make her normal again?”
Rainbow faltered. “I… I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I don’t want to just give up on her. There’s some way we can save her. There has to be!”
“Then we’ll try,” Stargazer assured her. “We’ll give it our best. But what do we do if we can’t?”
“Then we let the princesses sort it out when we get back to them. They’ll know what to do. I mean, Celestia made Twilight and Cadance into alicorns, so she has to know how to go the other way, right?”
“If you say so.” The three pegasi fell into silence as they took a few more bites of their meals, listening to the sounds of the wildlife around them. Rainbow had to admit, it truly was a peaceful night, now that the immediate threat to their lives was taken care of. She wondered how many more of these she would get to experience. Would they end because she went home, or because she died? She didn’t know, and there was no way for her to tell.
In the meanwhile, all they could do was try to find a way back home and survive another day.
-----
Gyro’s whole body felt warm and fuzzy, like she was floating in an endless expanse of honey. She was vaguely aware of her surroundings, of Hot Coals lying next to her, of the smell in the air, but she didn’t care. She was happy, and there was nothing in the world that could bother her.
Coals said something to her, but she hardly paid attention to what it was. She felt his lips at her ear, against her cheek, but it was all nothing compared to the feeling of joy rushing through her from her tail. She was just happy that all her tools still worked properly, even despite her spinal injury. Maybe when she finally got home, her and Coals would have something to show for it, too.
The hut shook as something bumped into it. Coals raised his head and looked towards the door. “Hey, a little privacy, please!” he shouted through the fronds covering the door. “If you guys found something, we’ll take a look at it later.”
Gyro lifted her head enough to see a shadow stop in front of the door, the silhouette dancing from the flickering flames of the fire behind it. She saw a hoof raise towards the fronds and slowly, lethargically, pull them aside. In its place, a heavily bandaged face peered through the gap, the cloth stained with brown splotches, a shattered, toothless jaw hanging wide open, revealing a deep, black void in its throat. One eye was messy and bloodshot; the other was gone completely. It hissed at them, spitting black bile at the two ponies as they lay in the sand.
Gyro matched it with a terrified, panicked scream of her own.
Flag momentarily hesitated, his ears twitching at some ghost noise. He frowned and looked back over his shoulder, but there was nothing behind him save for the short tunnel out to the hidden cave. Still, he was almost certain he had heard something. But what was there to hear other than the slap of water against rock?
A light shifted in the corner of his vision, and Ruse cautiously walked next to him. “What is it?” the ventriloquist asked. “You hear something?”
The pirate’s frown fixated itself on Ruse’s face. “Oh, fuck off,” Flag growled at him, angrily turning in place. “I know what you’re doing.”
Ruse blinked in surprise. “What I’m doing? That’d be a first. I don’t even know what I’m doing.”
“Fuck off, you asshole ventriloquist.” Flag stomped away, flicking his tail at Ruse in annoyance. “I don’t need you making any Celestia-damned sounds while I’m trying to listen!”
Realization dawned on Ruse’s face, and the stallion trotted up behind Flag. “Black Flag, normally I’d enjoy messing with you like that, but not now. My horn’s busy being a nightlight glued to my forehead. I can’t use it to throw my voice. If you heard something—”
“What’s this?” Ratchet asked, turning away from the wall he and Gauze had been surveying. “Is something happening?”
“Flag thought he heard something,” Ruse said before Flag could even open his mouth. “He won’t tell me what it is.”
“If you’d just shut up for two seconds, then maybe I could explain.” His angry glare was enough to make Ruse flinch away, and when he turned back to Ratchet, he simply shrugged. “I don’t know. I couldn’t make out what it was. Thought I heard somepony shout or something. It was probably the water, though.”
“Shouting?” Concern flashed across Ratchet’s face. “Perhaps we should go back and see what’s going on.”
Flag huffed and pointedly pushed past him to look at a wall he couldn’t make sense of. “That’d be a waste of time. It was nothing; just my mind playing tricks on me. Or your comedian.”
Before Ratchet could say anything to Ruse, the ventriloquist held up his hooves. “You know I wouldn’t mess around at a time like this,” he said. “If Flag thought he heard something, it wasn’t my doing.”
“Why would somepony be shouting?” Gauze asked, a twitch of his ear making up for the lack of emotion and seeming disinterest in his voice. He pushed away from the wall in front of him and narrowed his eyes. “Gyro and Hot Coals are at the camp all alone. If something has happened topside, they’d be the first to know. It may be worth investigating, in case Flag heard one of them.”
“Fuck it, I’ll take a look, then,” Flag said, turning around and moving past the other three stallions. “I’m next to useless down here. I can’t make sense of any of this shit, and I hate the smell of this place. Besides, I always hated caves. I prefer the open sky on the deck of an airship.”
“I didn’t take you for a pegasus,” Ruse quipped. “I thought earth ponies liked to keep their hooves on the ground.”
“Fuck the ground,” Flag said. “The ground doesn’t have anything good on it. Anypony can raid a wagon, but only the good ones can be sky pirates.”
And then he was gone from the group, heading back out to the hidden cave. He kept his ears pointed forward the entire way in case he heard that scream again, but also just so he didn’t have to listen to the annoying ventriloquist anymore. If his brother came back and killed Ruse in a fit of suicidal fury, Flag wouldn’t have really cared. In fact, he might cheer him on.
He stopped by the water’s edge as a thought crossed his mind. He hadn’t seen Roger all day. Had his brother been hiding and waiting for nightfall to do his stupid plan all along? It was just Hot Coals and Gyro in the camp, after all; easy pickings for a seasoned pirate with the element of surprise on his side. And if that was true, and if Jolly had murdered the two of them while everypony else was split up, then he needed to investigate before the rest of the team finished crawling through this little shrine beneath the island. If there was blood on the sand, then Flag decided very quickly that he needed to get off of this island before the rest of the survivors strung him up in retaliation for his stupid brother’s actions.
Growling to himself, Flag stepped right up to the water’s edge and looked at the rocks around the mouth of the cave. The water level had risen an inch or two since they’d entered, and they probably only had a couple more hours before it started getting dangerously high. Flag shook his head and stuck his hoof into the water. That would be their problem, not his.
Almost as soon as his hoof touched the water, however, he saw something shift underneath it. He pulled his leg back right as a bony hoof splashed out of the waves, clawing at the slipper rocks Flag had been standing on. A skeletal face emerged soon after, hissing and gurgling through the seawater still stuck in its maw. Its eyes were black as death, and bit by bit, it dragged itself out of the water and onto the stone of the tunnel.
Roaring, Flag reared back and slammed his hooves down on the mummy’s head, caving it into bloody chunks and knocking the body back into the water. But almost as soon as it slipped beneath the waves, a second began climbing up, followed by a third and a fourth. As they pulled themselves onto the rocks, Flag tried to batter them away, shouting and grunting as loud as he could. “Mummies!” he shouted, wrestling one back into the water. “Mummies! They’re here!”
Hooves thundered down stone, and the other three stallions swiftly appeared at Flag’s sides. To their credit, they didn’t stop to gawk or panic at the sight of the undead trying to force their way into the shrine. Instead, they immediately took up positions at the edge of the water, trying to fight the mummies back down into the ground. “How the fuck did these get here?!” Ruse shouted, using his magic to fling a pair back into the sea. “I thought the door was supposed to be closed!”
A burst of magic erupted from the water, showering the four stallions with salty spray and knocking them backwards. Tendrils of pure night snaked out of the water, snuffing out the lights on Ruse’s and Gauze’s horns, and drowning the cave in almost complete darkness. Flag tried to scramble backwards away from the water, but his back hit stone, and in the dark, he couldn’t find the hallway that led deeper into the shrine. All the while, the sounds of the mummies trying to escape the pool around them echoed about the tiny cave, but then it suddenly fell deathly quiet. In its place, a pair of slit eyes opened up, glowing and disembodied in the dark.
The shadows faded away just enough to reveal the silhouette of a tall pony seemingly standing on the water’s surface. Feathers fanned in the darkness, and a pale glow like moonlight began to emanate from the curved horn atop the figure’s head. Stepping forward, the figure bared wickedly sharp fangs, its lips pulling back into a predatory smile.
“Hello, boys,” she said, her voice sultry and malevolent. “It’s been too long.”
Soft Step chuckled as she watched her prey squirm in front of her. The fear on their faces looked so delicious that she wanted to gnaw it off with her razor sharp fangs. Even though she’d snuffed their lights to shroud the cave in His darkness, she could make out every single hair of their coats in perfect detail. The raw power given to her by Him, entrusted in her by Him, had turned even the mundane into something spectacular.
“You thought you would be safe until the next full moon, didn’t you?” she asked them while her mummies patiently waited for the space to clear before climbing onto the rocks. “You thought you knew exactly how this works. I’m sorry I had to shatter those expectations, but I simply won’t wait that long to bring Him into the world. The longer I wait, the longer the Pretender has to realize all is not as secure in her domain as she would like to believe.”
“Soft Step! Soft Step, don’t do this,” one of the stallions pleaded with her. The corrupted alicorn’s slit eyes fell on an older earth pony huddled against the stone, but mustering the courage to try and stand up to her. “We’re your friends. Whatever that spirit did to you, you have to fight it!”
“Silence!” Soft Step boomed, her augmented voice shaking the stones of the cave and forcing her quarry to cower away from her. “I will hear nothing more out of you. The mare you thought you knew is dead. She was weak and fractured. My Lord put her back together into something more fitting for his purposes. No matter how much you wish to will it otherwise, Soft Step will never come back to you… Ratchet.”
Soft Step winced at the stallion’s name. Despite her claims to the contrary, some poor sniveling wreck of a mare tried to pound on her skull from within, to force her to stand down. But that pathetic thing was too weak to move her limbs away from serving His desires. He had given her strength beyond measure, and with that strength, she was determined to squash what little was left of the pegasus she once was.
“If you’re going to kill us, get it over with,” the other earth pony growled. Soft Step frowned at him; he wasn’t familiar like the other three, whom she had all known from a past life. “I knew it was going to end this way sooner or later, and I’d prefer to get this shit over with if I’m just going to die anyway.”
“Shut up!” One of the unicorns, Ruse, hissed at him. “There’s still a chance we’ll—!”
“What?” Soft Step asked, prowling closer to him. “That you’ll survive? I wouldn’t bet on that. That would be… very unlikely.”
“I don’t see why you’re waiting,” the other unicorn said. “Unless you like to hear the sound of your own voice. I never would have thought you had something so dark hiding deep down inside of you, Soft. Perhaps I missed something on your mental health examinations.”
Soft Step opened her mouth to harshly rebuke him, but closed it after a second’s thought. These four ponies were just stalling for time, and here she was, taunting them and humoring their responses. Her Lord didn’t have time to wait for her to play this game all night. Growling, she whipped her head to the side and pointed down the hallway. “Take them to the middle chamber. If they fight, break their legs. Rip them off if you must. I only need their hearts.” Her eyes narrowed on the four ponies as bands of deep darkness shrouded their heads and covered their eyes. “At least go to meet your deaths with some dignity. Don’t make me break you apart piece by piece until you still die anyway. I used to think highly of you—most of you—before my Lord lifted me even higher. Allow me to honor a dead mare’s legacy in some way by making your sacrifice clean and painless.”
The four ponies writhed as her blindfolds covered their faces and her loyal soldiers began to drag them to their hooves. Ratchet wrestled away from them, almost falling into the water Soft Step stood on, and tilted his head up in her general direction. “Soft Step, you can fight it. I know you can. You’re strong, stronger than some long-dead shade of a moon spirit!”
“I am tired of listening to you,” Soft Step said, and a muzzle made of shadow locked itself around Ratchet’s snout. “I will remove your tongue if I have to. Now go.”
The mummies grabbed Ratchet and dragged him away from the water, forcing him down the hall after the other three. Soft Step followed them, ducking her head to not scrape her horn on the low ceiling, and smiled with glee as His plans came together. Now that the mortals had done all the hard work for him, all she needed to do was finish the ritual—a ritual that would end her own life as well.
The little green mare inside her skull screamed in panic. Soft Step put a hoof on her and squeezed until she fell silent. All that mattered was bringing Him to this wretched, ungrateful planet. If He willed it, she would be reborn in the shroud of His glory. If not, then to die for Him was the best use of her life, and she couldn’t be happier.
Her thralls pushed the prisoners through the gaps in the collapsed rock filling the hallway, though Soft Step reduced it to gravel with a thought and a flare of her horn. Beyond that lay the shrine that had first sealed away these islands so long ago and had prevented Him from extending his influence beyond a narrow little patch of the sea. With her help, the barrier would be lowered tonight and the ritual would be completed.
“I have to thank you on behalf of my Lord for recovering all the figurines,” she said as she walked around the perimeter of the room, lifting up the unicorn figurine carved in His likeness and admiring it. “If it wasn’t for you opening his tomb, we never would have gotten this far. And all your hard work has brought them here, exactly where He needs them to be. You’ve done Him a wonderful service without even realizing it.”
She set the unicorn back down on its pedestal and moved closer to the dais in the center of the room. Her mummies had thrown the four stallions to the far corners of the room, split up so they couldn’t communicate with each other, and under the guard of at least three pairs of lifeless eyes each. Sighing, she sat down on the dais and crossed her legs, letting her feathers run over the islands carved into its surface. “I have two unicorns and two earth ponies. All I need are two pegasi now, and I can finish this all off for good. So, I’m going to ask you, Ratchet…”
Hopping off of the dais, Soft Step advanced on the older stallion and knelt down in front of him. His muzzle disappeared, freeing his tongue, and her magic shifted the blindfold over his eyes so he could see her. She parted her lips to reveal her fanged maw as she leaned in, forcing the stallion to recoil from her. “Where are they?”
Rainbow cracked a bleary eye open. “Yeah? What’s up?”
Stargazer shifted in place on his makeshift bed of moss and palm fronds. “I was just thinking… if the Ponynesians way back when managed to create an avatar of their moon god, why didn’t the other Ponynesians who opposed them do the same with their sun god?”
“And what?” Rainbow asked. “Have them fight in a huge, kersplodey battle of moonlight and sunbeams?”
“I mean… yeah?” When Rainbow chuckled in amusement, Stargazer lowered his brow. “But seriously, though. If those cultists or whomever had used some kind of magic to create an alicorn avatar of the moon god, why didn’t the other ponies do the same to create one for the sun god? Why did they not do that and instead fought conventionally and to the bitter end to slay this avatar, only for their entire civilization to be in shambles by the time they finally did it?”
“I don’t know, dude,” Rainbow said. “Maybe they couldn’t. Maybe it just wasn’t possible.”
Stargazer sighed and lowered his head. “I guess. It just doesn’t sit right with me. I feel like we’re missing something that could be really important for stopping Soft Step.”
“Dude, we’re missing a lot of somethings,” Rainbow said. She closed her eyes again and rolled onto her side, rubbing her cheek against the soft moss under her head. “This something isn’t going to be all that helpful to us, really.”
“I thought you two were trying to get some sleep,” Champagne chided from the tree above them. Rainbow didn’t even bother to open her eyes to see the Prench mare staring down at them. “What’s the point of me taking first watch if you’re all just going to stay up anyways?”
“Blame Stargazer, not me,” Rainbow said. “He won’t shut up.”
“I’m just thinking!” She heard Stargazer huff from behind her. “Maybe we should trade, Champagne. My thoughts are too busy to let me get any sleep just yet.”
“I’ll gladly take that trade,” the Prench mare said, and a second later, Rainbow heard her wings flutter as she touched down on the ground. “You’re the one who likes to stay up late, anyway.”
“I thought I’d try going to bed early for once. I’m beat!”
“Not as beat as me, I’m willing to bet you that.”
Rainbow sighed and rolled onto her back, opening her eyes a bit. Above her, the fronds of the palms sheltered their makeshift camp from the moon and the skies above, while behind them they had the stone wall of a ruined building to block any wind. Though the original plan had been to explore the shrines and try to learn anything they could about the statuettes and lowering the barrier, the three pegasi had unanimously agreed to delay that until the following morning, when there would be more light to see by. After all, they’d left their fire-starting gear back on the home island, and while Rainbow figured she could get a fire started with nothing but her hooves, she really didn’t want to bother. There would be plenty of time to study what they needed, now that the door was protected, and they could handle that in the morning—after they finished the permanent cover on the temple door.
Rainbow had to admit, she felt like she was being lazy, but when you have all the time in the world, is it really still laziness?
“Do you still want morning watch, Rainbow?”
Rainbow’s eye slid over to Champagne, who watched her from what had been Stargazer’s bed until he’d flown into the tree. “Yeah, of course. I’ve always been a morning pony, anyway.” She rolled her head back and yawned, even pushing herself off of her bed slightly with her stretching wings. “Just wake me up when you get tired. I’ll finish things off. Maybe get a head start on searching these temples over once the sun starts coming up.”
“That would probably be a good idea.” Champagne shifted into a more comfortable position on the moss and called up to Stargazer. “Make sure you keep an eye on the cloud, okay? If it starts getting thin, wake Rainbow and I up.”
“Yes, mom,” Stargazer teased from the tree. “Jeez, you’re really taking after Rainbow. When did I start getting bossed around by two mares?”
“There are a lot of stallions in this world that would kill to be bossed around by two beautiful mares,” Champagne said.
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, closing her eyes and relaxing to try and get some sleep. “Consider yourself lucky. Better than being bossed around by two ugly mares!”
Stargazer snickered, and Rainbow heard the palm fronds above her shift as he settled into a more comfortable position. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Too bad the merchandise is already sold.”
While Champagne and Rainbow chuckled, the latter took a few deep breaths and felt the fingers of sleep begin tugging at her eyelids. Rather than fight it off any longer, she rolled onto her side, away from Champagne, and splayed her limbs out in a more comfortable pattern. “Alright, it’s lights out for me. Better get what sleep I can now before I have to take my shift.”
“Goodnight, Rainbow,” Champagne said. “I’ll wake you when it’s time.”
“Yeah, night,” Stargazer said. “I’ll just try and look at the constellations while the clouds aren’t completely covering them, I guess.”
“And the cloud,” Rainbow reminded him.
“And the cloud, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ve got it all under control.”
Rainbow Dash hummed and cozied her way into the soft embrace of the moss. At least she knew she could trust the other two to do their jobs. That took a load off of her shoulders; it was nice to have competent ponies with her so she didn’t have to rely on herself all the time. Maybe in a day or two, when the three of them finally returned to the home island, she’d find that the rest of her friends had uncovered something useful that would help them get rid of the barrier. Then they could finally all go home.
It made falling asleep that much easier and quicker.
Hot Coals’ horn flared to life, and a burst of magic flung the snapping mummy back out of the hut and somewhere into the sands of the campsite. Gyro shook and shivered, still recoiling from the horrifying sight, and almost didn’t respond when Coals quickly rose to his hooves. “What the fuck was that?!” the stallion shouted, pinning his eyes on Gyro. “Was that one of those mummy things you were talking about?”
“It’s definitely not the second coming of Princess Platinum!” Gyro shouted back, struggling to stand on her own. Coals ducked to her side and helped prop her up, but both ponies froze when they heard more hissing and moaning coming from around their tent. Grimacing, Gyro laid her forelegs across Coals’ back and tried to climb onto it, suddenly very wary of the flimsy walls of the hut. “And where there’s one, there’s gonna be a lot more!”
Coals helped her settle into position with his magic, and then the stallion burst through the doorway of the hut, only to stop dead in his tracks. Gyro’s heart seized up when she saw the sheer number of figures shambling through the trees around them. Their lifeless, hollow eyes seemed to glow with moonlight, and many of the dead were in such a sorry state that they could do little more than stumble and drag themselves across the sand. But she knew they all saw her and Coals, and she knew that they would pursue them until they finally got cornered or Coals collapsed from exhaustion. That thought sent another shot of worry through Gyro’s mind; how long could Coals carry her and evade the mummies, considering he was just a day or two removed from being in a coma?
“Don’t just stand there!” she screamed at him. “Run! Run somewhere!”
“Where?!” Coals asked, frantically looking around as the mummies closed in on them from all sides. “They’re everywhere!”
“I don’t know! Someplace with fewer of them!” Gyro frantically whipped her head around until her eyes spotted an alarmed red figure sitting on a tree near the eastern shore. Directly beneath it, two of the mummies had been distracted by its squawks and calls, and were trying to find some way up the tree. Tugging on Coals’ ears, Gyro pointed in Chirp’s direction. “There! Go that way! To the beach!”
Coals lowered his head and charged across the campsite, his hooves kicking up sand and sediment as he forced himself into a full sprint. Gyro clung on for dear life, especially when Coals had to jump to the side to avoid the snapping teeth of a mummy that had gotten too close. As soon as they made it to the shadows of Chirp’s tree, Coals knocked one of the mummies aside with his magic and jumped through the open space to the sandy shore on the other side, and Gyro saw Chirp spread his wings and flee from the tree, moving to another one further to the north.
“We can’t run forever!” Coals shouted, spinning in place. Gyro watched in horror as the slow tide of mummies began to trickle out of the tree line, bumping into each other as they advanced on the two ponies on the beach. “Should we run to the lagoon?”
“And do what? Jump off the fucking cliff?” Gyro bit down hard on a hoof to try in vain to keep her panic from breaching the dam into hysteria. If they ran south, they’d be trapped. If they ran north, they’d be trapped. And with the sea to their east and the wall of zombies to their west, there was precious little they could run to. No matter what they did, they would eventually run out of room and be cornered. And there was no way they could fight the horde off on their own, especially without any weapons.
Chirp squawked again at them from the north, and an idea gave Gyro a spark of hope and a plan. “Follow the macaw,” she shouted to Coals. “He wants us to go north, and that’s where the raft is. If we can get on the raft, we’ll be safe!”
“Are you sure they just won’t swim after us?” Coals asked, but he nevertheless did as instructed, taking advantage of the momentarily clear beach to make a break for it.
“Do those things look like they can swim?” Gyro asked, looking back at the horde shambling after them. “They probably just walked here on the ocean floor!”
“Then how the fuck did they get out?!”
“You’re asking the wrong mare!” Gyro chewed on her lip as she wondered what happened to Rainbow Dash and the others. They’d flown back to the archipelago, and if there were dozens of mummies here, then how many were crawling over the islands out there? What if they’d been caught unawares and died?
Gyro decided that she needed to put those thoughts out of her mind for the time being. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, anyway. They were a several hours’ flight from here, and there was nothing she could do to help them even if they were in trouble. She could only hope that they were okay out there, and they hadn’t been turned into mummy chow. In the meanwhile, she needed to focus on her own escape so her and Coals didn’t meet such a fate.
“What happened to the others?” Coals asked. “Are they still in the shrine?”
“If the mummies are here, then they’re probably in the shrine,” Gyro said. “They could be fucked even worse than we are, really.”
“Should we try to find them?”
Gyro really wanted to say yes. After all, they were all a team, right? She knew that she’d want Ratchet to come back for her if she desperately needed saving. But she also had to be realistic. What chance did those four have if they were caught in the shrine by the mummies? What chance did she and Coals have to save them if that was the case?
“We need to save ourselves first,” Gyro said. “Once we get out of here and maybe find Melody or something, then we can worry about the next step. But right now, we’re fucked, and we gotta get out of here before we’re double fucked!”
“Don’t you mean triple fucked?” Coals asked, sparing her a momentary grin.
Gyro groaned and planted her face into the back of Coals’ neck. “Not like that…”
“For once, you’re the one complaining about things like that. I never thought I’d see the day.” Still, with the quick quip aside, Coals redoubled his focus on following Chirp through the trees. Gyro was simply amazed that the macaw could be so intelligent. She certainly didn’t know exactly where the raft was, only that it was in the general direction Chirp was leading them. She just prayed that Coals was strong enough to lift the raft out of the sand and put it in the water, but if Rarity could do it, certainly a stallion who regularly used his magic on much heavier things than thread and dresses would be able to move it, too.
All around them, the moans and wails of the mummies gave the island an unnatural and haunting sound. The longer Gyro had to listen to it, the more she worried that she’d go insane before she even got off of the island. But thankfully, as luck would have it, She spotted the shadowed silhouette of the raft lying in the sand, which she saw Chirp flutter down to. “There! Right there! Dump me off on it!”
Coals did as she asked, carefully letting Gyro down onto the damp logs that made up the raft. Gyro scrambled to the center of it to more evenly distribute her weight, and she immediately looked back as Coals’ magic began to glow around the edges of the raft. The stallion grunted and heaved, and Gyro lowered herself as she felt the raft wobble and lift a few inches off the ground. Clinging onto the vines for dear life, Gyro watched as Coals slowly marched toward the sea, carrying the raft with him.
Gyro’s relief immediately turned to fear and worry, however, when she saw the mummies begin to emerge from the trees behind him. “Coals!” she screamed, standing up again. “Coals! Hurry!”
The unicorn briefly looked back over his shoulder and his eyes widened as he saw the mummies closing in. His horn flared again, and Gyro nearly lost her balance as he pushed the raft out into the sea. She felt it wobble and bob as it rested on the waves, and she scrambled to the edge. “Coals, get on! Get on, hurry!”
But the exertion seemed to take too much out of the stallion. He collapsed onto his knees at the water’s edge, panting and shaking. Gyro felt her heart seize when the stallion looked up at her, and she saw defeat in his face. Instead of standing up, he sat back and let his horn glow, and Gyro saw a line of magic materialize on the near side of the raft, pushing it out to sea.
“No!” Gyro screamed, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “No, don’t do this! Coals! Coals!”
Coals only softly smiled at her, and soon Gyro was too far away to swim back to the island. She could only cling onto the raft as her coltfriend’s wavering magic pushed her farther to sea, farther to safety. She fell to her haunches, crying, her teary eyes fixated on the stallion’s face as the mummies closed in on him.
She only saw him mouth three words before the horde fell upon him, and he disappeared beneath the rotten bodies.
Rarity didn’t know what was worse: how terribly difficult it was to navigate by the stars and moonlight alone, or how terribly easy it was to trust her body and her instincts to get to where she needed to go. She simply pointed herself to the northwest, roughly in the direction Melody had pointed out for her, and swam beneath the waves. Some otherworldly sixth sense helped her keep a straight line, even if she couldn’t really tell if her heading was changing or not based on the stars and the position of the moon overhead. While the first hour or so had left her with only the island behind her and no sight of the archipelago over the horizon, it wasn’t all that long before she saw a tiny black nub begin to rise over the sea, slowly blotting out stars as it grew larger and larger the longer Rarity swam.
Yet Rarity didn’t spend the entire journey with her head above sea level. On the contrary, she spent most of it trying to scan the seafloor below her, looking for any signs of mummies or moon spirit thralls shuffling across the sandy bottom. Rarity knew that they had gotten out somehow based on what she’d seen back at the atoll, but other than that, there was no evidence that they’d gone anywhere else. Rarity knew if she at least saw one mummy wandering across the seafloor, then it would at least validate her suspicions and worries, if not set her heart at ease. But right now, there were too many questions she wanted answers to, and not enough evidence to back up her conclusions one way or another.
But how did the mummies get out? Did they find another way out of the tomb? She had no doubt that it wouldn’t be too much work for them to escape through the same way she had. That dark spirit had been there the entire time, and it surely knew how Rarity had left. And with an alicorn and a horde of undead soldiers, it would be oh so easy to knock down that stone wall and make an escape through the mountain. Even if Rainbow Dash’s plan to cover the door had worked, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. That they were too late to even put that plan into motion just added insult to injury.
Rarity momentarily faltered and placed a hoof over her heart. Rainbow Dash had flown right into the eye of the storm with Champagne and Stargazer, all of them without any idea that the mummies had already escaped. If there were still mummies on the archipelago, then the three pegasi could have been ambushed and killed almost as soon as they set hoof down on it. But then again, the mummies were loud and slow—supposedly, from what Rainbow had told her. Surely the three pegasi would have heard them coming if they were about to be ambushed. And they had wings, while Rarity was all but certain that the mummies wouldn’t be able to fly even if some of them were pegasi. They could easily escape from the mummies if need be. They could even fly back to the home island and rally with the other survivors there. Rarity wondered if she was wasting time by heading to the archipelago anyway, when maybe she should have followed Melody to the home island.
But no, she needed to check first. She realized she was just thinking up ways to try to justify Rainbow’s safety in the face of everything going absolutely horribly wrong. Right now, she had to assume the worst, but act as if they were still in the best case scenario, that there was still time to warn everypony before it was too late. Even if it was too late, she wouldn’t know what to do next until she figured out what the situation was on the other islands.
In any case, it wasn’t all that long before Rarity soon found herself just outside of the archipelago, without having spotted a single mummy. Whatever they had done at the atoll, they hadn’t decided to bring the old avatar’s body back here. Otherwise, she was certain she would have seen something during the trip back, but the sand and coral had been clean and bare, only home to lethargic fish and sea life lying low until the sun rose again. And now that she was back at the archipelago, she noted that it sounded entirely natural, calm, still. The nocturnal wildlife still made its usual noises, and the beaches were clean and pristine. If she hadn’t known better, she could have easily made the assumption that nothing had changed since she last was here, several days ago.
But now she was faced with another dilemma. The tomb was in the heart of the islands, separated from the shore by narrow channels that were too shallow to swim in. Rarity supposed she could have flown all the way to the tomb, but she still didn’t trust her ability to fly yet. The absolute last thing she needed was to fall down on the trees and get stuck on land, unable to make it back to water, and slowly dry out come the morning sun. She could try and crawl through the channels to get as close to the tomb as possible, but that would take too long. She needed to find out if Rainbow was safe now, and if she was, then they needed to move back to the home island immediately. She couldn’t afford to waste more time. But how could she let them know she was here?
She slapped herself just below her antennae when she realized the obvious answer. “You’re a siren, Rarity. Sing!” she said, chastising herself. After all, siren song could be heard for miles across the sea. Surely, Rainbow and the others would hear her if she started singing now.
Pulling herself onto the beach until she could lie on her belly, Rarity turned her head toward the center of the islands, took a deep breath, and bellowed out a few notes. There wasn’t really a song she had in mind, but so long as she could make a loud enough noise and make it sound like song so the others knew it was her, then she could attract their attention. She slowly picked her way up and down a scale, feeling her whole body shake as she sang as loud and as hard as she could, stopping every few seconds to draw in a deep breath and start singing again.
Her efforts were rewarded a minute later when Stargazer flew out of the trees to investigate. Upon seeing Rarity, the stallion immediately swooped down to her eye level, surprise written plainly across his face. “Rarity?” he asked. “What are you doing here? I thought you would be at the atoll with Melody!”
“We have a problem,” Rarity breathlessly said. “Is everypony okay? I need you to bring them all to the beach, now!”
Stargazer flew back a few feet and raised his hooves. “Woah, okay, everypony’s fine. What’s all this about?”
“I’ll explain when you come back!” Rarity said, her tail impatiently splashing through the water. “But there’s no time to lose. Hurry!”
“Alright, alright! Be back in a second!” Without anything further, the pegasus turned around and bolted back through the trees, shouting for Rainbow and Champagne the entire time. Rarity watched him go until she couldn’t see him anymore, and began digging through the sand with her hooves. Every single second counted, and they had already lost too many as it was.
But if she made it to the archipelago, then Melody should have made it to the home island by now…
Gyro had lost the energy to move about the raft. Once her tears had drained her body of whatever spirit it had left, she’d collapsed on the raft with her forelegs dangling into the water. She figured she couldn’t stand even if she wanted to, she was so drained. And she certainly didn’t want to.
Coals… why had the dumb bastard done that?! Why couldn’t he have just jumped onto the raft with her? Why couldn’t she have helped him in some way? Why, why, why… Why couldn’t she stop herself from thinking about it and tearing herself apart?
Because she loved him, that was why. After years apart, they’d finally gotten to spend a few days together. They’d finally gotten the chance to love one another. And then it all came falling apart in the blink of an eye. Why had they been left to fend for themselves on the island? Why didn’t anypony think something like this could happen? Why did something like this happen?
Why, why, why?
Gyro’s body shuddered and her eyes felt warm and puffy, but she didn’t have any tears left to shed. She wanted to shed more, wanted to never stop crying, but she physically could not anymore. There simply wasn’t anything left, as much as she wanted to cry herself dry, cry until she shriveled up and blew away like dust in the wind. How could fate be so cruel? Hadn’t she suffered enough?
“I don’t want to live anymore,” she mumbled aloud. What point was there to living? Coals had disappeared beneath the horde of mummies. She knew she likely wouldn’t see him again. And if the mummies were all over the island, then they must have devoured Rainbow Dash and the others as soon as they set hoof on the archipelago. The moon god had ripped them all to pieces, and now he’d won. It wouldn’t be too long before the barrier fell and he devoured the entire world in darkness. Gyro knew she was living on borrowed time, and now she wanted nothing more than to just cash out, to take her chips home and be done with it all. She’d already suffered enough—why drag it out any longer?
She managed to muster a little strength to drag herself closer to the edge of the raft. The currents had pulled it away from the island, safely out of reach of the mummies, and would continue to drag her away well into the night. Down below her, she could see the faintest shadows of corals dotting the sandy floor. Her legs were still too weak to work for very long, and she knew that if she pulled herself over the edge of the raft and exhaled, she’d sink to the bottom and that would be it. No more Gyro. No more suffering and misery. It was better than getting her heart ripped out by an evil alicorn and all the blood drained from her body for some kind of dark ritual. Just fall, exhale, inhale, and done.
Gyro swallowed hard and tensed at the edge of the raft. Her eyes shut and she tried to focus her thoughts inward. Should she try to savor these last breaths of life she’d ever draw? Should she look ahead to the afterlife? How do you prepare to die? She wished somepony with a little more experience could have been there to help walk her through it, but that would be asking for far too much, wouldn’t it?
To her surprise, the raft violently shook while she was still contemplating how to die. She shrieked in surprise and flailed about, which ultimately sent her toppling overboard. Immediately, she began to panic and kick for the surface, desperate to get above the water. Oh, she was wrong, so horribly wrong! She didn’t want to die! She changed her mind, she wanted to go back!
Something caught her from below, and soon Gyro found herself coughing up water on the deck of the raft. After heaving and clutching at her chest, Gyro winced and managed to raise her head off of the planks. Melody awkwardly swam in place close by the raft, her hooves held over her beak. “Sorry!” the siren said, shrinking back in shame. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to hit the raft like that and knock you off! Sorry, sorry, sorry!”
Gyro blinked and managed to force herself into a sitting position. “Melody? What the crap are you doing back here?”
“I needed to warn you!” Melody said, nervously rubbing her hooves together. “I needed to warn everypony! The mummies are on the loose! They had been to the atoll by the time Rarity and I got there, and they took the old avatar’s body! They could be anywhere now!”
Gyro sighed and hung her head. “Yeah… I noticed.”
Melody’s face paled and she sunk into the water until only her neck and head poked out of it. “Oh… I’m so sorry. What happened? Is everypony…?”
“I don’t know,” Gyro said. “Coals and I barely escaped from them when they ambushed us at the camp. We tried to flee in the raft but…” She shuddered and swallowed hard. “Only I was able to get away. They got Coals. They… they probably killed him, too. I don’t know.”
“Oh dear… And the others?”
Gyro could tell from the look in Melody’s eyes that she was hoping for some good news, any good news. “I hate to disappoint you, Melody, but I don’t know.” Gyro shrugged. “They were down in the shrine when the mummies arrived. If anything, they’re probably caught down there. I don’t think they’d survive it either.”
Melody frowned and looked toward the island. “At least some of them have to still be alive.”
“Why?” Gyro asked. “Why would those undead monsters keep any of them alive?”
“Because Rarity and I found something important when we were at the atoll,” Melody said. “The Ponynesians had done some kind of blood ritual to raise the barrier. They’d sacrificed ponies to do it. And I think the moon god needs ponies for his own rituals. You can’t sacrifice something that’s already dead.”
As horrible as it was, that statement put a tiny flicker of hope back in Gyro’s eyes. “You mean… Coals could still be alive?”
“I… I don’t know, Gyro,” Melody said. “But I don’t think the moon god is going to just kill anypony he might need for whatever he needs to do. Which means he’d only be capturing them and keeping them alive for his ritual.”
“So we can go save them!” Gyro exclaimed. She abruptly stood up on the raft, the weakness in her hind legs forgotten in the sudden burst of energy coursing through her veins. “We can go get them back! We can do this!”
Melody hesitated, then shook her head. “Not now,” she said. “We can’t. Not now.”
“Why?” Gyro protested. “Hot Coals is there, everypony’s there. We have to save them!”
“We can save them,” Melody said, “but on our terms. Look, all the pegasi are on the archipelago, right?”
Gyro slowly nodded her head. “Yeah… why?”
“Because how much do you want to bet that they need ponies of each race to perform their rituals?” Melody looked in the opposite direction, towards where the distant archipelago barely peeked above the horizon. “If all the pegasi are safe there, then they have to come to us. If they do that, they spread their forces out. And I know this moon spirit isn’t going to wait very long. We can fight them, Gyro. We can fight back. It’s our only chance of stopping this madness.”
Gyro hopelessly looked on at the home island. “But…”
“The only way,” Melody reiterated. “I can promise you that the avatar isn’t going to hurt any of their captives yet. Not until they get some pegasi. So until then, we have to play it safe.”
She moved around the raft and put her hooves on the east side. “Now, hold on. We’re going to go to the archipelago, and we can plan things out further there.”
Gyro wanted to protest some more, to try and convince Melody there was still a chance they could save Coals before they left. But she knew anything she said wouldn’t sway the siren. After all, Melody was right. It was the better solution, the better plan. It was the only way they could hope to stand a chance now that the forces of the moon god were on the loose.
It just didn’t feel right to leave him behind, though.
“How in the world did she actually sleep through that? It was loud enough to even wake me up!”
Rainbow grumbled and rolled over, covering her ears with her hooves. “Mmmrrfff… go awayyyyyyy,” she groaned, trying to block them out. “Just let me sleeeeeeep.”
She heard annoyed sighs coming from behind her, but she didn’t care. She was so unbelievably tired and she just wanted the voices to go away. “Hey, give me that stick, Champagne. I’ve got an idea.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” Hooves shifted behind Rainbow, and then a sharp sting bit into her flank. Yipping, Rainbow rocketed straight into the air, getting tangled in the palm fronds of the tree above her in the process. Now very much awake, Rainbow glared down at the ground, where she saw Champagne covering her mouth and Stargazer holding a switch between his teeth. Spitting it out, the stallion grinned up at Rainbow. “Now she’s awake!”
“What the friggin’ crap?!” Rainbow thrashed her way free of the palm fronds but didn’t manage to get her wings open in time, so she ended up falling to the ground and landing on her back. Champagne offered her a hoof to stand, which she gladly took, and she started rubbing at her now bruised shoulders while fixing a death glare on Stargazer. “What the hay was that for?! Can’t you let a girl sleep? I need to get my rest before my turn to watch!”
“You seriously didn’t hear that?” Stargazer slapped a hoof to his forehead. “Wow. I’m impressed, really.”
“Hear what?” Rainbow frowned at them. “A full marching band with seventy-six trombones?”
“The siren song,” Stargazer said. When Rainbow blinked in surprise, he shook his head. “Come on. Rarity’s waiting for you.”
“Rarity? What’s she doing here?” Rainbow’s posture straightened as she immediately became much more interested in what was happening on the islands. “I thought she was gonna be at the atoll until, like, tomorrow! Did she find something? What did she say?”
“Nothing, really,” Stargazer said, already taking wing with Champagne following shortly behind. “Just that she’d explain when we were all together.”
“Then what are we waiting for?!” Rainbow exclaimed, rocketing into the sky. “We gotta see her!”
Though she didn’t know exactly what direction Rarity had come to the island from, it didn’t take too much effort of her own to figure that out. All she had to do was fly upwards and scan the beaches until she found Rarity lying on the sand. With a pivot of her wings, Rainbow changed her momentum from flying upwards to flying down and out, and when she finally flared her wings right in front of Rarity’s nose, her sudden appearance caused the siren to rear back her head. “Rainbow?!” Rarity exclaimed in startled surprise. “Goodness, you frightened me!”
With Rarity no longer wildly moving her head about and Champagne and Stargazer arriving on the beach behind her, Rainbow dropped down onto Rarity’s beak. “I didn’t think you’d be here so soon!” Rainbow said. “What happened? What’s going on? Where’s Melody?”
“I’ll get to that in a second,” Rarity said, her eyes crossing at Rainbow. “But first, do you have to perch on my nose?”
Rainbow smirked at her. “It’s my new favorite perch! Can you really blame me?”
Rarity sighed and gently shook her head back and forth to not throw Rainbow from her beak. “I suppose not. I’m simply not a fan of crossing my eyes to look at you.”
Chuckling, Rainbow relented for Rarity’s sake and hopped off of her nose. Catching herself on her wings, Rainbow fluttered back a bit and let a frown seize hold of her features. “So, what’s up? What’s going on that’s so important?”
Rarity sighed, and her tail splashed the water in frustration. “The mummies are on the loose, Rainbow. Whatever you were doing here, it’s pointless.”
Rainbow blinked in surprise, and Champagne and Stargazer glanced at each other. “It’s… pointless?” That couldn’t be right. Rainbow shook her head in denial. “No, no, we blocked the door, see? Nothing came out! There’s no mummies on this island; if there were, I think we’d know by now!”
“There was a mummy or two in the sunken temple at the atoll,” Rarity said. “Sometime last night, they stormed it, collapsed part of the inside, and stole the corpse of their old avatar. I don’t know why or what they need it for, but it can’t be good. If the mummies are out…”
“Then Soft Step must also be loose,” Stargazer said. He turned to Rainbow and fidgeted in the sand. “We’re too late.”
Rainbow just couldn’t believe it. Was it already over? Had they already lost, and they didn’t know it yet? “That’s… oh crap. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. We gotta go! We gotta do something!”
“Do what, Rainbow?” Rarity asked, taken aback by the pegasus’ sudden outburst. “What can we do? I don’t even know what we should do!”
“We need to fly back home!” Rainbow said. “Fly back to the other island and help get ready to defend it! We can’t let Soft Step get to that shrine, otherwise it’s game over for all of us! We gotta rally with the others and stop her, someway, somehow!”
“What if we’re too late, Rainbow?” Champagne asked. “If the mummies hit the sunken temple last night, and they weren’t there tonight, then what if they’re already at the home island? What if they’ve already taken it over?”
“We’re not dead, are we?”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not too late,” Stargazer said. “Maybe they’re having the same problem we are, and they don’t know how to lower the barrier.”
Rainbow frowned at him. “So what, we just sit here with our hooves up our asses and wait?”
“We should at least wait until Melody comes back,” Rarity said. “She went to the home island to see what was happening there. She will be able to let us know what’s happening.”
“And what if she doesn’t come back?” Rainbow asked. “What then?”
Rarity looked down at the sand. “Then I don’t know, Rainbow,” she admitted. “I really, truly, don’t know.”
Soft Step stared down at the dais in front of her. Four islands, each perfectly carved, stood up from the raised surface, perfect down to the last detail—at least in how they had looked centuries ago. Time and the elements had taken its toll on some of the islands, but their representations were still mostly right. Almost perfect. Just like her new body.
Her slit eyes narrowed on the representation of the archipelago. She found herself cursing fate and her luck. By some unfortunate twist, all the pegasi had doubled back to His tomb after she had already brought all of her forces out of it. Here she was, with nearly everything she needed to complete the ritual, but now she was one critical piece short. How could she come so close only to fail right at the very end?!
She hissed and turned around, glaring at Ratchet. The stallion’s breath was labored and his limbs spasmed, though no harm had been done to his body. His body was the important part, but his mind meant nothing. With His power, it had been trivial to tear through his memories until she found the plan he’d crafted with the rest of the wretched cattle before the moon had risen. Now, Soft Step knew exactly where the pegasi had gone, but that didn’t make things any less complicated.
It had taken all the previous night to march her thralls out from the archipelago and to the sunken temple, and even longer to move them here. The group she’d sent to the temple still had yet to return with the previous avatar’s corpse, but she could sense that they were getting close. It would probably take another half hour for them to arrive, and then the body would be safely inside the shrine. She could sense that there still had to be another four hours of moonlight left before the horrid sun would strip away His power again and leave her and her army helpless for the day. But it was too late to go back now. She’d already made her presence known and had most of what she needed to complete the ritual. If she took too long, then it would all be over. Those sirens would kill her while she was helpless under the sun, and then He would never be able to be reborn.
But what did she do? Though she could hear His voice whisper in her mind, He hardly gave her any concrete directions or plans. The initiative to act was all on her, and she knew she couldn’t afford to fail him. Logically, the safest plan would be to take some of her army and attack the archipelago, hopefully distracting and overwhelming the sirens so she could pluck two pegasi from their midst. But she didn’t have the time to bring them back with her. It would take them far too long. Herself, on the other hoof…
She tapped her chin in thought. With His powers, traveling to the archipelago and back would be trivial. The downside would be that she would be all by herself versus two sirens and three pegasi. If it had just been the pegasi, there would have been no difficulty in taking them on by herself. But the sirens necessitated extra force. And if she was leaving her army behind in the sake of speed…
An idea struck her, and she smiled, revealing all of her sharp teeth. With His power, she didn’t need to bring her army with her, only make a new one on the archipelago. And though she had emptied the tomb of all of His faithful soldiers, there were still plenty corpses left on the archipelago that she could raise. There wouldn’t be many, but there would be enough to catch the survivors by surprise. They were expendable, and it was all she needed to complete her plan.
Yes… that would work perfectly…
“Keep an eye on them,” she ordered her thralls, gesturing to her captives in the room. “If they move, break their legs. If they talk, rip out their tongues. Just don’t kill them. I need them all.”
She began to walk down the hall, stopping when she heard water beginning to lap at the stairs below her. That was good. If the tide was coming in, then that would help hamper any escape or rescue attempts. And, if worse came to worst, she had an extra unicorn beaten down and secure above the island. Unfortunately, the other earth pony had gotten away, but she was a cripple. Dragging her back later wouldn’t be too much of a problem. But that was at least comforting to her; she had a spare each of the different races, and her own blood would be enough to complete the ritual regardless. There was no stopping her now.
Grinning, her body dissolved into the shadows, until only the ghostly glow of her eyes and teeth remained. Then those too disappeared, leaving nothing but the pitch darkness of the hidden shrine behind.
-----
Gyro wasn’t sure if she preferred riding the raft with Rarity or with Melody. While Rarity’s method of propulsion had certainly been unique, Melody simply powered through with sheer muscle force alone. In the end, they both moved the raft at roughly the same speed, though Rarity’s was probably smoother than the rhythmic rocking of the raft as Melody paddled her tail to move it.
Over the course of the journey, she’d managed to calm herself at least somewhat with regards to Coals. Though it had pained her beyond measure to simply leave without him, she at least tried to take solace in what Melody had said. Soft Step and the moon god needed Coals for their ritual, and it wouldn’t be complete until they had some pegasi to perform it with, right? Until then, he would be safe. But if Soft Step managed to get ahold of two of their pegasi, of Rainbow and one other…
She pushed those thoughts away. She couldn’t think about them now. All they’d do is sap her strength and leave her even more of a shivering wreck than she already was. Coals was gone, but he was hopefully safe. All she needed to do was persevere until she could find herself in his arms again. It was all she needed to do, and Celestia willing, she could find the strength to do it.
But it would be even better if Celestia herself could somehow magically appear and solve all their problems for them…
Yet Gyro knew that would never happen. The stakes were clear, and the situation had been carved in stone. They were on their own until they solved this one way or another. Until that barrier fell, all of Equestria would think they were dead. There was nothing they could do about it. Maybe one day she’d see home again, but that day was not today.
“We’re nearly there,” Melody announced, and Gyro turned her attention from her hooves to in front of her. True enough, the mountain of the archipelago loomed out of the sea, and if she squinted, she thought she could see Rarity’s glowing white body in the light of the moon. It at least let her relax some. If she was here, then she was safe enough for the time being. There wouldn’t be any moon mummies ripping her brains out or strapping her down to some sort of stone altar to meet her end on the tip of a bloody knife. She had survived the horrors of the home island, and now she could reap her reward: safety and a chance to rest and relax, however brief it might be.
It wasn’t that much longer before Melody beached the raft on the sand, and Gyro loosely dragged herself off. Almost immediately, she was beset by the worried embraces of the pegasi who had flown to the island. They all asked about what had happened to her, where Coals was, what the situation back home was. But she couldn’t answer that. Only Melody could, for Gyro was too busy trying to hold back a fresh wave of tears and remain strong enough to resist crumpling into a tiny ball of misery.
And then Rainbow Dash held her and told her it would be alright.
Gyro wasn’t sure if she could believe her… but she was at least willing to try.
Rarity blinked in surprise, her mouth slightly agape. “Lost? What do you mean?”
Melody sighed and let her gaze fall to the sand. “Exactly that. When I got to the home island, I found Gyro floating in the currents on a raft. She told me exactly what happened. The mummies attacked the home island and they took Hot Coals. The place is crawling with them, and where they are, I fully expect their master to be with them.”
Rarity slapped her tail through the water, using the corner of her flipper to anxiously scrape through the sand just below the waves. “And what about the others?” she asked. “Ratchet, Ruse, Gauze, even that dreadful pirate, Flag… what happened to them?”
“If I were to take a guess, they’re trapped in the shrine beneath the island,” Melody said. “There’s only one way in and one way out. If the moon god’s avatar blocked the entrance after they were inside, they aren’t coming back out.”
“They might be able to fight their way out,” Rainbow Dash said, off to the side. The ponies had all gathered on the beach, the three pegasi surrounding Gyro as she shivered and tried to steady herself now that she was safely away from the mummies and back on solid ground. Rainbow in particular had her wings wrapped around Gyro to try and calm her and be supportive, while Champagne and Stargazer lent their company as well.
“How would they fight their way out of that?” Champagne asked. “I was down there with you. It was just one long and narrow hallway after another. The rocks collapsed in the middle would be easy to defend from both sides.”
Rainbow helplessly shrugged. “I don’t know. But they helped fight off the mummies when they almost got out of this tomb! And Flag’s a pirate, he has a lot of experience fighting and killing stuff?”
“But how do you kill something that’s already dead?” Stargazer asked. “When we fought the mummies, smashing their heads in only slowed them down.”
“Then… I don’t know. But they have to have thought of something!”
Melody shook her head. “In any event, we can’t afford to count on it. We can only rely on what we know and what we can do from here. I think… I think this is it. Whatever happens tonight is going to determine if we live to go home or die before darkness swallows the world.”
Rarity felt her scales crawl. “That’s… certainly one way of putting it without laying on the pressure, isn’t it?”
“I think it’s good to know where the stakes are,” Melody said. “I’ve waited decades for this opportunity to leave. One way or another, I’m just happy to finally have it resolved.”
“Yeah, but like, while that’s nice and all, what’s the plan?” Rainbow Dash asked. Her ear flicked as she looked back and forth between the two towering sirens in front of her. “What do we do next? Did you guys figure out anything interesting while you were at the atoll?”
“A few things, but not much,” Rarity said. “We saw some panels that depicted how the figurines were made. They harvested some essence of each race into the figurines, and they used the old avatar’s head to make the crystal one. But I’m not sure how that helps us.”
“It helps us in that we know what this new avatar is trying to do,” Melody said. “The essences of the different pony races went into crafting those figurines. Now all those figurines are back in one place, but nothing has changed. Obviously, we were missing some ingredient, and I think the avatar knows what the solution is. That’s why she stormed the islands… and it’s also why nothing has happened yet.”
Rarity tried to think about what it could mean, but to her surprise, Rainbow Dash was the first one to perk up in sudden realization. “She needs us for it,” she said. “That’s gotta be what it is.”
“Hmm?” Rarity cocked her head to the side. “Whatever do you mean?”
“It’s like in a Daring Do book,” Rainbow said. “All sorts of places like this need pony sacrifices, right? And if the four statues were made with the ‘essence’ of each race, I’m betting that there was some blood involved.”
“It’s blood magic?” Stargazer asked. Realization and worry dawned on his face as well. “And there were earth ponies and unicorns back on the other island, and if the mummies got the old avatar’s body from the atoll…”
“We’re the missing piece,” Champagne concluded. She looked at Rarity in horror. “Soft Step needs us to finish whatever it is she’s doing.”
“That’s what I believe,” Melody said. “At the very least, it makes the most sense. Which also means that the others on the island should be safe for the time being. The moon god’s avatar isn’t going to start the ritual until she has everything she needs, otherwise it wouldn’t work. Which means she’s going to come for you.”
Rainbow Dash shuddered as Melody’s eyes fell on her. “I guess even dark moon spirits want my autograph, too.”
“I think they just want your blood, Rainbow,” Stargazer said. “Maybe your heart.”
“So what do we do?” Rarity asked. “How do we stop her?”
Melody tilted her head back and narrowed her eyes at the moon hanging overhead. “They’re all thralls of the moon,” she said. “I don’t know for certain, but it would at least make sense that the avatar derives her powers from the moonlight and the night sky. If the moon goes away… if we survive until daylight…”
“Then she’ll be weakened!” Rainbow exclaimed. “She’ll be weakened and we can deal with her easy! And once we do that, we don’t have to worry about any of this crap ever again!”
“But we’d need to be able to take care of things when the daylight comes,” Stargazer said. “If she merely goes into hiding when the moon goes down and we can’t find her, then she’ll come back tomorrow night and we’ll be doing this all over again. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t think we can keep this up for very long.”
“Right.” Melody frowned. “As the night goes on, we’ll have to start looking into finding where she is. We need to know where she retreats to when the moon goes down so we can deal with her then.”
“And what if she just comes right to us?” Rarity asked. “She likely knows where the pegasi are if she’s taken the others captive. Do you think she’ll risk everything and come here?”
“The way I see it, she’s already gotta,” Rainbow said. “We thought she couldn’t escape that tomb until the full moon came again, and she proved that wrong. She’s shown us that she can still do stuff, and all she needs is the moon. Right now, she’s got the drop on all of us, and if I were her, I wouldn’t want to waste this opportunity. I probably wouldn’t get another one.”
“So we can expect her to come here in some fashion,” Melody said. “If she does, then we have to deal with her. Whatever happens, we can’t let her get any of the pegasi. If she does, it’s game over.”
Rarity knew immediately how Rainbow would take to that, even before the pegasus balked and bristled at the suggestion. “You’re saying we should just run away?” she asked, taking her wings off Gyro and standing up. “While you go and deal with her yourself?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Melody said. “Between myself and Rarity, I think we can keep the avatar contained. But if she gets ahold of you, it’s all over. There’s nothing we can do.”
“But we can’t just fly away,” Stargazer said. “Our wings our exhausted. We won’t even be able to make it to the next island over before we collapse into the sea.”
“Couldn’t you hide on the clouds?” Rarity asked.
“With the moonlight on our backs?” Champagne asked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Soft Step could sense where we were then.”
“And we can’t shape them easily,” Rainbow said. “We can’t even craft a little platform under the clouds to hide from the moon in. It took us a crapload of effort just to break a piece off to try and cover the door.”
Gyro suddenly perked up. “We have the raft,” she said. “You could use that to get away from here.”
“It’s true,” Melody said with a nod. “All I have to do is push you out to sea a bit, and then you can wait it out over there. So long as you stay beneath the clouds, you should be fine.”
Rainbow still frowned down the length of her muzzle. “I don’t like running and hiding. We should be helping you somehow.”
“You’ll be helping us by not being here,” Melody said. “We can’t let you get caught.”
Rainbow opened her mouth to protest, but Rarity leaned forward and lowered her head to Rainbow’s level. “Please, just do as Melody asks, darling,” she said. “It’s the only way to do this safely. Her and I can handle Soft Step and whatever else she throws at us.”
“I don’t like it.” Rainbow huffed and refused to meet Rarity’s eyes. “If something happens to you—!”
“We’ll be fine, Rainbow,” Rarity cooed. “I promise. Just… do this for me… won’t you?”
Rainbow chewed on her lip while everypony else watched her. Ultimately, however, she sighed and let her wings droop. “Okay, fine,” she said, reluctantly agreeing. “I’ll do the stupid plan. But if something goes wrong—!”
“We won’t put our lives in any more danger than we have to,” Melody said. “All we need to do is keep the avatar delayed and occupied until the moon goes down and the sun comes up. If we can do that, then it’s over. We’ve won.”
“It’s our only chance,” Rarity repeated. “And our best one. You don’t have to like it, but I’m going to trust Melody. I know she’ll get us through this.”
“I… I guess.” Rainbow hung her head. “Just be super safe and stuff, ‘kay? I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
Rarity smiled and moved her beak in to gently rub against Rainbow’s cheek. “I will be,” she said. “We’re going back home together, I promise.”
“I’ll… hold you to it,” Rainbow said. Taking in a shuddering breath, she closed her eyes and leaned against Rarity’s snout. “I love you, Rares.”
“I love you too, Rainbow.” They held the tender moment, and then Rarity reluctantly pulled her head away. Then, pointing to the raft, she nodded. “Let’s get this loaded up and out to the sea. We likely don’t have that much time before Soft Step gets here.”
Rainbow Dash glared at the raft resting on the shore while Stargazer and Champagne loaded it with supplies to last the night. While she would normally be the first to help with moving supplies, they were traveling light enough that there wasn’t much more than what two ponies could handle, and besides, she still felt sore about being pressured into the plan. She wanted to stay and help fight, to help protect Rarity and Melody from Soft Step and whatever dark powers the alicorn could wield. But it was simply too risky of an endeavor, and Melody was right, anyway. If Soft Step captured her, then it could all be over. Their only chance to survive was to run and hide until daylight, then try and clean up the mess before the moon rose again.
“I don’t like it any more than you do.”
Rainbow’s ear perked, and she turned to the side, where Gyro lay next to her. The gray mare’s eyes seemed dull and defeated, and her movements were slow and sluggish as she stared out over the water to the east. “They took Coals from me,” the engineer continued. “He was too exhausted from being in a coma for so long that he hardly had the strength to put the raft in the water. Almost as soon as he pushed it past the waves, the mummies got him. I couldn’t see what happened next… but Melody promises that he’s still alive.” She drew little circles in the sand with her hoof. “If he is, then I want to do nothing else but sail right back to him and rescue him in some impossible way. If he isn’t… fuck, I don’t know.”
Gyro sighed and let her shoulders sag but said no more. Instead, Rainbow brushed a wingtip over them and patted her back. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, girl,” Rainbow said. “Tomorrow morning, you’ll get to see him again. It’ll be good!”
“I’m certain I’ll see him one way or another…” Gyro frowned and pursed her lips. “Hey, Rainbow?”
“Hmm?”
“Even if we do win… if we do defeat Soft Step somehow… how are we going to get home?”
Rainbow blinked. “I… I’m sure we’ll find a way, somehow.”
“Because it sounds to me like she’s trying to do the same thing we’re trying to do,” Gyro continued. “She wants to lower the barrier as well. Only, she’s trying to collect everything she needs for pony sacrifices.” A look of deep concern flashed across her face. “What if… what if that’s the only way to lower the barrier? What if ponies have to die for it?”
Rainbow felt her face pale. Gyro had a good point. If the barrier had been raised on some kind of blood sacrifice, and Soft Step was trying to push a blood sacrifice to lower it… Would that mean they’d still have to kill ponies to lower the barrier even after she’d been defeated? Rainbow recoiled from her own thoughts. They were too horrible to think about, but what if they were right? Would she have to kill her friends to go home? Would it even be worth it at that point?
“There has to be another way,” Rainbow said, as much to placate Gyro as to assure herself. “We’re not going to start sacrificing each other just to go home. There’s no way I’m gonna let that happen.”
“And what if it’s the only way to go home?” Gyro asked.
“Then we’ll… we’ll…” Rainbow nervously chewed on her lips. “We’ll not worry about it for now,” she concluded, abruptly trying to steer the conversation away from that topic. “It’s not gonna matter unless we defeat Soft Step tonight. Heck, Stargazer was right. If she just lies low and we can’t put a stop to this tonight, we’re doubly screwed tomorrow. She can keep this up almost forever now that she’s out of that tomb. We can’t.”
Gyro nodded once. “So I guess this is it, then,” she said. “All our eggs are in this one basket.”
“We don’t really have a second basket to put some in,” Rainbow said. “It’s really all or nothing tonight.”
“Well then…” Gyro lightly smirked and imitated a salute to Rainbow. “Regardless of what happens, it’s been an honor serving with you, Captain Rainbow.”
Rainbow snickered and shook her head. “Couldn’t have done it without you, grease monkey.”
The two mares shared a few giggles, reveling in the brief levity of the situation. They both knew it simply wouldn’t last that much longer, and it was better to try and enjoy the few moments of peace they had left now before they could only watch helplessly from afar, wondering if Rarity and Melody would be up to the task of stopping Soft Step or not. It truly was the calm before the storm. Rainbow didn’t know if a saying had ever resonated with her as much as that one tonight.
But even those moments had to come to an end. Rainbow spied Champagne slowly trotting over to them from the raft, and she preemptively stood up, already knowing that they were ready to move out. She offered her hoof to help Gyro stand, and the mare gladly took it. Together, the two mares trudged across the sand, joining up with Champagne and then assembling around the raft.
Rarity waited in the water next to it, and her fin paddled back and forth in anxious anticipation. While the pegasi and Gyro climbed on, she looked around, inhaling a deep breath through her nostrils. “This is it, then,” she said once they were all on. “It all comes down to tonight.”
Rainbow nodded and sat down on the raft, looking up at the night sky above them. “How many days have we been here?” she asked. “How many has it been?”
Rarity could only shrug. “A few more than fifty, I think,” she said. “I forget what we had marked on the calendar.”
“Fifty…” Rainbow chuckled and flopped onto her back. “Fifty-some days on this island. And here I thought that we’d be rescued in two weeks, tops.”
“Nopony could have known about what we were getting ourselves into,” Rarity said.
“True enough. But I swear to you, Rares, we’re getting out of here.” She sat up again, her restless limbs preventing her from simply settling into a comfortable position. “We’re not gonna spend sixty days trapped here with no hope of getting home. We’re finishing this once and for all, and then we’ll get to see our families again. I promise.”
Rarity returned her a soft smile. “I believe you,” she said. “We just have one more night of hardship left to contend with.” She looked over her shoulder at Melody idly floating in the water a bit from the shore and sighed. “Ready? Melody is going to need me to help keep watch.”
“No,” Rainbow said, frowning at the beach, “but we’ll do it anyway.”
Rarity nodded and dragged the raft out of the sand while the four ponies on board held on tight. Then, guiding it through the waves, she maneuvered it into calmer waters past the breaking point of the waves and began to swim.
Rainbow’s eyes remained locked on Melody as she gradually drew farther and farther away. She wondered if, when it was all over, she’d regret not speaking to the siren one last time.
Parting with the raft had been hard. While Rarity had wanted to do nothing more but stay at the raft with Rainbow and the others, she had to leave them to the mercy of the currents to rejoin Melody. After all, she and Melody were the first line of defense, as well as the last. If they couldn’t stop Soft Step from getting to the pegasi, then all was lost.
Melody didn’t turn her head to the side when Rarity glided over to her. Her eyes remained locked on the east, waiting for any sign of movement in the dark sky or on the rolling black waves. “Are they safe?” she asked, not even looking at Rarity.
Rarity sighed and nodded. “They are,” she said. “They’re drifting out to the west end of the islands. As far away from it all as they can get.”
“Good.” Melody slouched and she scratched at her beak. “Now it’s on us to stay vigilant until daybreak.”
Just the mere mention of how long they had to stay alert made Rarity yawn. When Melody shot her a look, she sank into the water. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just… just tired. It’s been a long night.”
The green siren nodded her head in agreement. “Yeah, it has been very long. We swam to the atoll and back, and now we have to stay awake for four hours or so. Trust me, I would like nothing more than to sleep, too.”
Rarity rolled onto her back, idly floating on the surface of the water. “At least between the two of us, she should be easy to spot, right?”
“Maybe not,” Melody said. “I don’t know what kind of powers she has. But hopefully we can at least spot her army coming across the seafloor. That will be the best indicator if she’s coming or not.”
“Assuming she even brings them with her,” Rarity said. “It certainly takes a while to fly or swim between these islands. I imagine waiting for a horde of mummies to clumsily shuffle their way across the sand would take much longer.”
“Good point.” Melody shrugged and stretched her legs. “Then if it’s just her, this will be easier to handle. Not having to fight a horde of mummies at the same time will be a bonus.”
“Not that they’d be much of a threat to us, right?” Rarity ran a hoof over the scales on her chest. “Our armor would be too thick and strong for their teeth.”
“That’s the hope, but who knows if they’ve been magically augmented in some fashion.” Melody frowned at the reflection of the moonlight on the water. “I wish that I had seen this alicorn before and gotten to see what she was capable of. We’re trying to fight a very dangerous foe blind. We will have to be very cautious.”
Rarity hummed her agreement. “At least we only need to delay her until daybreak,” she said. “Then we can take care of this much more peacefully.”
“Yes, but if I see an opening to finish this, I’m going to take it,” Melody said.
Rarity blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if she lets her guard down and I have a chance, I’m going to kill her.” At Rarity’s look of horror, Melody frowned. “I know that she was a friend of yours, once. But she’s a slave to an evil deity now. She won’t hesitate to kill us, and if we aren’t careful, she will. And if she dies, then we stop all of this. We can lock her away and stop the moon god from threatening us again.”
“But she’s just an innocent pony caught up in the middle of this!” Rarity protested. “She doesn’t deserve death! If we can save her, then we must!”
Melody looked like she wanted to say more, but she stayed her tongue. “The important thing is that Soft Step doesn’t get to them,” she finally said. “We can at least agree on that.”
“Right.” Rarity slowly nodded, but she could already feel the conflict of interests growing between them. She wanted to find some way to peacefully subdue Soft Step in the hopes of saving her later. Melody just wanted to rip the pony apart and put a permanent end to this, once and for all. But Rarity had to believe that there was another way. If Soft Step had been transformed, then she could be reverted. Somehow. She just didn’t know how, yet.
For the time being, at least, she turned her attention to the east. None of this would matter if the alicorn simply managed to slip by her and Melody while they were talking. All she needed to do now was remain vigilant and slowly count down the hours until daylight.
She covered her beak with a hoof as she yawned. That, unfortunately, was much, much easier said than done.
-----
The shadows moved, shifted, curled, coalesced—and finally formed into a silhouette. Soft Step swayed as her hooves became solid and made contact with the ground, a momentary flicker of vertigo upsetting her balance. Dissolving into shadow, though a gift granted to her by Him, was far from natural. She needed more practice, but it had worked well enough. It certainly had been more than enough to slip by the two sirens floating in the water, supposedly on the lookout for her.
She scoffed. What clueless creatures. For all their strength and beauty, they were no match for Him. If she wanted to, she could rend them apart with just a fraction of His power. But unfortunately, that was all she had: a mere fraction, and a painfully small one at that. So long as the ritual remained unfinished, the bulk of His otherworldly power remained locked away, sealed in a dimension beyond the material plane of the world. It was up to her to bridge the gap and unlock it, and then her work would finally be finished.
But to do that, she had to find the pegasi. She looked around the ruins of the tomb and listened with keen ears, but she neither heard nor saw anything. At the very least, she had figured the rainbow-maned one would have stuck out easily, but there was nothing. Which, she supposed, made sense. If the two sirens had gone to high alert trying to spy her approach from the shrine, then that meant they must have known she was coming. If so, then they had to have known what she was coming for. The pegasi had disappeared, but where to, she couldn’t say.
But she knew who she could ask to find out…
Of course, that involved subduing a siren. Even with all her power, that was no easy task. Their songs were dangerous, their armor too tough to tear through with her teeth, and their beaks large enough to snap clean through her waist in a single bite. She could take them on alone, but it would be dangerous. And she already had risked too much tonight in His plan.
Which was why she needed her reinforcements.
Closing her eyes, she felt out through the island, tapping into the shadows and darkness that blanketed everything, both above and below the ground. She could feel numerous bird and primate skeletons, along with the carcasses of other wildlife—all useless to her. She needed something more. Sure, there were the rotting corpses of the pirates and the survivors scattered around her, and many of those would certainly be useful. If their horns or wings were intact, then they could use some of their magic, or at least, whatever they had left in their bodies. But would it be enough to fight off a siren?
Then she felt something lying a bit further from the ruins. A body with great power still in its bones. She recognized the pirate captain immediately from the unique aura still clinging onto her corpse. She had been trained in powerful, almost forgotten magic. Magic like that doesn’t just go away. Magic like that leaves its mark on the bones and the horn.
Spreading her wings, Soft Step took off and began to fly in that direction. The right corpse was worth a thousand of the wrong corpses, and in the remains of the pirate who called herself Squall, Soft Step knew she’d found her champion.
With that kind of magic on her side, fighting sirens would be a breeze.
Rainbow Dash glared at the receding archipelago in frustration. It didn’t feel right to sit this one out. An important fight that would decide the fate of the islands and the rest of the world was about to happen out there, and she was stuck on a raft, missing it. It didn’t seem right to be trapped out here, unable to help Rarity and Melody fight off a very, very dangerous foe.
But they were sirens, right? Surely they had to be able to handle a rogue alicorn without all of her powers. Rainbow didn’t know what a siren like Melody could do with her songs, but it had to be something that could stop Soft Step. After all, she’d seen her shape stone with a few notes like it was nothing. What could she do to an alicorn with an entire arrangement?
Forget actually participating in the fight; now Rainbow just wanted to push the raft closer to the sirens so she could watch the concert.
Still, that did little to stop her internal bemoaning of the here and now. They didn’t even have their oars with the raft—Gyro and Coals had forgotten them in their desperate bid to escape the island—and so were at the mercy of the currents. Right now, the currents pulled them away from the archipelago, dragging them closer to the stream that ran through the islands from north to south. Rainbow wondered if they’d make it to the atoll or even past it by the time the sun rose and the threat was over. She certainly hoped that the sirens would be able to rescue them after fighting Soft Step. Otherwise, she didn’t know what would happen if they drifted to the barrier surrounding the islands. Of course, by that point, they could just fly to the nearest landmass, and the three of them with wings could carry Gyro between them. It would just be terribly inconvenient to do so.
Sighing, Rainbow took some of their water and stole a quick sip, then rolled onto her back on the raft. Thankfully, since she and Rarity had used ten tree trunks to make it, it was more than spacious enough to fit four ponies. Maybe she could try and catch some sleep—though she knew there was almost no chance of that happening. She doubted she’d be able to sleep until daybreak, for only then would it finally be safe enough to do so.
Hopefully Rarity would be alright. Melody, too, but Rarity was the one Rainbow was more worried about. Not only because she feared for her lover, but doubly so because Rarity didn’t know how to fight as a siren. Unfortunately, the fashionista’s surprising experience with judo and other martial arts wouldn’t help her that much without her legs. At least she had siren song to compensate for it.
Growling, Rainbow shut her eyes and tried to meditate. There wasn’t anything she could do from here; all she could try to do now was wait and rest.
-----
Soft Step settled down on a mound of sand overlooking the edge of a ruined camp. She’d never seen the pirates’ camp in her past life, instead retreating the opposite direction with the other survivors when it was clear they couldn’t hold His tomb anymore. But it was in a very sorry state after the rest of the survivors had raided it following Squall’s death. The simple huts and lean-tos the pirates had constructed had been destroyed, and sand covered everything. A great fight had taken place here, and Soft Step knew that it had to have been legendary to cause a unicorn with such a command over magic to fall.
She closed her eyes and felt with her magic, quickly locating the corpse she needed. Once she did so, she used her magic to push aside the sand and drag the body out of the ground. It had just started to rot and go foul, but most of the musculature was still intact, apart from growing areas of decay around the mare’s injuries. Soft Step idly spun the body this way and that, noting how much damage the mare had absorbed. She’d even cauterized a deep wound during the middle of the fight by the looks of it, before a well-placed pistol shot had finally brought her down. She had been a tough and stubborn fighter, that much was for sure. That kind of resilience would make her an excellent servant of His army.
There was no ceremony or ritual for what happened next. Soft Step’s eyes glowed with powerful magic, and the pirate’s body began to twitch. Dead muscles started to pull at seized joints, and still lungs hacked up sand and silt. The unicorn body growled and moaned, and slowly began to clutch at the magic holding it aloft.
Soft Step unceremoniously released the reanimated corpse onto the ground, where it slowly began to stand. Glassy eyes blinked, and the mare held a leg in front of her face. After staring at it for several seconds, she summoned up words in a gravely, hoarse voice. “Everything is so cold…”
“You will find the warmth in His service,” Soft Step simply stated, eyeing the mare over. “He has need of you.”
The mare coughed again and slowly moved. “Why am I alive?” she asked. “Why am I back?”
“You had only recently died,” Soft Step said. “Dragging your soul back was trivial. Now, His magic flows through me, and it binds you to this world in His service. I have need of your magic.”
Squall frowned at her body. “And what if I tell you to fuck off, you two-bit Nightmare Moon wannabe, and just let me enjoy being fucking dead?”
Soft Step frowned at the mare in front of her. She had expected her to be more grateful for using His magic to reanimate her. Perhaps she had expected too much from a thug. “Then I rend your soul into dust and you will embrace oblivion,” she threatened. “There will be no afterlife for you. Yet, if you serve Him and aid me, then you will be amply rewarded.”
Squall rubbed the back of her neck, her hoof catching on the bullet hole in her flesh. “Help me fuck up those cunts who killed me,” she said, a grimy smile forming from her split lips and spotted gums, “and I’ll serve this god of yours as long as he fucking wants. I can see a lot of advantages to being an undead pirate.”
That brought a fierce smile to Soft Step’s muzzle. “But of course,” she said. “He will have great use of you. But before we help you with that, I need your help taking down two bigger fish.”
Squall walked across the camp and let her horn crackle and glow, and a few seconds later, a knife flew out of the sand and into her grasp. “The fuckers took all my weapons, but they forgot one. It’ll work. How big we talking?”
“The biggest.” Soft Step let her fangs part for a moment. “Two sirens.”
“No shit?” Squall grinned and flipped the knife around. “Always wanted to kill one of them. Never got the chance. So, where are they?”
Soft Step beckoned with a wing. “Come,” she said, walking through the jungle. “I will show you.”
The green siren’s scaly ears perked. “Hmm? What is it?”
Rarity paddled in place, water running off of her face as she lifted it from the water. “Do you think it was a good idea to leave Rainbow Dash and the others on their own in the water?”
Melody frowned and grinded her beak in thought. “It’s probably the best idea we have,” she said. “We’re too noticeable from a distance. If we stayed with them, then the avatar could swoop in, pluck one or two off the raft, and disappear before we could even do anything. Their best bet is to remain hidden, far from the island, where she can’t find them.”
Rarity hummed and looked down at the faintly glowing stone in her chest. “I suppose you’re right. It just feels awful to leave them there, entirely alone, and hope that Soft Step finds us first instead of them… or that we can even capture her interest when she only needs pegasi, not us.”
“At the very least, we have the advantage in knowing where the pegasi went,” Melody said. “If she wants to figure out what happened to them, she can spend the rest of the night trying to comb over the islands, or she can come to us and try to force an answer from us directly. And I don’t think she has the time to spend on the former.” As she said that, Melody cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders. “Be vigilant. I bet we’re going to see her before this is all said and done.”
“And if we do get into a fight with her?” Rarity asked. “What is our plan?”
“We sing and fight dirty if we have to,” Melody said. “We can do many terrible things to her with our songs. Not even an alicorn should be able to resist them. If that fails, we use our teeth.”
Rarity frowned. “I don’t even know how to fight with song,” she said. “How do you do it? Are there any specific melodies you can teach me?”
Melody shook her head. “Not exactly,” she said. “Remember that you’re a siren, okay? Not a pony. Ponies mimic music. Sirens are music.” She smirked and bared her teeth a little. “All you have to do is open your mouth and sing. You’ll find the notes for whatever it is you’re trying to do, so long as it’s simple enough.”
“Maybe I should just stick to using my beak and hooves,” Rarity said. “That might be easier for all of us involved.”
“Regardless, if you see her begin to cast magic, shout it down with a high note,” Melody said. “The higher octaves snuff out spells fairly easily. I’m not sure if they’ll work against an alicorn, but it’s worth a try. More complicated spells might be too much to counter, though, so be careful.”
“And if we can’t win?”
“Then we lead her away from the raft,” Melody said. “It’s all we can do at that point.”
Rarity’s antennae suddenly began to pulse, and she clutched at their roots in her forehead. It was a feeling she hadn’t experienced yet as a siren, and it left her confused and disoriented. “What… what is that?” she managed to growl out through clenched teeth. A look to the side saw Melody wearing a similar pained frown on her face. “What’s happening?”
“Magic,” was Melody’s answer. “Powerful magic. And it came from behind us.”
“Behind us?” Rarity had to resist the urge to put pressure on her sensitive antennae in the vain hope of trying to squash out the unpleasant phenomenon. Thankfully, it passed in a few seconds, leaving her somewhat sick to her stomach, but at least allowing her to think again. Spinning about, she looked back at the archipelago, half-expecting it to simply not be there anymore, but very little had changed. Perhaps the moon was a little bit brighter, or maybe the shadows coating the island had darkened, but Rarity couldn’t spot any drastic changes. Yet she had felt the magic, and Melody had confirmed it as much.
“She must have gotten behind us,” Melody said. “I don’t know how. It must have been by magic.”
“Then I’m surprised we didn’t feel anything when she got past us,” Rarity said.
“It doesn’t matter now.” Melody began to swim back to the archipelago, and Rarity followed in right behind. “What matters now is that we have to deal with her.”
Rarity swallowed hard. “Right. This should be fun.” Sighing she added, “Just once, can I go on a vacation that doesn’t involve fighting a powerful threat to the world as we know it?”
“Are you kidding me? That sounds great.” Melody’s smirk was short-lived, however, and a frown of focus and concern instead took root on her face. “Though if I had some more experience and practice runs before this, however…”
They stopped at the edge of the island, staying safely in water deep enough for them to comfortably use their full range of motion. Rarity wondered if they should maybe work their way around the island or fly above it, but she wasn’t too keen on doing so, anyway. Besides, if they moved either closer to or away from the raft drifting out to sea, then that could put Rainbow and the others in even more danger. It was better if they stayed where they were, at least until they figured out what was happening.
They didn’t have to wait all that long for Soft Step to appear. The alicorn casually emerged from the trees, slit eyes practically glowing in the night, her fangs loosely exposed between parted lips. Rarity shrunk back in horror; she really did look like a Nightmare Moon facsimile, save for her naked, green coat and fiendishly curved horn. It didn’t take her all that long to realize the horn on her head was the one she had accidentally given blood to. And as Soft Step approached, Rarity felt a familiar dark presence hanging around the shadows, idling at the edges of her vision, prying through the cramped windows of her heart.
But not even Soft Step could do what the figure limping by her side could. Squall shuffled across the sand, dragging her wounded leg, yet easily keeping pace with Soft Step’s longer strides. The pirate captain looked even worse than how Rarity had left her so many days ago, with her coat turning thin and patchy, her skin and flesh slowly shriveling away, and her bloodied wounds turned brown and black. But Rarity knew for a fact that she’d killed Squall, and if she was here and at Soft Step’s side, the alicorn had obviously found a good reason to raise her from the dead.
“There you are,” Soft Step purred, stopping on the beach in front of the two sirens. “It was very rude of you to hide your pegasi. My master has need of them.”
“You’re not going to have them,” Melody said, frowning at the two ponies and baring her teeth. “This ritual of yours is going to fail.”
“You’re merely delaying the inevitable,” Soft Step said. “All I have to do is pry out of your minds where you sent the pegasi off to, and then I’ll have them. That’s how I knew they were here. Ratchet was very helpful in that regard.”
Rarity began to bristle. “If you’ve hurt them—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Squall cut in, her voice coarse and harsh. Rarity recoiled at the glare she gave her, and the pirate’s horn lit as she twirled a knife in her grasp. “So, you think you’re a big fish now after you killed me, huh? Don’t give me that look. I know a killer when I see one, no matter what mask she hides behind. I’m going to have fun cutting your new scales off.” She grinned at Soft Step. “Does your stupid god mind, or are you just going to let me work?”
Rarity saw the irritation on the alicorn’s face at the disrespect for her master, but she nodded anyway. “Slice her to ribbons for all I care,” she said, her eyes settling on Melody. “I know who’s really the mastermind behind this all.”
Melody arched her neck back like a cobra ready to strike. “Then let’s settle this, avatar. We’ll end this tonight, once and for all.”
“Spare me the dramatics. But yes,” Soft Step said, spreading her wings and taking flight. “Let’s.”
Soft Step was the first to move, violently ripping her wings through the air and rocketing across the shore to Melody in an attempt to close the distance before the siren could even begin singing. Melody kicked her tail out and launched herself backwards to try and maintain her distance, loosing an ear-splitting shout that quite literally sliced through the waves at Soft Step in return. The alicorn quickly jaunted to the side, avoiding the deadly scream, and climbed into the sky to get some more room to maneuver and attack.
Meanwhile, Rarity instinctively backed off, eyes warily watching Squall. She didn’t know how the undead pirate would fight her from the shore, especially if she could put some distance between herself and the beach. Squall seemed to consider this for a moment as well, but then her horn lit up and she simply galloped into the water. No, not into, Rarity soon realized—on top of the waves. Though the rolling swells would sometimes sweep up to the pirate’s chest and shoulders, she never seemed to lose her balance or her momentum. Whatever she was doing with her horn had allowed her to simply ignore the bothersome ocean as if it wasn’t even there.
And then Rarity felt pain lance through her tail fin, and a spike of sand roared out of the water, her translucent flipper impaled on it. Crying out in pain, Rarity immediately broke the sand spear with her leg, causing the entire thing to fall apart and free her. Squall charged out of the water, rising up on pillars of sand, her knife slicing for Rarity’s face, but she turned her beak into the weapon’s path, causing it to harmlessly glance off her armor. She opened her mouth and snapped at Squall, but the undead pirate flung herself backwards with her sand magic, and Rarity only snapped through a wall of salty sediment.
Growling, Rarity lunged forward, trying to press the attack and not give Squall any time to work her sand magic to attack her again. She had no qualms using her teeth and her sheer power against the pirate; she’d already killed her once, and apparently not well enough. Now, Squall wasn’t even technically alive. She was just a zombie, and if Rarity could mash her to paste with her teeth, then that would end the fight in one bite.
But Squall remained a surprisingly nimble opponent, using her magic to shape the sand and propel herself away from Rarity, remaining just out of reach. Occasionally, she would spin around and whip sand into Rarity’s eyes, though Rarity soon learned to counter it by holding her third eyelid shut over them to keep the sand out. When Rarity lunged at Squall again, the pirate simply dropped the sand she was standing on, falling below Rarity’s jaws, and slashing with the knife at her throat. Thankfully, Rarity’s armor was more than enough to resist a little knife, and the blade harmlessly bounced off of her scales.
Yet the blade was never the real danger, and Rarity realized that so long as she didn’t give Squall a chance to strike at her eyes, it couldn’t hurt her. The sand spikes, on the other hoof, were more problematic. Rarity lost sight of Squall when she dropped out of the air, and she frantically tried to regain sight of the pirate before she was attacked again. When she didn’t see her, Rarity instinctively jumped into the air, hovering above the ground to get a better look around. Almost as soon as she did so, several large razors of sand whipped out of the water, shredding the space she’d been swimming in into frothy ribbons. As the foam settled, Squall emerged from the water on a pillar of sand, glowering up at Rarity.
“When did fish learn how to fly?” the pirate growled in frustration.
Rather than trade one-liners and remarks with the pirate, however, Rarity took a deep breath and roared down at the pirate with an ear-splitting high note. She felt the draw of magical energy up through her chest and out her mouth, and the sand under Squall’s hooves started to drop into the sea. Apparently, not even undead were immune to pain like that; Squall flattened her ears against her head and cringed as Rarity bellowed at her. As the platform she stood on finally fell apart, Squall dropped back into the sea again.
Rarity stopped and placed a hoof over her chest. So that was what siren magic felt like? It made her feel powerful, and all she’d done was make Squall’s magic fall apart. What else could she do with her voice?
With a momentary break in her fight against Squall, Rarity quickly scanned around her to locate Melody and Soft Step. She found the two dueling almost a quarter mile away, having moved further from the island as they fought tooth and hoof with each other. Soft Step would occasionally pull knives made of darkness out of the shadow and try to rip through Melody’s armor, and the siren ran through quick scales and arpeggios to disintegrate them and strike back. As Rarity watched, Melody launched herself out of the water, stretched her cavernous maw open wide, and screamed what looked like almost a laser beam of raw magical energy at Soft Step, missing the mare only by virtue of her disintegrating into shadow and reappearing nearby.
Rarity blinked. She didn’t even know she could do that. But how?
A spike of sand pierced through the base of her tail, ripping her attention away from the distant fight and back to her own problems. Without her screaming note to smother Squall and her magic, the pirate had recovered enough to strike back and had managed to hit something solid. The surprise shock and pain was enough to break Rarity’s concentration and force her to fall, which only began to widen the hole ripped through her tail. Tears of pain fell from Rarity’s eyes, but thankfully her bodyweight broke the spike of sand, once again freeing her. She immediately caught herself and flew away as Squall summoned more spikes behind her, rising up into the air one after the other. She needed to regain some distance before she fought the pirate again, and fast.
A wall of sand rose up in front of Rarity, abruptly stopping her dead in her tracks. Rarity grunted and tried to push away from the wall, but it wrapped around her like a rolling wave, linking back together into one solid mass. Rarity writhed and squirmed in its grasp, trying to wriggle her way out like a fish, but it clamped down tight on her shoulders and bent her tall dorsal fin at an awkward and painful angle. While Rarity seethed and cried out in pain, Squall casually approached on rising pillars of sand. “Caught in a net,” she taunted as she drew nearer. Her magic rose her knife up in front of her face, and she drew her rotten tongue over her lips. “I’m going to enjoy gutting you,” she said, pressing the knife to Rarity’s nose. “And I’m going to take my time. It’s the least I can do to pay you back for all the pain you caused me.”
She hitched the point under a scale on Rarity’s nose and twisted, prying the piece of armor off and sending Rarity shuddering in pain. Squall picked it up, looked at it, and tossed it away with a smile. “One down,” she said, winking at her. “A million to go.”
A brilliant line of green emerald light lit up the night sky, casting stark shadows across the raft. Even after it faded, its afterglow remained burned onto the back of Rainbow’s eyes, persisting even when she blinked. Far, far away, a deadly battle raged, and the echoes of music occasionally clattered against the hull of the raft like little hailstones in the rain.
Rainbow could only watch the whole thing from afar in worry, unable to help as the raft drifted further into the water. The distant cacophony of noise accompanying the occasional flashes of light worried her. Somewhere out in the sea, Rarity and Melody fought for their lives against Soft Step. She had originally assumed that two sirens would have been too much for the alicorn to handle, that eventually they would overwhelm her with songs and magic. But that beam of pure energy… that was something else. Rainbow remembered stories about how the Dazzlings had used such brute force while fighting the Pillars so very long ago. Seeing something like that come from Melody left Rainbow deeply concerned that the battle was going anything but as smoothly as they had hoped.
“We need to help them,” Rainbow said aloud. “This is taking too long. They’re in trouble.”
“How do you know for sure?” Stargazer asked her. “Nopony ever said that it was going to be over quick.”
“But it still shouldn’t take this long for two sirens to subdue one alicorn,” Rainbow insisted. “Something’s up.”
Rainbow felt somepony place a hoof on her shoulder, preemptively trying to stay her before she could do something stupid like fly away and attempt to help. “Just have faith in them,” Gyro said. “Melody can do more than any of us can. What would you do anyway, Rainbow? As soon as Soft Step sees you on the field, she’s going to try to catch you for her ritual.”
“That’s exactly it!” Rainbow exclaimed, turning to the rest of them in excitement. “If I can distract Soft Step, give the two of them some breathing room…”
“Absolutely out of the question,” Stargazer met her with a hard, resolute stare. “If you go out there, you’re going to risk all of our lives for nothing. Let the sirens do their job. Ours is to stay safe along the sidelines.”
Rainbow growled in frustration and pointedly turned away from them, crossing her forelegs. They didn’t understand. Rarity was in danger out there; she could feel it in her gut. If they acted now, they could probably turn the tide of the fight. All she needed was one surprise attack on Soft Step, and she could possibly end the fight altogether. She could be the hero that saved the day.
While she mulled it over, she heard Champagne talking behind her. “We’re getting awfully close to the moonlight,” she said, a hoof pointed skyward. “If we keep drifting, we’ll slide out from under the cloud cover. We should so something about it.”
“Yeah, good point.” Stargazer cocked an eyebrow at Rainbow. “What do you think, Rainbow? Do you think the clouds here are pliable enough that we can move them? They don’t seem like the kind magically appearing over the island.”
Chewing on her lip, Rainbow frowned and looked up to the sky. Sure enough, at the rate they were drifting, it would barely be more than half an hour before the moon started to shine down on them. And it wasn’t like they could move the raft all that easily; there wasn’t something for them to grab onto and push it while flying, and if they got too low to the water to grab onto the raft’s edge, their wings would get soaked and become useless in minutes. If they wanted to stay hidden, then their best bet was to snatch some clouds and get them positioned to keep the raft covered as it drifted.
“It’s worth a shot,” Rainbow said, nodding along. “We don’t really have much of a choice otherwise, to be fair.”
“Then let’s get started,” Stargazer said, taking wing. Champagne jumped up shortly after him, and the two hovered above the drifting raft while Rainbow stood up. “The sooner we can get this done, the less risk we have of that moonlight falling on us.”
With a grunt, Rainbow jumped into the air, caught herself on blue wings, and began to climb in a circle around the raft. “Yeah, we don’t want a repeat of what happened with the tomb door,” she said. “We need to figure out right away if we can move this stuff. So come on, let’s go!”
Gyro sighed and rolled onto her back, watching the three pegasi climb into the night sky without her. “Don’t worry about me,” she muttered to herself. “The stupid mud pony’s just gonna sit down here and make sure the raft doesn’t, like, capsize or something…”
-----
Soft Step growled in frustration as she once more stepped through the shadows to avoid the siren’s magic. The green siren has proven herself to be a much more formidable foe than she’d given her credit for. Between a barrage of songs, sheer muscle mass and size, and the occasional application of brute force magic, the creature prevented Soft Step from landing any solid blows with any of the weapons in her arsenal that could cut through her armored hide. And to make matters worse, she didn’t play defensive or passive. The siren followed all of Soft’s attacks with vicious counters, trying to seize and press any advantage she could get her hooves on, never offering Soft Step any respite.
It was clear she needed to try something else. She didn’t know if outlasting the siren was possible; though the moon gave her strength beyond her body’s limits, she only had until it set to finish the fight and complete the ritual. The siren, meanwhile, wasn’t slowing down, nor did she seem to tire. She had great stamina at the very least, and Soft Step found it hard to believe she wasn’t fighting at full bore. But how did she crack the monster’s defenses?
The siren inhaled again, and the spark in her throat was the only warning Soft Step had before she unleashed another scorching ray of pure destruction at her. Once more, Soft Step dissolved into the shadows, reappearing safely out of reach of the attack, even as the siren swung her head and the beam around to find her. Where the brilliantly green attack smashed through the water, it instantly vaporized it into steam, giving off huge clouds of scalding white vapor that sat on top of the water for a few seconds before fading away. But, apart from a second to breathe, the siren seemed unbothered by the sheer scale of the power she’d thrown into the attack.
Soft Step responded by summoning dozens of razors from the night around her. Their handles were pure shadow, and their blades glistened with moonlight. Roaring, Soft Step drove them all at the siren, trying to find something to solidly connect with, but a quick three note arpeggio caused her to lose her grip on many of the razors, and the siren slipped through the gap in her attack. She sank below the water once more, where the darkness of the night and the dazzling, glittery spots of the moonlight sitting on the water obscured her movements even from Soft’s remarkably sharp eyes.
Summoning arrows of pure moonlight, Soft Step began raining them down on the entirety of the water around her, blanketing the entire area in a blind hunt for the submerged siren. One way or another, she knew that her magic would have to draw the siren back out again in an attempt to stop her from casting, and she was right. Only, instead of rising out of the water to sing another dispelling song, the siren breached the surface, her tail pushing her upwards, until her sharp beak came within snapping distance of Soft Step. Soft flared her wings and juked out of the way, but not fast enough to avoid the siren biting down on her tail. With a flick of her own powerful fin, the siren reversed her momentum, falling down to the water and dragging Soft Step down with her before she could slip into the shadows once more.
The impact with the ocean’s surface knocked the breath from Soft’s lungs, and the siren continued to drag her down into the water like she was going to drown her. Fortunately for Soft Step, that was little more than a nuisance to her; she didn’t need to breathe when she could rearrange her body through the shadows at will. And down here, it was very, very dark. Slipping out of the siren’s grasp was practically trivial.
But the water was a siren’s domain, and she couldn’t fight the green beast here. As soon as she melded into the shadows, she shunted herself back to the surface. There, drawing strength from the moonlight once more, she roared and struck a veritable thunderbolt of lunar energy into the water, splashing the water fifty feet into the sky as her magic exploded beneath the surface. A large, green body was tossed into the air, flailing helplessly, while Soft Step hovered in place, panting and recuperating her strength. What she wouldn’t give to have access to just a little more of His power!
The siren immediately righted herself at the apex of her ascent, using that curious ability her kind had to fly and meet Soft Step eye to eye. Her voice slid through a few notes, and Soft Step immediately readied herself to jaunt again once she knew what the monster planned to do. Suddenly, she began to writhe in pain as the siren’s song turned the water around her into steam, the vapor burning through her coat and scalding her skin from horn to hoof. The vapor frayed her feathers, and the alicorn couldn’t focus on the magic she needed to perform her jaunt. She plummeted to the sea, dazed from the pain and all but helpless, but barely managed to catch herself before she could splash beneath the waves once more.
As she floated on the surface, simply trying to recover her strength, she saw the siren’s shadow growing larger as the beast dived down to the surface. Yet while Soft Step desperately tried to ready her horn to move before another blast of raw magic could incinerate her, the siren suddenly cried out and changed directions. “Rarity!” she shouted, and Soft Step craned her head back to watch the siren dive past her and in the direction of her thrall. Once more, the siren’s chest glowed as she screeched a powerful beam of magical energy at a block of sand sitting on the surface of the water nearby, disintegrating it entirely and allowing the white siren trapped inside to escape.
The momentary distraction was all she needed to let the moonlight pour strength back into her bones and heal her wounds. Sure, the green siren had freed her friend, but it had cost her an opportunity to win the fight. Her care for her friend was a weakness—a weakness Soft knew she could exploit.
With her body fully restored and rejuvenated, she took to the skies once again, ready to press her newfound advantage.
Rarity writhed away from Squall as soon as Melody broke the block of sand holding her in place. Her face ached and dribbled blood from where Squall had used her knife to pry off scales and cut at the soft flesh underneath. At the very least, she still had both her eyes. Squall’s knife had gotten dangerously close to them by the time Melody finally realized what was happening.
The two sirens backed up while Squall reformed her sandy platform to stand on. “This is going horribly!” Rarity hissed to Melody as the two drifted away, warily watching their opponents as everyone took a few seconds to rest. “How long has it been? Has it even been an hour yet?”
“It hasn’t even been half that long,” Melody said.
“Really?” Rarity grimaced and rubbed at the bloody spots on her snout. “It feels like it’s been a lifetime.”
Melody took a deep breath as the standoff continued, her eyes sliding back to Soft Step as she rose out of the water looking none the worse for wear. “The moonlight is powering her,” she said. “I scalded her with steam and dropped her for a few seconds before I saved you. She already looks like she’s back at a hundred percent.”
“So what do we do?” Rarity asked. “How do we stop her?”
“We can wear her down briefly if we keep the pressure on her,” Melody said. “That’s how I got to her the first time. Then we rip her limb from limb before she can recover.”
Spikes of sand burst out of the water, nearly impaling the two sirens while they talked. Bristling, Rarity turned her attention to Squall, who casually strolled towards them on an ever-lengthening bridge of sand. “What are you two doing?” she asked in disbelief. “This is a fight, not a tea party! We don’t have time to socialize over anything other than murder!”
Rarity and Melody darted in opposite directions as more sandy razors and blades tried to slice them to ribbons. This time, Rarity threw herself into the air to at least get a little more warning against Squall’s attacks so she couldn’t get pinned again. After all, the sand had to come from the seafloor, and the higher she was above the water, the longer it would take to reach her. It gave her more time to counter anything Squall attempted and hopefully end her altogether.
But now it seemed like she not only had Squall’s attention, but Soft’s as well. She nearly let herself get shot full of moonlight arrows as her attention was turned below her and not toward her surroundings, but a quick song from Melody saved her before she could be hit. Rarity’s breath caught in her chest as she realized she also had to pay attention to the sky, not just the undead pirate below her, and she immediately backed up before Squall could capitalize on her momentary surprise. Soft Step turned her attention back to Melody, attempting to lance her with a beam of darkness, and ultimately succeeding in clipping the green siren’s dorsal fin as she tried to throw herself out of the way.
Rarity dove back down on Squall, legs outstretched and beak ready to cleave the pirate in two, but she once more used the sand to obscure herself and barely slip out of Rarity’s grasp. Still, that didn’t stop Rarity from quickly writhing about, spotting Squall, and closing in once more even before the pirate’s hooves could really settle on her next sandy platform. She knew that the key to winning the fight relied on taking down the pirate so that both she and Melody could take on Soft Step with a numbers advantage. So long as Squall remained a threat, Rarity knew she could never concentrate her efforts on Soft Step alone.
Easy to say, but taking out the undead pirate… that was another matter entirely.
-----
The boom of otherworldly thunder roused Gyro from her weary stupor. She sat bolt upright on the raft, wincing as she strained her still-weak back, and looked around. To the north, the fading light of some cataclysmic spell dimmed out of the sky as a plume of water began to rain back down on the sea below. The hissing of the sudden unnatural rain carried to her ears a few seconds later, so great was the distance between the raft and the fight.
“What in the shit is going on out there?” she murmured to herself, awestruck by the simply unbelievable spectacle she now bore witness too. The almost casual display of such horrifyingly powerful magic truly, deeply worried her. She felt like an ant clinging to a twig in the middle of a tsunami, utterly powerless to do anything except hope that somehow she would survive when the storm was over. She was just thankful that the raft continued to drift away from the archipelago and the fighting. If it had gone the other way, well…
She decided it was best not to think about that, and instead turned her attention skyward, where the pegasi continued to try and extend the cloud cover over the raft floating below them. She saw Champagne and Stargazer hard at work pushing and shaping the cloud, while Rainbow took up more of a supervisor role off to the side. All three pegasi were extra careful not to expose themselves to the moonlight for fear of what might happen. Though none of them knew for sure exactly what might happen if the light of Luna’s moon fell upon their heads, they all had enough suspicions that they didn’t want to risk it.
But as she watched, she noticed Rainbow’s attention seemed to be less and less on the clouds and more and more on the fight happening far away. It was hard to tell, given how far away the pegasi were and how little light there was to light up the night, but she thought she saw Rainbow turn about in place several times. She knew that Rainbow didn’t like sitting on the sidelines either. If she decided to leave… if she decided to intervene…
“No, no, don’t do it, Rainbow,” Gyro whispered to herself. “Stick to the plan. Stick to the plan!”
To her horror, Rainbow began to back away more and more. But it wasn’t until another boom of magic echoed off the clouds that the pegasus abruptly turned tail and began to fly off in the opposite direction as fast as she could, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake. Champagne and Stargazer squawked in surprise and momentarily gave chase before realizing they had no chance of catching her. She was simply too fast and too far gone for them to stop.
Gyro sighed and put a hoof to her forehead. “Damn it, Rainbow!” she hissed. “Why do you always have to be the fucking hero?!”
Rarity bobbed and weaved through the air, her undulating body barely moving fast enough to keep her away from Squall’s sand spears or Soft Step’s moonlight lances. Between the two foes, she hardly had any time to respond with an attack of her own. She felt like she was endlessly on the defensive, and staying aloft was quickly tiring her out. Yet right when she felt like she could catch a break from one opponent, the other would shift their focus to her. She knew she was being targeted because she didn’t know how to fight as a siren, and it was costing both her and Melody.
All that pressure on her meant that Melody couldn’t go on the offensive, either. She constantly had to intervene to save Rarity from a painful death, using her magic to dispel what she could and trying to shield the smaller siren. Soft Step was content to hang back from a distance and fling devastating spells at them while Squall disrupted the two with her up close attacks, and they made for a terrifyingly effective team. Rarity didn’t know if they were communicating with each other in some way, but their synchronicity was much better than anything she and Melody could achieve.
Melody sang a few notes to raise and roll a large wave at Squall, nearly sweeping the pirate off her hooves and into the water. The wave forced Squall to anchor herself in place with her sand magic, offering the two sirens a brief respite from her dangerous attacks. They capitalized on it by flying backwards and up, putting more distance between them and the sea below.
Rarity panted as she strained to fly higher at Melody’s side. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up!” she exclaimed between breaths. “They just won’t stop!”
“One’s an undead, and the other is fed by the moon,” Melody said. “We can’t outlast them. We’re just wearing ourselves ragged while they can patiently sit back and fling magic at us.”
“So what do we do?” Rarity grimaced at the ocean below her, now roughly fifty feet down. “We can’t get near one without the other helping out!”
“If we can stay up here, then we’ll be safe from the pirate,” Melody said. “It’s much more difficult for her to get her magic up this high to strike at us than it is down there. We can focus on the real threat.”
Rarity eyed Soft Step, who had casually flapped her wings to stay on level with the two sirens. “I don’t know how long I can stay aloft,” she said. She glanced back at her tail, which still dribbled blood from the sand spike that had impaled it earlier. “Even this is difficult!”
Squall prowled on a platform of sand below them, not expending the energy to rise up to their level. “You’ve gotta come down eventually, fishies,” she sang. “Stop dragging it out!”
Melody frowned across the distance between them and Soft Step. “We’ll go and fight the avatar, try to take her down fast. I almost got her once. She’s not infallible; we can beat her if we keep the pressure on. After we kill her, the pirate might just keel over as well.”
Though Rarity didn’t agree with the ‘killing’ part, she kept those thoughts to herself. They didn’t have the luxury of arguing about how to subdue Soft Step right now. The important thing was that they did it, and if Rarity could ensure that she survived somehow, then she would take that opportunity. If not… she could at least console herself by saying it was for the greater good.
Rarity nodded her head in agreement, and Melody immediately set off to engage Soft Step. The two sirens moved as one but kept a decent space between them so Soft Step couldn’t get them both with a lucky spell. As soon as they started moving, however, Soft’s horn began to crackle with otherworldly energy, and she flung several orbs of shadowy magic at the two. Both sirens broke wide in opposite directions of the magic, which began to explode with dark energy whenever it got close to them. In addition to that, Rarity felt a tug of gravity tied to each orb trying to pull her in like tiny black holes. If she wasn’t quick enough to get away, she knew that it would be the end of her.
Thankfully, while she managed to catch Soft Step’s attention, Melody shot another brilliant beam of green energy at the alicorn, nearly vaporizing her. But some sixth sense seemed to alert Soft to what she was trying to do, and she slid into the shadows to appear off to the side, completely unharmed. Growling, she lowered her horn and retaliated with a bright lance of moonlit energy, which Melody had to twist to avoid.
Rarity tried to capitalize on it by lunging at Soft Step, her beak open and ready to snatch onto the mare’s legs, but Soft whirled around and struck Rarity with the back of one of her wings. Instead of simply breaking the mare’s wing, however, the blow sent Rarity reeling and tumbling backwards, nearly snapping her neck from the whiplash. Before she could stabilize herself, she’d plummeted almost down toward the water, where Squall waited for her with horrible, giddy malice in her eyes. Rarity instinctively lashed out with her tail, changing the direction of her fall, and barely avoiding a painful death at the points of Squall’s sand spikes she mashed together where her body had been a split second ago.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, pretty fish,” Squall growled, galloping towards Rarity on her platform of sand. “You aren’t getting off so easily this time!”
Rarity grimaced and screeched at Squall, the high note making the pirate shrink back in pain, and her magic shifted to simply supporting her platform and preventing Rarity from dispelling it. This time, Rarity used the full volume of her enormous lungs, carrying the note on and on and on, maintaining that perfectly shrill pitch as if she could rip Squall’s head apart from the inside. She drifted closer and closer as well, slowly drawing closer to striking distance while the pirate was immobilized with pain and concentration. All she had to do was end the note with a snap at the pirate’s head to decapitate her—
“Rarity!”
The warning was all she had before a thunderbolt of moonlight slammed into the water right next to her. The resulting explosion rocketed her up into the air, and the water vaporized from the energy in the blast. The scalding steam scoured her body across all the gaps in her armored hide, and Rarity immediately covered her eyes with her hooves to protect them from the steam. She had to resist every urge to scream, for if she opened her mouth, then the steam would burn her gums and her throat.
Yet somehow, when the air finally cooled and the water settled, she was alive. She didn’t know how, and her body hurt all over, but she found herself drifting back down through hot water that stung at her gills. Across from her, a horribly burnt body fell through the water as well, limbs unmoving, horn split open from the extreme heat.
The water grew colder the deeper she fell, until it felt like ice on her burned flesh, only redoubling the pain. Rarity writhed once more, but it was too much. With one last gasp, her eyes rolled back…
…and she blacked out, drifting to the bottom of the endless deep.
Soft Step panted as her body recovered from the spell. It had taken a tremendous amount of energy out of her, though the moon was doing a fine job of refilling her with His power. But she’d seized the moment of respite the green siren had given her in backing off to obliterate the smaller siren down below. Her spell had vaporized thousands of gallons of seawater in an instant, and the scalding steam that resulted would have been hot enough to burn through a siren’s armor and flash-boil her blood. Sure, her undead companion had been caught in the blast, but she was expendable. She always had been. And not even undead could survive their flesh boiling like that. Case in point, Soft could no longer feel the trickling draw on her magic that had been sustaining the corpse and letting her cast her own spells.
Now it was just a one versus one. The green siren looked down at the water in disbelief, unable to accept that Soft had abruptly murdered her friend with a single spell. Soft Step wanted to taunt her, to gloat over the other siren’s demise, but she held her tongue for the time being. Every second the green siren could only look on in shock was another second she could use to draw her strength back.
Eventually, that disbelief turned to fury, and she pointed it in Soft’s direction. She opened a maw twisted by fury and anguish and fire another beam of green energy at her, but Soft merely slid to the side, expecting as much. “She wasn’t a true siren, was she?” she asked, her horn summoning several javelins of moonlight and flinging them at her opponent. The siren dived low and to the side, dodging most of the javelins, save for one which stuck her in the shoulder. As she roared and shattered it with a bite, Soft casually gained altitude and readied another volley of javelins. “My thrall had some interesting things to say about her. It appears they met when she was just a pony. Perhaps she should have stayed that way.”
“I will end you!” the siren screeched at her, once more lunging back up to try and snap Soft in two with her vicious teeth. In response, Soft merely wrapped her magic around the beast’s head and twisted in an attempt to break her neck, but the siren rolled with the motion and lashed out with her tail, swatting Soft from the sky as if it was a big flyswatter. Wings spread, the siren caught herself, and once more slid into shadow before magic could strike her in retaliation.
When she appeared behind the siren, she revealed her fanged teeth in a smile. “How much longer can you fight me?” she asked, preemptively stepping through the shadows once again before the siren could attack again. “You must be getting tired,” she said, appearing off to the siren’s side. “My strength comes from His moon. Where does yours come from? Those songs you sing to play with mortals? How much longer until you’re completely dry?”
“Shut up!” Melody shouted, her voice slipping into a four note arpeggio that briefly made the air clap with thunder. Soft merely erected a shield to dissipate the sudden shockwave, casually discarding it when the siren stopped to take a few panting breaths. “I’m going to kill you, and that will be the end of your master’s plans!”
“And then what?” Soft Step asked, cocking her head to the side. “You’ve been here a long time, siren. He has known about your presence for decades. We know you want to leave. Have you told them yet what they have to do to leave?”
The siren gritted her teeth and growled.
Soft snickered. “You haven’t. I see. So what are you going to do, siren? Are you going to sacrifice them yourself? Or are you going to stay trapped here with them, forever? You must know that surely this is your best chance to escape. When again is another airship full of ponies going to crash on these islands and give you what you need to lower the barrier?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the siren protested. “None of it does.”
“Oh, it surely won’t matter for you when I finish with you here.” Soft Step began to casually fly circles around the siren while keeping herself to a safe distance. “I’ll at least give you His mercy and end you swiftly. After you tell me where your pegasi are, of course. Why don’t you save me the trouble and tell me now. I’m going to get it out of you, one way or another.”
“You won’t.” The siren scowled at her, her chest rising as she inhaled. “I’ll see to that!”
She began to screech a high note at her, likely to snuff out her magic, but Soft erected a wall of silence between the two of them, blocking the siren’s music. “Your screeching and screaming won’t get you anywhere,” she said, even though the siren couldn’t hear her from the other side of the wall. “You’re very tiresome, I’ll give you that.”
Once more stepping through the shadows, she emerged directly next to the siren’s large dorsal fin and delivered a sharp crossing blow to her shoulder. The siren’s magical voice abruptly turned into a cry of pain as the force of the punch sent her tumbling across the sky. By the time the monster righted herself, Soft appeared above her, bucking downwards with her supernaturally powerful hind hooves. She watched the siren fall and splash into the seawater below, watching the green body writhe its way back to the surface with an amused grin. “I’d end this quicker, but I do need you alive,” she said. “At least until I know where the pegasi are.”
“Then try looking over here!”
Soft Step turned her head in surprise at the new voice only to receive a mouthful of hoof. The sudden blow from the newcomer sent the alicorn tumbling horn over hoof until she finally righted herself some distance away. Glaring and spitting out a tooth, Soft tilted her head back to behold a rainbow-maned pegasus hovering in front of her.
“Where’s Rarity?!” the pegasus demanded, her eyes never leaving Soft Step’s face. “What did you do to her?!”
Soft worked her jaw from side to side as the moon regrew and repaired her damaged and missing teeth. “What an interesting development,” she murmured to herself. It was followed a second later by an evil smile. “I like it!”
Rainbow momentarily wilted under Melody’s outraged voice. She’d broken the plan and gone to Plan B, and now she had to face the music. But she couldn’t sit idly by on the sidelines and let her friends fight and suffer for her. Loyalty fought with her friends until the very end—however bitter it might be.
“I came to help,” she said, glancing at Melody as she climbed out from the sea. “I was getting worried on the—where we were hiding. I couldn’t just sit by and do nothing!”
Melody flew up to Rainbow’s face, her dominating presence making the pegasus feel very, very small. “You can’t be here!” she hissed at her. “The whole plan was to keep you and the others safe while we waited for daybreak! Rarity and I would hold her off while you hid!”
“And where is Rarity?” Rainbow asked her, refusing to back down. “Where is she?!”
The green siren’s shoulders sagged and she looked at Soft Step, who calmly watched them from afar with a little bit of curiosity. “I… don’t know. If she’s alive, she’s in the water somewhere.”
“If?!” Rainbow whipped her head to Soft Step, teeth bared. “What did you do?!”
“If she was lucky, she was vaporized immediately,” Soft said, looking at her hoof with disinterest. “If not, that spell boiled her blood and cooked her like a lobster. A big, white, scaly lobster. I’m sure she’d taste great if you crack open her shell, wherever it sunk to.”
Rainbow let out a yell and immediately rocketed toward Soft, barely slipping out of reach of Melody’s jaws before she could bite down on her tail and hold her back. Soft raised an eyebrow as she approached, letting her horn flare to life and putting up a simple shield in front of her before Rainbow could make contact. The pegasus slammed into the shield, which began to wrap around her hooves and pulled her face down to Soft’s eye level. “You truly are out of your league, little pegasus,” Soft said, grinning at Rainbow and revealing all of her horrible fangs. “I have His power flowing through my veins, and I am indestructible. The moon protects me. It fuels me. What do you have? That you can fly fast?”
Grunting, Rainbow struggled against the shield for a second before glaring right into Soft Step’s eyes. “I don’t fly fast,” she growled, falling slack in the magic’s grip. “I fly the fastest. And I don’t monologue while my friend sneaks up behind you!”
Soft Step blinked and whirled around right as Melody lunged at her, jaws opened wide and teeth ready to slice the alicorn to ribbons. She had to quickly drop her grasp on Rainbow and slide into the shadows to avoid becoming siren chow, and Melody pitched her nose up to come to a stop by Rainbow’s side instead of plowing directly into her. While Soft reformed a good distance away from the two, Melody quickly glanced at Rainbow. “Alright, you’re here,” she said. “Did you at least come with a plan?”
“My plan was all about getting here,” Rainbow said. “I didn’t think past that point.”
An annoyed noise escaped Melody’s throat. “Great.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to fight her until sunrise!” Rainbow exclaimed, tilting her head back to look up at the enormous siren. “You’re supposed to have the plan!”
“It involved you staying as far away from here as possible and trying not to die.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and settled them back on Soft Step, who began to pull spears of moonlight out of the air around her. “Doesn’t sound that much better than my first plan. Alright, I’ll distract her, you go and, like, snap her horn off or something! Do that and the fight’s over!”
Before Melody could respond, Rainbow turned to the side and flew away so fast that the air rumbled in her wake. She angled her wings into a long curve around Soft Step, staying far enough away to avoid her magic while remaining close enough to force the siren to turn her head if she wanted to track her. In only a few seconds she ended up behind Soft, where she changed her trajectory into a climb to try and sail over the alicorn’s head.
Lances of moonlight pierced the air around Rainbow, but the quick and nimble pegasus zipped between them almost effortlessly. Unlike Melody, Rainbow was small and swift, and she knew she had the advantage in that. It would take Soft a lot more concentration and effort to hit her than it would a siren, and Melody wouldn’t let Soft have that much space and time to think. Even as soon as the moment Soft started loosing spears at Rainbow, Melody had closed the distance between them and starting snapping at the alicorn’s neck.
In retaliation, Soft erected a shield to block Melody on and materialized another spear of moonlight to try and ram between the siren’s scales. Before she could, however, Rainbow dropped on her from above, bypassing the shield and planting her hooves firmly on Soft’s back. The alicorn faltered and fell, and her shield and spear evaporated as the blow interrupted her magic. When Rainbow darted away, Melody reared her head back and let another beam of green magic fly from her maw, one which Soft barely avoided through the shadows.
“We can’t hit her when she keeps doing that!” Melody exclaimed. “Every time I get close, she just disappears into the dark!”
“How do we stop it?” Rainbow shouted back. “Can’t you use your songs to make light or something? That might get rid of the shadows!”
“I need something to enchant to glow, I can’t just create a light source out of nothing! And there’s nothing up here for me to do that on!”
Rainbow looked around at the empty sky. There really wasn’t anything that Melody could enchant. Maybe she could enchant some clouds, but they were too high in the sky to really be of help, and even though Rainbow could bring a chunk down, she doubted that she’d get the opportunity to, or that Soft would even let it survive in the middle of the fight that long. So what could she do?
“Use me,” she said as an idea suddenly struck her. “Make me glow!”
“Are you sure?” Melody asked. “It might be hard to see.”
“What other choice do we have?” Rainbow asked. “We’ve gotta do it or we’ll never catch her! Do it now!”
Melody sharply inhaled, but nevertheless she nodded. Closing her eyes, she quickly slid through a staccato tune, ending with a sharp, high note like a punctuation that kicked Rainbow in the chest. A bright glow dominated Rainbow’s vision, and when she looked down at her coat, her blue had been replaced with a glowing white gold. All around her, the night sky lit up like the day, and the bright light cast Melody in stark relief against the background.
“It worked,” Melody said, holding a hoof up to shield her eye from the bright glow, “but only out to so far.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” Rainbow said, setting her sights on Soft Step, who had taken on a concerned look. “I can get close to her and stay there. You just gotta finish her off.”
Melody nodded and allowed herself a sly smile, perhaps the first time her lips had curved upwards in the fight so far. “Sounds good to me.”
“Then let’s do it!” Rainbow set off at a blistering speed, rocketing toward the alicorn as fast as she could. “You’re gonna pay for what you did to Rarity!”
A valiant war cry tore itself from Rainbow’s lungs as she closed the gap between Soft Step and herself. The alicorn immediately tried to flee backwards away from the radiant light glowing off of Rainbow’s coat, but the pegasus and her little, nimble wings was much, much too quick for Soft Step to outrun. By the time Soft realized she needed to slip into the shadows to get away, Rainbow was already upon her, burning away the darkness that seemed to cling to the alicorn like a heavy coat, hooves swinging wildly for her face. Soft hissed and drew back, desperately trying to shield herself with magic to keep Rainbow and her harsh, sunlit glow away from her.
Rainbow twirled around the alicorn’s dazed and frantic movements to attack her from the side. Soft was uncharacteristically slow to respond, and only started to protect herself from that side when Rainbow began to attack it. The mare’s eyes were squeezed shut in pain, and it didn’t take Rainbow very long to figure out that the intense light pouring off of her coat must have been blinding the alicorn and her night vision. With that advantage in mind, she began to whirl around the alicorn, pressing the attack from all sides.
Soft Step cried out, and her horn flared to life. A tremendous shockwave of dark energy flung Rainbow away, sending her tumbling through the air. The separation allowed Soft to open her eyes a crack, and she immediately redirected her magic toward the siren charging her from across the sky. The grooves in her horn glowed with the pale white light of the moon, and she lowered her head to the siren like a lance. Melody broke off her charge to move to the side as a humming line of pure moonlight cut through the air, nearly drilling through the siren’s chest. But apart from having to abandon her charge, Melody was unscathed, and she sucked in a deep breath before shooting another beam of energy back at the alicorn in retaliation.
A shimmering shield of moonlight appeared in front of Soft to ward off the beam, and her coat took on a shadowy appearance as she tried to step through the darkness to safety. But instead of dissipating into a cloud of black fog, the wisps of shadows rising from her body slowly melted back into her figure as Rainbow approached again. Soft cried out as the light struck her face, and her shield cracked and collapsed as she lost her focus from the pain. Rainbow had to back off as Melody’s beam plowed forward, unhindered, enveloping the siren in a harsh, emerald glow.
When Melody finally closed her mouth, faltering from expending so much energy so quickly, the beam vanished, leaving behind a smoking and burnt alicorn tumbling from the sky. Rainbow let out a cheer, but movement from the body cut it short. As the moonlight fell on Soft, the singed hairs and ashes seemed to fall out of her coat, tattered feathers broke free, and the mare caught herself on newly rejuvenated wings before she could hit the sea. Her horn lit and she carried her momentum away from the two, climbing back to their altitude in a few seconds before letting it fade again.
“Holy crap, what does it take to drop this friggin’ mare?!” Rainbow exclaimed, looking at Melody in disbelief. “That should have roasted her!”
“I ran out of breath,” Melody said. “If I could have kept that beam on her longer…”
“I’ll try to crack the shield faster next time,” Rainbow said. “How many more of those have you got left in you?”
Melody grimaced and rubbed her heartstone, which Rainbow noted looked noticeably duller. “Not many,” she said. “I’ve burnt most of my magic in this fight. I don’t have much left in me; even flying is slowly draining me.”
“So we have to end this quick,” Rainbow said, eyes narrowing on Soft Step. “But your enchantment is working! She can’t jump when I’m next to her, and the light blinds her! It’s our chance to take her down!”
The siren nodded and took a deep breath. “Harass her as best as you can. Give me thirty seconds to close the distance, then jump on her for three to keep her pinned. That’ll give me time to hit her again, but you better fly away to a safe distance as soon as you count to three. Got it? I don’t want to fry you too.”
Rainbow cracked her neck and nodded. “Alright. Start counting now!”
And then she took off, mentally ticking off the seconds as she closed in on Soft Step. The alicorn backed off again, manifesting an entire arsenal of javelins which she began to fling at Rainbow in rapid succession. Climbing, diving, rolling and spinning, Rainbow picked her way through the barrage of missiles with incredible agility, dodging some so closely that they knocked feathers out of her wings. But there was always an opening, however tiny it might be, and Rainbow could flit about fast enough to dart into those gaps for a split second before finding the next one.
And finally, at the end of her dizzying flight, she broke through the barrage and connected with four hooves to Soft’s face. The alicorn’s head snapped back and she faltered from the sky, but Rainbow had learned from her last mistake. She kept the pressure on, jumping down on Soft to keep the radiance of her coat on her and prevent her from jumping away. To her surprise, however, the mare’s coat began to burn and her flesh charred as she held on tight. Startled and shocked, Rainbow jumped away to avoid burning herself, and the mare let out a final cry of pain as she crumbled into dust.
“What the frig?” Rainbow looked down on the ashes of Soft blowing away in the wind. Did the daylight shining off her coat burn the mare of the night into ashes?
“What happened?” Melody asked, coming to a stop not too far away. “Did you do that?”
“I… I don’t know,” Rainbow said, frowning at the sea below them. “I didn’t know that would happen!”
Melody’s brow furrowed, and she quickly scanned the area. “No, that has to be some kind of trick. Stay on guard, Rainbow in case she—!”
Her words turned into a scream of pain as a lance of moonlight pierced her body, cutting through her dorsal fin from the back and erupting through her chest. Rainbow swooped low to avoid the beam of moonlight, and tiny shards of emerald pelted her in the face. She craned her head back in disbelief as Melody clutched her chest and dropped out of the sky like a sack of meat. Jaw agape, she watched the siren fall until she splashed into the water, sending a thunderous plume of sea spray into the air.
Soft Step cackled across from Rainbow, the moonlit glow fading from her horn. “Did you think it was going to be that easy?!” the alicorn shouted at her, taunting with sharp fangs revealed in a wicked smile. “I am His chosen! I am His avatar! His strength flows through me, and I cannot lose! You only delay the inevitable!”
“Soft Step, stop this! Stop this right now!” Rainbow shouted at her, pleading with tears in her eyes. “You gotta stop yourself! Wake up, girl, before anybody else gets hurt!”
But the alicorn just laughed at her. “It’s far too late for her,” she said. “She has become something greater in His service. With her body as a vessel for His power, He shall be reborn tonight! Your tricks can’t save you any longer!”
Rainbow gritted her teeth. “I’m not finished yet!” she shouted back at the alicorn. “I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve!”
“Hah! Do you, now?” Soft grinned and let her horn roar to life, and three more copies of herself appeared around her. All four alicorns grinned down at Rainbow, horns crackling with moonlight, and they all spoke with one voice as they began to spread around her. “Let’s see whose are better!”
Rainbow felt her breath quickening as the four alicorns began to encircle her, each one grinning with sheer malice. They all moved slightly differently, like they were all real, and Rainbow didn’t know which one was the real Soft Step. Who did she rush with the glow radiating from her coat? If she picked the wrong one, she’d pay for it dearly. Soft could reshuffle her copies, create more, or simply rend her apart with her magic. And even if Rainbow got away unharmed, she would only be able to keep it up for so long. She was a sprinter, not an endurance flier, and she’d already exhausted herself with all the flying she’d done that day, while Soft didn’t tire at all. The moon sustained her, and there was nothing Rainbow could do about that. The clouds were too far away for her to retreat to, and moving in that direction would only bring the alicorn closer to her friends. They didn’t stand a chance fighting her, and now that both Rarity and Melody were down for the count, it was just her, a glowing pegasus, against a Nightmare Moon lookalike who so far had proven much, much more dangerous than the real deal she’d faced years ago.
She wondered if maybe Princess Luna’s dark persona was just a cheap imitation of the supernatural power she was dealing with here.
“What are you going to do, little pegasus?” the Soft Steps taunted her, their voices making an odd and haunting echo as they spoke slightly out of sync with each other. “You’re outnumbered and outmatched. You can’t defeat all of me. His power sustains me, it gives me strength. You are nothing in the face of it!”
“I have to be something if I forced you to do this crap!” Rainbow shouted back at them, slowly turning in place to watch all four. “How long can you keep this up, huh? There has to be a reason you didn’t do this as soon as you started fighting! I’m willing to bet that the moonlight can’t keep you powered up very long when you’re split up like this!”
“So long as we rend you into paste, what does it matter?” The four alicorns began to fly in circles around Rainbow, teasing her and taking their sweet time before the fight resumed. “The only reason we’re keeping you around now is because we need to know where your friends are. We can’t just make do on one pegasus, oh no. We need two of you. We know there are three more out there somewhere. We’ve seen you by the light of the moon. But now they’re hiding somewhere, and only you came out to play.” They all stopped circling Rainbow and raised an eyebrow in unison. “I have to wonder why you did that. Is this some sort of ruse? Or were you stupid enough to actually believe you can stop me?”
Rainbow growled and whipped her head between the different mares. “I am going to stop you,” she insisted. “And like it or not, Soft, I’m gonna snap that horn off your head and make you normal again!”
“Oh? Then why don’t you come over here and try it!”
The four alicorns all began to draw magic into their horns, and Rainbow chose one at random to fly towards. Four crisscrossing beams of moonlight sliced through the air from all around Rainbow, and only by some miracle did she manage to twist and weave out of the way without any tearing through her like they had Melody. Yelling, Rainbow led with her shoulder, checking the Soft Step in the neck, and kicking away from the body when it screamed and burst into flames. As the copy faded away into ash, the other three loosed a hail of shadowy darts at her. The cloud encompassed her from all sides, and Rainbow tried to fly out of it as quickly as she could. Though she dodged most of the darts, many of them stuck into her hide, shooting pain through her muscles. She could only afford herself a cry of agony and a spin to fling them out of her skin; if she stopped moving to pry them out, the alicorns could have overpowered her instantly.
As she leveled out of her climb, the three alicorns all rose into the air in a roughly triangular formation. Their eyes glowed with moonlit fire, and each of them readied a different spell. One Soft Step materialized javelins, another, arrows, and the last charged her horn to loose a lance of moonlight in Rainbow’s direction. Gulping, Rainbow flipped about in midair and began to frantically fly off to the side, jittering around midflight to try and shake the torrential volley of magic heading her way. If the night sky hadn’t already been set afire by the blaze of light cast by her coat, she knew that the sheer amount of magic flying at her would have accomplished a similar effect.
Roaring and shouting, Rainbow swung her body to the side and braved the hail of magic to fly at the alicorns again. They scattered as she approached, but she managed to catch one and punched right through its throat as its body turned into ash and cinders. She whirled about with a growl, her feathers scattering the copy’s ashes into the night, and kicked off of its dissolving corpse to fling herself at the next. Yet unfortunately for her, she chose wrong out of the two remaining opponents. The alicorn she flung herself onto laughed as it burned to death, until Rainbow was left clutching ashes and soot in her hooves.
Rainbow whipped her head around and glared at Soft Step, who giggled wildly behind her. “What are you laughing about?!” Rainbow shouted at her. “You’ve got no more copies left!”
“Do I?” Soft Step winked from her and let her horn glow, and before Rainbow could react, seven more copies of her appeared. The eight Soft Steps all loomed in on Rainbow, watching her with predatory eyes, though Rainbow was determined to keep her eyes locked on the original. “Every time you defeat my copies, I’ll just let Him refresh me and make more,” they all said in unison. “And you’re growing tired. How long before you cave? Five minutes? Ten?”
As much as Rainbow wanted to deny it, she knew Soft was right. It was getting harder and harder to move her limbs, harder and harder to avoid the magic the alicorn and her copies flung at her. It wouldn’t be long before she slipped up and made a mistake. If she let Soft Step subdue her, let her rip through her mind and figure out where the other pegasi were hiding…
She needed to end the fight now, with one blow. It was the only possible way. If she didn’t, then the fight was already lost. She could already feel victory slipping away, one beat of her wings at a time. There wasn’t time to waste energy thinking; she needed to act. And she was Rainbow Dash. There was only one action that came to her as naturally as drawing breath.
So she flew. Her wings pushed her straight up into the air, climbing through the sky like hands grabbing at the rungs of a ladder. She poured just short of her everything into the climb, because she needed her everything for what would come next. Higher and higher she spiraled, until the air began to grow frigid around her, and the clouds started to dwindle like little mountains far below.
Soft Step and her clones started to fly after Rainbow, though they took their time, knowing their quarry couldn’t, wouldn’t run far from them. “Where do you think you’re going to go?” They shouted after her. “You can flee all you want, but the moon watches you. All I have to do is step into the shadows and follow you wherever you go. You can’t run from me, pegasus! This is over!”
But Rainbow Dash had no intention of running. Higher and higher she climbed, until her wings struggled to keep her aloft. She had pulled the stunt once on these islands, and it had set in motion the chain of events that had brought her here. Now, by the same stunt, she planned to end it.
She stopped flapping her wings, coasting upwards until gravity robbed her of the last of her momentum. In that moment, at the apex of her climb, when she felt truly weightless, she saw the bright, starry sky overhead. The moon may have been fueling the abomination trying to kill her below, but the stars were Princess Luna’s and hers alone. She had placed them there, every last one of them carefully arranged into a beautiful, abstract expression on the greatest canvas in the entire world. Under their light, under her distant creation, Rainbow knew she would end this.
Gravity tugged down on her tail, and the stars began to recede.
Rainbow closed her eyes, tilted her wings back, and gradually flipped through the air until her nose pointed downwards, to the sea below.
Soft Step and her clones circled beneath the rainbow pegasus as she flew into the sky. Soft wondered if she was attempting to flee or not. If she was, she’d chosen a poor angle to fly in. She could only fly so high before the air became too thin to carry her weight, and she’d tire herself out much faster in attempting to do so. Soft was content to let the pegasus wear herself out on her own; it would make breaking into her mind that much easier.
She winced as a throb of pain wracked her horn from base to tip. Maintaining seven copies of herself was swiftly outpacing how fast the moon could replenish her energy, and she considered dismissing a few to conserve on her energy. But ultimately, she decided against it. The more copies of herself she had available when the pegasus finally came crashing back down to her, the easier it would be to subdue her. So, for the time being, she circled and waited.
Eventually, the pegasus reached the apex of her climb. Whether she couldn’t keep climbing anymore or had simply given up, Soft didn’t know. Yet it hardly mattered; she parted her lips and grinned with anticipation all the same. She watched as the glowing pegasus tipped backwards and began to fall as gravity did its work on her. It wouldn’t be long now; in a few seconds, she would finally know all she needed to finish the ritual and welcome Him back into the world.
Yet the pegasus began flapping her wings as she fell. Soft furrowed her brow as she watched the figure draw closer and closer. Instead of changing her course or slowing down, she seemed to be picking up speed. Soft carefully repositioned her clones beneath the pegasus in response. If her plan was to just fly through and past them to make a break for it at breakneck speeds, then Soft needed to stop her. The moonlight was running out, and if she didn’t finish this fast, she wouldn’t have time to finish the ritual.
But then she felt that little crushed presence in the back of her mind cheering. At first, Soft tried to ignore it; then, she tried to crush it. By the time she realized why that presence was cheering, well after her cheers had already turned to screams of pain and agony, it was nearly too late. The air shimmered around the glowing, diving pegasus, and colorful sparks of static began to jump from her feathers to the surrounding wind. The light she gave off was too bright for Soft to step into the shadows, so she desperately took whatever energy she had left to throw up the thickest shield around herself she could possibly manage.
The sudden explosion of noise and color and light was beyond overwhelming. It vaporized her copies in the blink of an eye, and the entire night lit up like she was standing on the sun. Soft felt her eyes physically burn as the daylight sliced through them, and her shield shattered into billions of tiny particles of moonlight under the force of the explosion. The boom popped both of her eardrums, and her green coat turned to ash in an instant. Crippled and scarred, Soft tumbled out of the sky as the blast flung her away from the epicenter, while the pain to her frayed nerves left her too dizzy and incoherent to think anything other than one thought:
How could she have known the Usurper would have sent a champion of his own to oppose Him?!
-----
Gyro could only watch the ongoing fight helplessly from afar. She still couldn’t believe that she was bearing witness to such a duel where the participants casually flung around such powerful magic that it could light up the night sky so brightly. Great green beams of light, catastrophic novae of moonlight, and occasional lances of white energy all split apart the skies. Somewhere high above the ocean, Melody, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash dueled against Soft Step to decide the fate of the islands and everybody in them. And not just that, either; if Soft Step won, the evil being she served could possibly bring the entire world to its knees if it escaped the islands.
At some point in the fight, a glowing spark appeared in the air, swiftly moving about and flitting across the battle with incredible agility. At first, Gyro thought it was a spell or some kind of magic, but it persisted as the fight dragged on. And the way it moved didn’t look like any of the spells she’d seen so far. Against the background of the night, it looked like a shooting star, set perfectly at home in the twinkling background surrounding it. It gave Gyro something to focus on in between the volleys of magic, even if she didn’t know what it was.
She glanced up at the sky, where Champagne and Stargazer were busy keeping the cloud they’d broken off of the body in place over the raft. That single cloud was all that stood between Gyro and the light of the moon, and likely the only thing keeping them safe. She hoped that the pegasi would be able to keep it over the raft as it drifted, and they likely had to stay up there for another few hours yet. She didn’t know how much longer it would be until daybreak, but it simply couldn’t come fast enough.
And then she saw that spark of light in the distance begin to climb higher and higher and higher. She blinked and furrowed her brow in confusion; what was happening over there? As the spark climbed, it lost more and more speed, until finally, it seemed to hover in one place, far above the horizon. There was a twinkling of light, and then it began to fall again, faster and faster, always picking up speed, never slowing down. It didn’t take Gyro long to realize that she’d seen this before… and it didn’t take her too long to realize that the glowing star was Rainbow Dash, somehow.
“Go, Rainbow,” Gyro said, forcing herself to stand on the raft. “Go! Do it!”
There was a bright flash of light, and a ring exploded out from the spark of light diving through the air. Even as far away as she was, the night suddenly turned to day, and Gyro could see the world as clearly as if she was standing under the sun at the height of noon. Blue waters, white beaches, and green trees all stood out in the distance as the islands came into stark relief with the expanding ring of colorful daylight lighting up the night sky above her. Even the clouds seemed to vanish at the explosion of magical light, much like they’d done before when Rainbow had used a rainboom to open up the tomb doors on the archipelago.
But as the ring of light began to fade and the darkness of night came trickling back in, Gyro’s elation turned to fear and dread. The rainboom had destroyed the clouds above her, including the one sheltering the raft. Now, as the daylight faded and the night returned, moonlight began to settle over the islands and the seas, now uninterrupted without any clouds to block it. Her pale shadow soon grew over the raft, and the light of the moon glittered on the waters all around the raft—and on the water covering the raft and herself.
Stargazer and Champagne landed on the raft shortly thereafter, both panting and with feathers a little frayed after barely escaping from the rainboom. “What was that?” Stargazer asked. “What is Rainbow doing?!”
“She’s fighting Soft Step,” Gyro said. “I think she just tried to rainboom her.”
“Did it work?” Champagne asked, worried eyes turned toward the moonlit heavens above. “Please tell me it worked.”
“I don’t know,” Gyro admitted, shaking her head. “But if it didn’t…”
“I suppose we’ll find out,” Stargazer said. He sat down on the raft and sighed, reaching for their meager supplies of food and water. “The only thing we can do now is wait and see who comes to us.”
Hot Coals didn’t know what was going on… but he could see little glimpses of it through the trees.
After he’d sent Gyro off on the raft, the mummies had fallen upon him almost immediately. At first, he’d thought he was dead, that they would rend him limb from limb like they had apparently done to so many others in the tomb while he was unconscious. But other than using their numbers to subdue him, and apart from some cuts and bruises, he was mostly unharmed. The mummies had merely dragged him back to the center of the island… and then sat down.
Coals had no idea what had made them do that, but he could only assume it was through the command of their master. Now, they just sat in a circle facing him, and if he tried to stand or move, they would growl at him and begin to stand as well. Apparently, their orders were to bring him back alive and unharmed, and then keep him in one place. Or at least, that was the best he could gather from them. They weren’t exactly the most talkative captors.
But now that he was alone, save for the company of his undead guards, Coals could only wonder what happened to everypony else. Had the team that had gone into the shrine been captured as well? He could only assume they had; after all, they would have come back up to the topside, only to be similarly subdued and put under watch. But so far, there had been no movement. As far as Coals could tell, they were still beneath the island, and not likely to leave any time soon.
And what about Gyro? What about the others? He hoped that Gyro was safe out there and that one of the sirens would find her. So long as the mummies couldn’t swim, then they wouldn’t be able to get to her. But as for Rainbow and the others, were they safe? They had flown to the island where the mummies first came from. What if there were more there?
He couldn’t know for sure if anypony else was safe. But he did know what he could see and hear, so far away. Little flashes of something lit up the night sky through the trees, and every so often a note from a distant song would whisper in his ears. Something was happening out there, and he had no idea what that meant for anypony. Was it salvation? Was it his demise? There was no way to find out.
But just then, a loud explosion shook the trees and startled some of the birds awake. A cacophony of surprised and shrill shrieks colored the night as it inexplicably turned to day. Coals looked toward the heavens, squinting and shielding his eyes, as a ring of brilliant color rolled through the sky from the west. The light chased away the darkness, and he could see the trees and his surroundings in perfect clarity as if he stood outside in the brightest, sunniest day. Suddenly, the night was no more, interrupted by the warmth of day. He’d never seen anything like it.
It didn’t just look like day, either. The mummies around him hissed and cowered, some attempting to flee while others kicked and flailed at the sand around them. The daylight pained them in some way, and Coals didn’t know if it would last. He knew if he was going to make a break for it, now was his chance. But if the mummies caught him again…
A squawk from a nearby tree caught his attention, and he looked over to see that scarlet macaw perched on one of the palms, frantically flapping its wings. After the bird had helped him get Gyro to safety earlier, Coals wasn’t about to second-guess its intentions. If there was one good thing that had come from the mummies dragging him back and watching him, it had been a chance to catch his breath and recover his strength. Now that he didn’t have to carry Gyro on his shoulders, he could move much faster and slip around the mummies still writhing in pain from the daylight burning their flesh and shooting little wisps of smoke into the air. It was trivially easy to get away before the light began to fade.
And fade it did, and all too quickly. As the ring of light made its way past the islands, the darkness slowly returned. The shadows deepened and strengthened, and just as quickly as it had appeared, the light was gone. Coals heard the mummies growl and hiss in rage behind him, and he doubled his pace, following the bird’s flight through the trees.
“Where are we going?!” he called up to the bird, as if it could give him an answer. “How are we even going to get out of here?! We don’t even have the raft anymore!”
But the bird never answered him, save for a few chirps and squawks that he couldn’t make sense of. It led him further and further westward, around the pond in the center of the island and to the gently curving beach sheltered by the sandbar on the other side. Maybe it was taking him to Gyro? There was a chance that his marefriend could still be close by depending on how the ocean currents moved. That had to be it, right? It was the most logical conclusion.
Racing across the beach, his hooves kicking up clumps of sand, Coals ran right up to the water’s edge and skidded to a stop. What he saw in front of him was not Gyro’s raft. Not even close. What he saw instead was a line of canoes, a dozen of them, running aground on the sandbar just across the water, each being tightly secured from the waves by four large, muscular bodies climbing out of its hull.
Coals swallowed hard and took a few steps back. Now he really regretted following that macaw. ‘A rock and a hard place’ barely even began to describe just how bad of a situation he now found himself in.
Rainbow Dash slowly arced out of her rainboom, her hooves skimming the waves below at the very nadir of her dive. She simply held her wings straight and let the air do most of the work for her, gradually slowing her down from supersonic speeds to a much more reasonable glide. The turbulent air her wings threw off was still enough to kick up the water behind her, leaving a wake of frothy white as she slowly looped back around to where she thought she’d seen Soft Step fall.
Melody’s enchantment had started to fail her, and her coat was no longer the brightly glowing beacon it had once been. It only dully glowed now, just enough to send ripples of light across the water to compete with the moonlight shining down on it, but not much more. Her rainboom must have ruined the enchantment, much like how it had damaged the weather enchantment over the archipelago last time. And, just like last time, her rainboom had cleared the clouds, leaving behind only patchy wisps that tumbled about without something larger to anchor themselves to. Rainbow suddenly realized that in her attempt to destroy Soft Step and her clones, she’d evaporated the cloud cover Gyro and the others had been using to stay out of sight of the moon. She needed to find the alicorn fast and finish the fight before it was too late.
As she circled back around to where she thought she’d rainboomed over, tiny flakes of ash raining down from the sky stuck themselves to her face and clung to her hair. She turned her wings up at a sharp angle to brake herself, and picked up twenty or thirty feet to survey the area in doing so. Finally coming to a stop, she hovered in place and looked around, searching for where Soft Step had fallen to. When she didn’t see anything in the water, she turned her attention closer to the archipelago, where she spotted a burnt body clinging to a piece of newly rotting wood sticking out of the water, wedged into the shoals somewhere beneath the waves.
Fluttering over to the chunk of wreckage from the Concordia, Rainbow found herself hovering over Soft’s charred form. But to her immense surprise, the alicorn was still alive, and she clung tightly to the piece of wreckage, even though her breathing was labored. Rainbow didn’t know how she was alive; the solar rainboom had turned her skin into leather, and all of her feathers were blackened and crumbled into ash at the slightest movement. Whether or not the mare could even physically open her eyes was another matter entirely. She seemed so weak, so frail, so beaten lying there—a far cry from the murderous demigod who had struck down Melody right in front of Rainbow’s eyes.
“It’s over, Soft,” Rainbow said, hovering next to the mare’s head. “You’re finished. Now I need to know how I can help you.”
“Help… me…?” Soft croaked, her head barely moving, the skin from her chin clinging to the wood instead of her skull when she tried to look at Rainbow. “You… cannot…”
“I know you’re still in there, somewhere,” Rainbow said, moving to perch on the wood above Soft. “I just want to help you come back to us, Soft. I want to free you from being a slave to this crazy moon god. How do I do that?”
Soft Step winced and laid her head back down on the piece of wreckage. “My… my horn…” she finally croaked. “His gift… His curse…”
Rainbow hopped off of the piece of wreckage and quickly scanned the area for something that would help. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a knife of cleaver conveniently lodged in the wreckage, but she did find a loose chunk of stone sitting just below the water’s surface. When the piece of wreckage landed in the shoals, it must have broken that stone loose. Quickly diving down into the water to retrieve the stone, Rainbow hefted it up in her hooves and felt the weight. It was crude, sure, but it would be heavy enough to snap a horn off in a solid whack. She just hoped Soft would be able to forgive her when this was all over. It would just be adding more pain to an already excruciating amount of agony.
Fluttering back to the alicorn, Rainbow perched herself just above Soft’s head and lifted the stone above her own. She looked down at the helpless mare below her. It would be so easy to drive the stone through her skull, caving it entirely and smashing her brains into paste on the wreckage. The mare would never again be able to threaten them, and they could stop the moon god’s plans indefinitely. All it would cost was one mare’s life.
“I’m really sorry about this, Esses,” Rainbow said, grimacing at the mare lying helpless below her. Her hooves tightened on the stone, and she tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “But I really hope this works!”
Grunting, she drove the stone down on the curved horn sticking out of Soft’s skull. There was a crunch and the alicorn cried out in pain, and the shock of the blow sent the stone tumbling out of Rainbow’s grasp and into the water. When she pulled back a bit to examine her work, she found blood pooling from the cracks she’d made in the horn, but had failed to cleave it the whole way off.
“Grrrr… Luna poop,” Rainbow cursed to herself, trying to spot where the stone had fallen to. Another blow would do it, but she’d lost the rock. Jumping off the wreckage, she once more started to search through the shoals, trying to find it again.
But as Rainbow searched through the water, Soft Step gasped and began to slowly raise her head. The blow from the stone had scraped away some of the char and ash covering her horn, exposing the enamel to the light of the moon. The cracks began to heal, and Soft’s coat started to soften and regrow its hair, spreading out from the base of her horn. She soon found the strength to open her eyes, and the blood that had pooled into the sclera pulled back into the vessels in her eyes, allowing her to see clearly again. Ashen feathers began to regrow, and strength poured back into the alicorn’s limbs as she began to move on the wreckage.
Rainbow heard her grunting and spun in place, her hoof resting on the stone again. “Soft!” she shouted at the alicorn as the mare sat up, her coat beginning to retake its green color. “No! Fight it, I’ve got the rock—!”
A wing swinging across Soft’s body struck Rainbow in the chest and sent the pegasus cartwheeling into the black of the night. Bit by bit, Soft Step forced herself to stand and unfurl her wings to their full glory. Her horn was still cracked and damaged, true, but the moonlight washing over her rejuvenated her once more.
She closed her eyes and seemed to briefly meditate on the wreckage, but it wasn’t very long before she opened them again and let a cruel smile settle on her lips. “Ah, I see you now,” she purred to herself, and her damaged horn began to crackle with energy once more.
Rainbow Dash came flying back to the wreckage as fast as she could, but not even she was fast enough to stop the mare before she vanished into the shadows one last time.
Hot Coals frantically backpedaled as a small army of minotaurs waded across the shallow waters separating the sandbar from the island proper. There were nearly fifty of them, each clutching a spear in one hand and a net in the other. Their bodies, starkly silhouetted by the moonlight, were tall and muscular, and their polished horns faintly glowed under the stars. They all bore war paint and tattooes, and many of them had piercings through their noses. And all of their eyes fell on him.
Unfortunately, Coals tripped and fell as he scrambled backwards, bashing his skull on a chunk of driftwood jutting out of the sand. It momentarily dazed him, and by the time his vision finally cleared up, the minotaurs were nearly close enough to throw their nets on him. They called out to each other in guttural noises, and one pointed at him while another planted his spear in the ground and grabbed his net with both hands.
Before he could throw it, however, a valiant squawk cried out through the night, and Chirp landed on top of Coals’ head, wings outstretched in defiance. The minotaurs, to Coals’ astonishment, all backed off at the bird’s display. Even more surprising, they lowered their weapons and bowed their heads to the macaw out of what Coals could only assume was reverence.
He crossed his eyes to look up at the bird standing on his horn. Were macaws some kind of important religious symbol to the minotaurs?
He decided he wasn’t going to question it—Chirp’s display had likely saved his life, somehow. Gyro had told him all the horrible things she’d suffered through because of the minotaurs. He knew that they ate ponies and weren’t afraid to butcher them like animals. If Chirp was stopping that somehow, he didn’t want to disturb the bird and make him leave.
“Saksi flaga koosoo’set pohnaa’al,” one said, obviously surprised. He looked to the bull on his left, who was even larger and wore a skull on top of his head. “Ete?”
“Takka ete’set’un, saksi flaga,” he said in reply, scolding the other. “H’a baneb.”
Chirp seemed to settle down, and he closed his wings against his sides, though he kept a wary eye on the minotaurs and didn’t get too comfortable. Coals gently cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow at the minotaurs. “So… you aren’t going to eat me, right?”
The minotaurs frowned at him, and their leader, the one with the skull on his head, picked up his weapons and began to cautiously stride closer. When Chirp opened his beak and hissed at him, the minotaur slowed down and held up his hands in a placating manner. “Saksi flaga sonal U’a,” he grunted, looking Coals over. “Ete?”
Coals could only blink in response. He had no idea what to say to these minotaurs. What kind of language was that, even? He had never heard anything like it in his life.
“H’a takka’set’un Mum’a tokto,” another said, waving his hand. “Baneb’un pohnaa’al.”
Before they could banter any longer, a growl and a hiss rose from the trees Coals had emerged from in his desperate escape from the mummies. Coals whipped his head around, unsettling Chirp, who clung onto his horn for dear life. Sure enough, several shadows shuffled through the undergrowth, rotten teeth glistening in the moonlight, tattered wrappings clinging to tree bark and tearing loose as they shambled. When the first mummy finally stepped onto the beach, the minotaurs all tensed and readied their weapons.
“Naggan Almaha stafiwi!” a minotaur shouted in alarm.
“Ata Almaha!” their leader cried, lowering his spear and charging at the nearest mummy. It hissed and snapped at him, but the stone point on the end tore through its neck, impaling it to the shaft. The minotaur shouted and hefted the body into the air, grabbed onto its shoulders with one hand, and pulled in opposite directions, ripping the head free entirely and discarding the writhing body.
“Ata Almaha!” the other minotaurs cried as they too charged into the fray, stampeding all around Coals and clashing with the mummies staggering out of the jungle. With overwhelming numbers and strength, coupled with the superior reach of their weapons, the war party of minotaurs began to drive the mummies back into the trees, leaving twitching corpses in their wake.
Coals looked on in shock as the minotaurs plowed through the mummies that infested the island. Where he had thought he was dead just minutes before, now he felt relieved and excited. If the minotaurs were destroying the mummies, then that meant they must be on his side… at least for the moment.
He wasn’t going to chance just sitting on the beach all exposed, however. After carefully picking his way around the spasming corpses scattered across the sand and the jungle floor, Coals doubled his pace to catch up to the minotaur war band, all the while making sure that Chirp had comfortably perched himself on his back.
-----
Gyro watched the distant northern horizon with worry. As the seconds since the rainboom disappeared dragged on, she found herself worrying more and more. There was no more magic in the sky, and the bright spot that had been Rainbow Dash was all gone. Something had happened over there because of the rainboom, that much she knew for sure. What she didn’t know was whether it was good or bad.
“Do you think we should fly?” Champagne asked, looking between Gyro and Stargazer. “Get away from here?”
“What good would that do?” Stargazer asked in turn. “There’s no cloud cover to hide behind anymore. We’d have moonlight on our backs the entire time. We’re better off sticking together where we can defend each other.”
“We’re just an easier target for Soft Step if she comes this way,” Champagne said. “She could get both of us at once.”
“She’d get both of us eventually if we did flee in opposite directions,” Stargazer insisted. “Maybe together, we have a better chance of holding her off.”
Champagne pursed her lips and frowned. “Do you really think we can fight her off?” she asked. “She’s an alicorn now. She has magic. We don’t.”
Stargazer shrugged. “She’s been fighting Melody, Rarity, and now Rainbow for how long now? She has to be exhausted. Even alicorns get tired.”
Gyro’s ears perked and she roused herself to attention when she thought she saw something shimmer out of the corner of her eye. Peering into the darkness, she forced herself to stand and be ready just in case. “Keep it quiet, guys,” she said, frowning into the dark of the night. “I thought I saw something.”
“Oh no,” Champagne said, hopping to her hooves and spreading her wings halfway. “Was it one of the sirens? Was it Rainbow? Please tell me it’s Rainbow…”
“It’s not nearly colorful or gay enough,” Gyro said. “It was almost like a black wave riding across the water. Maybe it’s—!”
The shadows suddenly exploded inward into a hissing alicorn, and Gyro toppled backwards in surprise. Champagne and Stargazer immediately took to the skies as Soft Step appeared in front of them, tiny flakes of darkness falling off her body. The alicorn dropped onto the raft as Gyro scrambled away, and she parted her lips to reveal her fangs. “So this is where you’ve been hiding all night. Clever. But not clever enough.”
Her horn surged, and the darkness around Champagne and Stargazer tightened into lassos around their wings. The two pegasi struggled in midair, but the arms of darkness reeled them back in, dragging them closer and closer to Soft Step. Gyro watched in horror as the two pegasi ended up back at sea level again and Soft Step looked them over.
“Yes, you two will do wonderfully,” she said, licking her lips. “Do not fret, for I will make your deaths as painless as I can. After all, you must be properly rewarded for sacrificing your blood to bring Him to this world.”
“S-Soft Step,” Gyro stammered, sitting upright on the far end of the raft. “What happened to you?”
Soft fixed her slit eyes on Gyro and laughed. “A higher purpose,” she said. “My eyes are closed to the light, and I bask in His beautiful darkness. As for you…”
She fluttered her wings and hovered above the raft, taking the struggling pegasi with her. Then her horn began to charge with energy, and she smiled one last time at the mechanic. “You fled from me at the shrine. If you wanted me to leave you alone so dearly, you simply should have asked!”
A beam of moonlight struck the raft, and the entire thing broke apart in seconds. Gyro cried out in alarm as the logs she’d been sitting on moved apart from each other, and she flailed her forelimbs to try to grab onto one. But they all rolled away from her, and she soon found herself sinking away from the wood, her earth pony muscle weighing her down more than her weak limbs could do to carry her to the surface.
As the salt stung her eyes, she saw Soft Step laugh one last time, and then she and the pegasi in her clutches all vanished into the shadows.
Rarity slowly came to as the underwater currents blew across her ears like wind beneath the ocean. Everything was so dark on the ocean floor, but there was still enough moonlight for her to see by. Little by little, she forced her limbs to move, and she started to sit up only to double over in pain and collapse on her back once again.
Memories came flooding back to her. The battle with Soft Step, her fight with Squall, and then the painful arcane blast that had sent her to the bottom of the sea. Her whole body felt raw, and when she looked around, she noticed that she’d added a smattering of white scales to the sandy floor around her. She remembered how the spell had burned her flesh all over and made her eyes feel like they were about to pop. She was just happy that she’d gotten to keep them.
She sat up again, this time much more slowly so as not to aggravate her injuries, and looked around. The ocean floor was all torn up, with deep trenches carved through the sand sitting next to large hills and dunes. Chunks of coral and stone had been scattered about, and a few crabs picked over the remains. Squall’s magic had wreaked havoc on the seafloor, but at the very least, it would be disturbed no longer. Lying not too far from Rarity were the extra crispy remains of a corpse, fried inside and out by the magic that had nearly killed her. Rarity had to look away and cover her beak to not be sick at the grisly sight.
What had happened since she blacked out? How long had she been blacked out? Rarity didn’t know, and it worried her. It was still night at least, so she couldn’t have been unconscious for that long—unless she’d somehow been out cold for a full day. But there wasn’t any magic above her, and the night sky seemed as still as could be. Had the fight already finished? If it had, then Melody would have come looking for her. Maybe it had gone somewhere else?
Rarity decided to not jump to another much worse conclusion. Melody had to be okay, right? Everypony had to be fine, and they’d defeated Soft Step. Melody would be more than a match for the alicorn, she just knew it.
Still, she needed to find the other siren and her friends first, so mustering her strength and bracing herself for a painful swim, Rarity used her tail to kick off of the floor and paddle to the surface. At the very least, moving seemed to dull her pain once she got used to it. She just needed to stay active and put her mind to other things. She couldn’t worry about her own injuries now. Those could be taken care of later.
When she breached the surface, however, she spun in place but could see nothing. The ocean was a little choppy and there weren’t any figures moving in the sky. On top of that, what had once been a decent bank of clouds had been shattered into little wisps. But how? Why would that happen?
She realized that she’d seen exactly that once before when Rainbow Dash had used a rainboom to clear the skies over the tomb. Assuming the clouds hadn’t broken apart due to some natural calamity or maybe even due to Soft Step’s magic, then a rainboom seemed like the most obvious culprit. But why? Why would Rainbow use a Rainboom when she was supposed to be hiding?
And where was Melody? Did she go back to the raft? How far had the raft drifted while she was unconscious?
Rarity knew one thing for certain, and it was that she wasn’t going to get any more answers just floating in the water. She needed to find her friends and get clued in on what had happened after she blacked out.
So she dived back below the water and began to swim off to the south, her eyes scanning the seafloor as she traveled. If Soft Step was still out there somewhere… if her friends had failed… then it would do better for her to move about unseen rather than advertise her presence with scales that glowed like a second moon sitting on the water. Besides, it was easy enough to see anything floating on the surface of the water above her. Her sharp siren eyes could surely pick out a square of wood floating on the open ocean, right?
Despite that, they almost missed the dull emerald figure lying on its side through the murky haze of the water. Rarity did a double-take as she realized what she had seen, and she abruptly changed course, swimming as quickly as she could to get to Melody’s side. “Melody?!” she cried, stopping just shy of the siren and gasping as she saw the hole punched through her back, just to the left of her dorsal fin. The water all around her stank of the coppery smell of blood, even if the hole ripped through Melody’s body didn’t bleed any more.
Rarity tried to swallow her panic as she slowly swam over Melody to get a look at her other side. “M-Melody?” she squeaked when the siren didn’t respond to her earlier cry. The siren wasn’t moving, and Rarity couldn’t see her gills parting from her breathing. “M-Melody? You… y-you’re not…”
She gasped and covered her beak with both her hooves when she finally saw Melody’s front side. The hole punched through her back had burst out of her chest, shattering her heartstone in the process. Tiny shards of emerald decorated the sand all around her like little green glass snowflakes, and the sand underneath her body had been stained brown from her blood. The siren’s eyes were half-lidded and her mouth was parted; Rarity had to turn away and hug herself to not have to look at her glassy eyes and lolling tongue.
Rarity closed her eyes and rocked back and forth as salty tears dissolved into the salty ocean.
Melody was dead.
“Oh, Melody. Melody, darling…” Rarity clawed at her face, her big, scaly, siren face. She couldn’t believe Melody was dead. It didn’t seem possible. There was no way! She was supposed to be the one who knew all the answers, the one who would help get them all home. And now she was dead, taking all her knowledge, all her magic, and all her happiness with her.
Rarity sniffled and shuddered. Assuming that she even survived the night… who was going to turn her back into a pony when this was all over?
She turned around and faced Melody one last time. She deserved to be buried, not left to rot and be picked clean by crabs. But there wasn’t any time to bury her now. If Soft Step had done this to her, then Rarity knew that the alicorn had to have won. She had to be out there, somewhere, and that meant the rest of her friends were in danger. As the last siren, she needed to find them and protect them.
“You… you won’t have died in vain,” Rarity said, drifting back to Melody. She placed one hoof on the siren’s face, closing her eyes, and picked up a chunk of her heartstone from the sand with the other. It was a sizeable chunk, maybe about a third of the heartstone, and Rarity pressed it against her cheek. If she closed her eyes and let her imagination wander, it wasn’t too hard to pretend that Melody was still in there to help her. She could at least take this little piece of her friend with her to remember her by and give her strength.
Then she turned around and swam to the south, unable to waste any more time lingering by the body of a friend.
Rainbow Dash frantically beat her wings as she zoomed to the south. She needed to go faster, faster, but she simply couldn’t. The air tightened around her whenever she approached supersonic speeds and pushed back, making her wings feel like they were buzzing through molasses. She didn’t have the strength or the altitude to push through another rainboom, not after everything she’d expended so far that night. For the one time in her life when she needed to be faster than she’d ever gone before, she simply couldn’t find the speed. The air was too thick, her altitude was too low, and her wings were too tired to go any faster.
Why didn’t she just bash Soft Step’s face in with the rock? If she had done that, this would have all been over already. If she just could have murdered another pony as they lay helpless in front of her, thrown her conscience out the window, she could have avoided all of this. But she wasn’t strong enough to kill like that, not when she thought she had a chance to save a friend. And she’d come so close. So close to doing the right thing, being the valiant hero. But cruel fate had another plan in mind, and the rock she needed to shatter Soft’s horn off of her skull had slipped out of her grasp and given the alicorn enough time to recover and flee.
“Why couldn’t I have been the Element of Practicality?” Rainbow asked herself. “Then I could have done what I needed to and not try to save them all…”
She flinched when a crack of light flickered on the sea in front of her. That had to be Soft Step! And if she was casting magic out in the open sea, then that mean she had to have found the raft…
The panic let Rainbow drill a little deeper into her reserves for a quick spurt of energy. If Soft Step was at the raft, she had to stop her before it was too late!
But by the time she made it to the raft, barely thirty seconds later, there wasn’t much of a raft left at all. There were only logs rolling away from each other, split into driftwood and dumping their supplies into the drink. Rainbow’s mouth hung slightly agape as she witnessed the carnage in front of her. She was too slow again, damn it! Why couldn’t she just fly faster?!
“Gyro,” Rainbow whispered to herself, scanning the wreckage for any sign of the gray mare. Soft had only wanted the pegasi; would she even bother to drag Gyro back to the island with her? Or would she just let her drown?
Taking a deep breath, Rainbow closed her protective third eyelid and splashed into the water. It was difficult to see very far through the murky haze, but a burst of bubbles glittered as they rose to the surface from somewhere below her. Squinting and peering downwards, Rainbow saw the barest shape of a dark silhouette struggling and flailing at the water around it as it nevertheless sank further and further to the bottom.
“…!!!” Rainbow kicked her hooves at the surface and started paddling herself downwards with her wings, quickly slicing through the turbulent water in pursuit of the drowning pony. Thankfully, Gyro’s panicked flailing had kept her from sinking too far, but Rainbow did have to grab onto her shoulders to try and calm her before she could grab the mare lest she receive an earth pony buck to the face. It wouldn’t do if they both drowned, after all. Then there really wouldn’t be anypony to stop Soft Step before it was too late.
She saw Gyro’s eyelids crack open just long enough to glance at her before the salt left Gyro hissing in pain and closing them once again. But at the very least, she had stopped flailing, and that was good enough for Rainbow. Darting around behind Gyro, she wrapped her forelegs around the mare’s chest and began to swim upwards, again using her wings for extra propulsion. In a few seconds, she’d dragged Gyro back to the surface and dumped her on a log, making sure to support her while she clutched at the slippery wood and coughed and sputtered for her breath.
Once Gyro had finally sucked down some air and calmed herself down, Rainbow wrapped her forelegs around the log and tried to pull her little body halfway out of the water to let her waterlogged wings dry out. “What happened?” she asked the engineer. “Where’s the others?”
“They’re… t-they’re gone,” Gyro stammered, still trying to catch her breath. “Soft Step was here… she sank the raft and took them.” A blue eye flicked to Rainbow beneath a frown, and Rainbow had to scramble to cling onto the log when Gyro struck her so hard that she nearly fell off of it. “What the actual shit were you thinking, Rainbow?!” the engineer bellowed at her. “We had a plan! We had a plan and you fucked everything up!”
“They needed my help!” Rainbow protested, glaring back at Gyro. “You couldn’t see it from way down here, but I could see everything up in those clouds! Soft Step was flinging around some absolutely crazy magic and—!”
“You could only think of Rarity, couldn’t you?” Gyro said, her lips parting to reveal gritted teeth. “Fuck the rest of the plan, right? You had to dump it all to make sure Rarity was okay—!”
“I love her!” Rainbow shouted back, her wings trembling as she started to seethe. “Wouldn’t you want to go help out if Coals had to go fight some alicorn of death and you ran away with your tail between your legs?!”
Gyro struck Rainbow again, this time actually knocking her into the water before she managed to splash her way back onto the log. “If I’d stayed on that island to help Coals instead of running away like he wanted me to, none of us would have had any idea Soft Step was coming here and that she’d already taken over the shrine,” she spat. “The mummies got him but I got away instead of fighting, and that saved us. But you don’t even trust Rarity enough to hold her own as a big fucking siren that you had to ruin our plan to be hero! It’s your fault that Soft Step found us, you stupid blue idiot! Your rainboom knocked away all the clouds and then she knew exactly where we were!”
Rainbow wanted to retaliate, but Gyro was right. Instead, she shrank down on the log, her wing crests angled almost like curtains to hide behind. “All I wanted to do was help,” she said. “Soft Step was too powerful for Melody and Rarity to take on by themselves. We almost defeated her, almost, and the rainboom put her down for the count, but…”
“But what?”
“I couldn’t finish her,” Rainbow said. She looked up at Gyro, regret plainly filling her eyes. “She was lying on some bits of wreckage sticking out of the shoals, horribly burnt because of the daylight spell Melody put on me. I had a rock in my hooves. I could have either bashed her skull in or broke her horn off and tried to spare her.”
Gyro’s glare softened just a touch. “And?”
“I tried to break her horn,” Rainbow said. “I tried to spare her. And she got away. Now we’re all paying for it.”
Gyro sighed and let her shoulders sag. “You tried to do the right thing, I guess,” she said. “I guess I should just be happy that you’re alive.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, frowning at the wood under her chin. “Yeah, I guess.”
“So what now?” Gyro asked her. “What do we do? Where are our sirens? How do we get back to the island and stop her?”
“That’s just it,” Rainbow said. “I don’t know. I don’t know how we’re going to get back. I don’t know what we’re going to do if we do. And… and I don’t know what happened to Melody and Rarity.”
Gyro blinked. “You… you don’t? But I thought you said—?”
“Soft Step claimed she killed Rarity by the time I got to her,” Rainbow said, her voice shaking. “That’s what that explosion on the water was. And Melody… Soft made decoys of herself and turned invisible. Then she shot Melody through the back with a spell.” She grimaced and shuddered. “If they’re both still alive… if they’re not…”
She sniffled, and Gyro heard it. Her rage forgotten, the engineer slid across the log and wrapped a foreleg around Rainbow’s shoulders.
“It’ll be alright,” she said, her voice promising something Rainbow knew not even she believed. “We’ll… we’ll find a way. Somehow.”
Rainbow didn’t know if the truth or the lie hurt more.
The sounds of battle raged in front of Hot Coals, but he kept close to the noise regardless. The safest place to be on the island right now was, ironically, right behind the minotaurs. They were fighting the mummies, and with Chirp standing on his back, Coals felt a great deal safer being near them. If they weren’t going to attack him because of the macaw, he was going to cling onto that lifeline as much as he could.
And the minotaurs fought astonishingly well. They used their nets to drag down one or two mummies at a time and would then butcher the corpses with their spears or their bare hands until they stopped thrashing. The mummies, in the meanwhile, were too slow and clumsy to be a real threat to the war band. Though they tirelessly pressed the assault, they simply couldn’t get close enough to the trained warriors to inflict any damage on them. The entire unit of fifty seemed to work as one, supporting each other and clearing out their flanks whenever the number of mummies began to overwhelm them and press in too closely. It was impressive what they could achieve with spears and numbers where the survivors had failed with magic and firearms.
It wasn’t very long at all before the minotaurs had reached the main campgrounds and swiftly began to clear it out. The war band spread out from the center of the camp, driving the mummies back to the tree line and holding their ground on favorable terrain. Their leader stopped in the middle of the clearing to observe their progress, and after making sure Chirp was still comfortable on his back, Coals began to cautiously approach the minotaur. “Soooo… what brings you all here?” he asked the chief, as fruitless as he knew that question was going to be.
The chief turned around and frowned down at him. “A takka’set’un Um’a tokto, pohna’al.”
“Yeah, I figured that’d be the response I got.” Coals laughed nervously, even as the chief just stared down at him. He felt Chirp shifting on his shoulder, and he took a few steps back. “I’ll leave you all to it, then.”
To his surprise and his immediate dread, Chirp squawked and leapt off of his shoulders. The macaw spread his wings and glided across the camp to one of the huts, where he touched down on the sand and waddled inside. Coals wasted no time scurrying closer to the hut, especially when the minotaur chief started to move after him. But even though the minotaur caught up to him on his longer legs, he was more interested in where the macaw had gone. He passed Coals by without even so much as a look and stopped at the doorway of the hut, where he had to bend down to even look inside. Coals stopped and cocked his head to the side as the minotaur rummaged around inside the hut, and he finally emerged nearly a full minute later with a few sheets of paper clutched in his hand. After a second to look at them, Coals realized that those were the useless waterproof papers that the other stallions had found while looking around the old campsite.
Chirp flew out of the hut and perched above the doorframe while the minotaur walked back to the center of the clearing, his eyes scanning over the papers. Coals wasted no time scurrying over to Chirp’s side for the bird’s holy protection, and slowly the rest of the minotaurs began to fall back to their leader. In a short bit, some sort of conference began, and the chief started pointing to the papers and passing them around.
Coals frowned and cocked his head to the side. Could… could the minotaurs actually read those papers?
Chirp squawked again, catching the minotaurs’ attention, and then he began to flutter to the trees to the southwest. Coals instinctively followed him, knowing that the bird was trying to lead them somewhere, and he gestured toward the band of minotaurs. “Well, come on, then!” he called to them, allowing a little smirk onto his face. “Don’t you want to follow your holy bird or what?”
-----
Rarity splashed to the surface and looked around. Where was the raft? It should have been around here. She grinded her beak in worry. Maybe it’d drifted further than she thought? She didn’t know how long she was unconscious, after all…
“Rarity!”
Her ears perked at the shout, and she whipped her head to the left. There, she spotted a few logs floating in the distance, with two figures clinging onto one. Gasping, Rarity immediately surged in that direction, nearly launching herself into the air with how quickly she tried to close the distance. In a few seconds, she was there, and gingerly grabbed onto the log to keep it close to her body and prevent it from rolling over and flipping the two ponies on top of it into the water. “Rainbow? Gyro?” she said, a relieved smile breaking out over her face. She leaned her head down to carefully nuzzle the two, and then she worriedly looked around. “Where are the others?”
“They’re gone, Rares,” Rainbow said, shaking her head. “Soft Step destroyed the raft and took them. She’s probably almost back at the island by now.”
“We need to hurry back there,” Gyro said. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste.”
Rarity nodded. “Right. This is… this is very bad. Hang on!”
After making sure the two ponies were holding securely onto the log, Rarity began to push it through the water, back in the direction of the home island. As they started to move, however, Rarity winced as the question she dreaded was finally asked. “Hey, Rares?” Rainbow asked. “Did you see Melody?”
“I…” Rarity shook and shuddered before finally finding her voice around the knot in her throat. “She’s dead, Rainbow,” she finally said.
Rainbow and Gyro looked at each other in shock. “She’s… she’s dead?”
“Something destroyed her heartstone,” Rarity said. “Her body is just… just lying on the seafloor. I saw it on the way over here. I just can’t believe… What happened after I blacked out?”
“I tried to help Melody fight Soft Step,” Rainbow said. Her shoulders sagged and she shook her head in defeat. “We failed.”
“So what now?” Rarity asked them. “What’s our plan? What do we do?”
“We go back to the island and we stop this no matter what it takes,” Gyro said, glaring ahead at the island slowly drawing nearer. “Who would have thought it’d just be us again? A pegasus, a siren, and a cripple.”
“We’ll pull it off,” Rainbow said. “We’ll do it and avenge everybody who has died. Somehow.”
Rarity again grinded her beak in worry. ‘Somehow’. A carefully laid plan to try and best that alicorn using two sirens had failed horribly. What chance did a single siren, a pegasus, and an earth pony have against her now?
Hot Coals simply couldn’t believe how calm and peaceful the island had become now. There had been a hundred mummies crawling over the island, maybe more, but fifty minotaurs had ripped them to pieces without any casualties. And they’d done that quite literally; removing the heads of the mummies didn’t kill them, so the minotaurs had used their ridiculous strength to rend them apart into rotten paste until they didn’t pose a threat anymore. Here and there lied a twitching limb or a snapping head, but they were easy enough to avoid as he followed Chirp through the trees.
Who would have thought that the minotaurs of all things would be the ones to save the day?
Behind him, about half of the minotaurs picked their way through the jungle, while the other half remained at the camp to secure it and kill any more mummies that might wander into the island’s focal point. Their leader cleared the way with his spear, breaking away vines and other undergrowth as he led his soldiers, and even though they were ostensibly on the same side as Coals now, the stallion did try to keep some distance between himself and the chief. At the very least, his horn and fatigue had recovered enough to where he could throw a few spells to protect himself if need be, but not even that would last him forever.
After a few minutes of walking, Chirp finally sailed out of the trees and perched himself on a moonlit rock near the rocky shores of the island. Coals made it to the bird’s side and looked down at the frothy white waters washing up against the stones piled at the bottom of the overhang. Somewhere down there, if he remembered correctly, was the hidden entrance to the shrine under the temple.
The minotaurs stopped around Coals and peered over the edge into the water as well. Frowning, the chief examined the waves below for a few seconds before turning back to his war band. The minotaurs began to discuss the situation among themselves, and Coals quickly tuned them out, not knowing what they were saying and with no way to find out. Instead, he just looked at Chirp, who had fluffed up his feathers and began to preen himself. “What do I do now, little guy?” he asked the macaw. “You seem like you’ve got the answers… somehow. What’s the next step?”
The macaw only made a little grunt at him and went back to preening his feathers. Sighing, Coals shook his head and looked down. “You’re no help,” he muttered, watching the waves go in and out beneath him. But, on reflection, it seemed obvious enough. If the rest of the stallions were held down in the shrine, wouldn’t the minotaurs be the best bet at freeing them?
He looked over his shoulder again, but the minotaurs were still in conference, unsure of what to do. Coals blinked and frowned. Did the minotaurs not know about the shrine underneath the island? He found that hard to believe given how much longer they had been around than any of the survivors. But they never visited this island, did they? Some sort of superstition or fear kept them from going here or to any of the other islands except for the occasional visit. Perhaps that was what Chirp was trying to tell them, and the bird obviously couldn’t make it down beneath the water and into the caves. But he could.
“Hey!” he shouted at the minotaurs, moving to the edge of the overhang as he did so. When they looked at him, he pointed to the water. “What you’re looking for is down this way! Follow me!”
He started to scramble down the rocky slope, pausing to make sure the minotaurs saw what he was doing, and continued on again when their chief moved closer to investigate. When he made it down to the water’s edge, he jumped in and rode a wave into the dark cave waiting behind the rocky overhang. He reached out with his hooves to catch the stony edge before the receding water dragged him back out to sea, and he found a split in the rock to grab onto. He started to haul himself up when he heard a hiss and a growl split the darkness.
His horn sprang to life almost immediately, filling the dark cave with a pale glow. Directly in front of him, two mummies began shambling over from their posts by a tunnel that led deeper into the shrine. Quickly flaring up his horn, he grabbed one by the neck and flung it into the water, then shifted his magic into a wall to keep the other one from biting his face off when it lunged at him. He grimaced and tensed as he tried to keep his feeble magic up under the undead’s onslaught, but the tireless persistence of the mummy began to wear his already exhausted horn down.
Just as his shield broke, however, a spear tore through the mummy’s neck and flung it back into the wall. Coals gasped and looked over his shoulder to see the war chief emerging from the water, using his muscular arms to pull himself onto the ledge. While the mummy struggled to stand, he calmly walked over to it and stomped his hoof down on its skull, painting the walls with centuries-old gore. Then, after a second to regard his fallen foe, the minotaur grabbed his spear and flung the twitching body into the water.
More minotaurs began to appear in the cave, and the chief stooped down so he could squeeze into the tunnel. Coals, meanwhile, pulled himself onto the ledge and watched as the warriors began to file in after their chief, one at a time. Only five or so emerged from the water, while the rest were likely taking up positions around the cave to protect it. When the last minotaur squeezed his way into the tunnel, Coals swallowed hard and followed them as well, his hooves splashing on the inch or two of water sitting on the stones from the tide.
He didn’t know what he’d find inside the shrine… but he was at least relieved that the minotaurs were clearing it out.
Slipping through space was trivially easy when you carried the power of a god in your blood.
Soft Step crossed the distance between where she’d sunk the raft and the island shrine in a matter of minutes. She couldn’t move as fast as she would have liked thanks to the pegasi she dragged through the darkness with her, but it was still much faster than the last pegasus could fly. Once she returned to the island, there would be nothing to stop her from finishing the ritual.
She could feel her prey struggling in her magical grasp, fighting even though she’d ripped their bodies apart into shadow for easier transporting. She had to tighten her grip on them to make them stop and keep them from accidentally breaking free, for their sake as much as for hers and His. If her magical grip on them failed, if the spell that kept them stuck in the shadows with her while she moved fell apart, they could suddenly disintegrate into a cloud of bloody mist as they popped back out. They obviously didn’t know that, but Soft couldn’t afford to stop and tell them anyway. She just needed to keep them secure until she arrived.
Which only took her another fifteen or so minutes. She triumphantly materialized just beyond the island’s shores to survey the situation, and she immediately knew something had happened while she was moving. Her connection to her undead thralls had faltered and considerably weakened, and she could only find a few scattered about the island to command. Something had happened to them while she was gone and thinned their numbers.
That was enough to give her pause. This was either some kind of trick, or another party had joined the fray that she previously hadn’t given much thought to. All she had to do, however, was look to the beach to the north, where she saw a line of outrigger canoes moored on the sand. The sight sent her into a seething rage. Of course. The primitives. They lived on the Usurper’s island and paid him tribute at his temple. And here, on the eve of her greatest triumph, they’d come in force to interfere. Her thralls were very little match for them, and they’d reduced much of her army to writhing limbs and chunks of dead flesh in the sand.
She flinched and gasped as she felt two more of her thralls die beneath the earth. They were making their way to the shrine! If they managed to get to the inner sanctum and kill her captives before she could sacrifice them, then she would fail, and she would never get the chance again. They had to be stopped, and she had to stop them now.
“Help!” The mare she held captive began to scream and thrash, and Soft glared at her. “Somepony, help! I don’t want to die!”
“Silence!” Soft roared at her, and all she had to do was send magic down her horn to squeeze the pegasus until she didn’t even have the breath to cry out in pain. She held the grip for a few seconds to prove her point, even as the other pegasus began to shout at her, but released the tension well before she risked killing her captive. The pegasus mare’s head lolled back and she trembled in Soft’s grasp, and all Soft had to do was shoot a murderous look at her other captive to silence him.
But new shouts filled the void, and she looked down to see a group of about twenty minotaurs standing around the entrance to the shrine. They waved their weapons at her, and a few began spinning their nets in what would be futile attempts to tangle her up and bring her down. Growling, Soft lowered herself to their level and bared her fangs. “You are the ones killing my army and trying to stop my ritual?!” she barked at them, eyes practically flaming with hatred. “I cannot be stopped!”
Her roar staggered the minotaurs, and nearly a hundred lances of moonlight appeared in the air around her at the beckoning of her horn. Though a few minotaurs rushed forward to fling their spears or nets at her, the rest began to back off in fear. Before either could make a move, however, Soft loosed all of her spears, cutting them all down in the blink of an eye. In no more than a second, she had turned twenty minotaur warriors into shish kebabs skewered to the ground with multiple lances of moonlight. A few moaned or whimpered in agony, but none rose to fight her when the lances faded away.
“Holy shit,” the stallion in her grasp muttered. “You just killed all of them!”
“They are primitive scum,” Soft growled out of the corner of her mouth. “They died like the animals they are.”
“Soft, what happened to you?” When she looked over her shoulder, the stallion managed to meet her gaze, albeit with worried and fearful eyes. “This isn’t like you at all! You were such a sweet and caring pony before all of this…”
“I am not that mare any longer,” Soft hissed at him. “She is dead. And you will be too, in a few minutes.”
She swooped down and splashed through the water at the mouth of the cave, dragging her prey in after her, who began to sputter and cough as she hauled them through the water. Though she preemptively charged her horn in anticipation of a fight, she didn’t see any minotaurs waiting for her. They must have all foolishly moved deeper into the structure instead of leaving any door guards behind—not that they would have stopped her anyway.
Up ahead of her, the minotaurs called out to each other, and Soft Step began to creep after them on hooves as silent as the dead of night. She knew her captives might try to shout and warn them, so she preemptively closed her magic around their muzzles, preventing them from speaking. With the advantage of stealth on her side, she swiftly advanced on the shrine, ready to complete the ritual and end the folly of the sun once and for all.
Rainbow clutched onto the log as tightly as she could as the waves battered it about and sent spray into her face. At her side, Gyro similarly held on, trembling as she locked her limbs in place around the sodden wood. In front of them, the home island grew larger and larger, but not nearly fast enough.
“I’m going as fast as I can!” Rarity shouted, her muscular body bobbing with each paddle of her tail. “You’re not the one who has to push this thing! I can only go so fast for so long!”
“We don’t have a lot of time left!” Rainbow shouted. “Soft’s got everything she needs to do this ritual, and she left before us! If we give her too much time, we won’t be fast enough to stop her!”
“I’m going as fast as I can!” Rarity hissed again. Her forelegs bulged as she pushed against the log, and Rainbow yelped as it nearly dunked under the water. It’ll take me another ten or fifteen minutes to get there!”
“That’s too long! Stop!”
Rarity blinked. “Pardon?”
“I said stop!” Rainbow shouted, and she flared her wings for balance when Rarity abruptly came to a halt.
Gyro sputtered as water washed over her head, and she whipped her eyes around to focus on Rainbow. “Why are we stopping?” she asked her. “I thought we were trying to get there as fast as we could!”
“Rarity can’t bring us there fast enough,” Rainbow said. She stood up on the log and shook out her wings, shedding water from her feathers as if they were tiny blue thunderheads. “It’ll take her fifteen minutes to get there. I can be there in two if I fly.”
“Rainbow, you can’t!” Rarity cried, frowning at the pegasus. “You already fought Soft Step alone, and that was out in the open where you could fly! If she’s underground, then you don’t have any advantages! You can’t possibly hope to fight her!”
“Maybe,” Rainbow said, chewing on her lip. “Maybe not. I fucked up and got us into this situation. Maybe I can make up for it.”
“Okay, hold the fuck up, Rainbow,” Gyro said. She tried to drag herself onto the log to stand as well, but lacked the muscle strength in her legs to do so. Grunting, she sagged back down into the water and fixed Rainbow with a glare. “Your brilliant plan to stopping this is to fight Soft Step again and this time on even worse terms? What the actual shit are you thinking? You’re going to die!”
Rainbow sighed and let her wings sag. “The important thing is that I can distract her, maybe slow her down,” she said. “I don’t know how long this ritual of hers is going to take to cast, but I can do my best to make it take as long as possible. We can’t let her succeed, no matter the cost.”
Rarity took her hooves off the log and lightly hugged herself. “Even… even if you do delay her, what are we supposed to do if she… well…”
“You’re a siren, Rares,” Rainbow said, smiling up at her. “You’ve got a ton of great power locked up in there that you just need to figure out how to use. If I can slow her down, keep her confined in the shrine, then you can collapse it on her. It’s… it’s going to be our only chance to stop her once and for all.”
The siren gasped, and even Gyro seemed taken aback. “But if you’re in there… if the rest of our friends are in there…”
“It’s either going to be us or the world,” Rainbow said. “You guys are right. I can’t fight her and win. None of us can. She’s too friggin’ strong for that. Maybe I can save our friends somehow. I’m certainly going to try. But we need to destroy that shrine so that she can’t finish what she’s trying to accomplish.”
“And the barrier?” Rarity asked. “How can we lower the barrier if the shrine is destroyed?”
Rainbow hung her head and held her tongue as she wrestled with the ugly truth. “Maybe you’ll find a way,” she said. “Maybe there’s something else we can do. Maybe destroying the shrine will bring down the barrier on its own. I don’t know.” She managed to lift her head up to look Rarity in the eyes. “You have to admit that our chances of getting home were never that good to begin with.”
“No, no they weren’t.” Rarity hung her head and avoided Rainbow’s eyes. “Is this… is this going to be how it ends, then?”
Rainbow felt her throat tighten and her heart seize up. After shaking out her wings one more time, she fluttered up to Rarity’s face and put a hoof on her beak. “I’m not going to give up,” Rainbow said. “I’m going to fight until my last breath. I’m going to do everything I can to get in there, stop the ritual, and get out in one piece. Just… in case I don’t…”
“I… understand.” Rarity closed her eyes and shuddered like she was trying to shake off her panic and her worry. “Please do be safe for me, Rainbow.”
“Hey, I’m Loyalty, remember?” Rainbow let a small smirk pop onto her muzzle, and she hugged and kissed Rarity’s beak. “I’m not gonna leave you hanging. I’ll be there for you when this is all over. And I love you, whether you’re a big scaly fish, or a pretty little unicorn.”
“I love you, too,” Rarity said, sniffling and blinking away tears. “Just come back to me, will you, darling?”
“I will. I promise.” Rainbow kissed Rarity one more time and backed away. She shifted her attention to Gyro, and she flew down low enough to bump hooves with the mare. “You’re not one for sappy stuff, are you?”
“Not in the slightest,” Gyro said, shaking her head. Still, she managed a smile for Rainbow. “If you come back from this, I’m gonna buy you a drink when we get home.”
“Heh. I’ll keep you to it.” She held out her hoof and bumped Gyro’s, then winked at the mare. “See you on the other side, G. And don’t let Rarity freak out too much.”
Gyro nodded. “I’ll do my best, Rainbow.”
“Good.” Rainbow looked to the sky, where the pitch black of the night was slowly beginning to lighten to the east and the moon hung low beneath the stars. “The night’s almost over, and I’ve wasted enough time. Good luck, girls.”
And with a few beats of her wings, she was gone, rainbow trail glowing across the waves as she sprinted to the shrine.
Hot Coals had to try to swallow down the bile rising in his throat from the grisly sights filling the tunnel. Even though the minotaurs could only make their way through the tunnel one at a time due to their sheer size, the war chief leading the expedition proved more than capable of tearing apart the resistance arrayed against him. As he shuffled past a small chamber in the middle of the hallway, Coals had to avert his eyes away from the twitching pile of gory limbs and brown-blooded corpses the war chief had simply discarded as he chewed through Soft Step’s army.
But as they made their way through the shrine, Coals found himself worrying about what the minotaurs would do when they finally found the others that were trapped down here. Would they treat them with the same tolerance they’d given him, courtesy of Chirp’s intervention? Or would they kill them like they’d apparently done to so many other ponies?
Assuming the others were still alive, of course. Given how this place was crawling with mummies, Coals didn’t know how likely that was. But the ones that had overpowered him on the beach had only dragged him away as their captive, not ripped through his flesh with their rotten teeth. Maybe they were keeping the other four as prisoners down here as well?
Whatever was going on, at least the minotaurs were putting a stop to it. And given how effortlessly they plowed through the undead both above and now below the island, Coals almost felt confident that they could undo whatever plans Soft Step and that dark god had in store. Not only that, but they’d decided to take the waterproofed papers down into the shrine with them. Though Coals had no idea what it said or why the minotaurs were even interested in it, he decided to at least trust that they were going to get some use out of it. Maybe they wouldn’t be so pointless to their survival now unlike how they feared when they’d first looked at them.
The minotaurs had some discussion ahead of him, and the warrior at the rear passed the papers forward before he and the next minotaur pulled back out of the tunnel and set up in the wider chamber they had just begun to pass through. Hot Coals hesitated as they moved back and planted their spears in the ground, their attention turned back towards the entrance. He could only assume that their chief had ordered them to stand guard against any reinforcements in a good defensive position, and so he decided that he’d be better off following the lead body. If the minotaur chief stumbled across the others, then he had to be as close to him as possible to try and protect them.
A set of stairs greeted him, and Coals grimaced as he climbed up the slippery stones behind the minotaurs. The hallway ahead was even narrower than the one he’d just navigated, and the minotaurs had to practically crawl and shimmy through the narrow space just to advance. At one point, they stopped for a minute or so to clear out some debris before advancing again, leaving the rocks scattered along the hallway wherever they could toss them to make space. But soon enough, Coals slipped through the last obstruction in the hall and stepped into a large, dark chamber nearly impossible to see in.
The moans and groans of several mummies filled the chamber, matched with ferocious shouts and war cries from the minotaurs ahead of him. Coals flared his horn to life, manifesting as strong a glow as he could, bathing the round chamber in light before the mummies could jump the minotaurs in the dark. With the light shed from his horn, the minotaurs ahead of him were able to quickly find the mummies advancing on them and rip them apart with their spears and bare hands.
In less than a minute, it was over, and the last of the mummies in the shrine had been reduced to piles of rotting flesh. Coals found a torch lying on the ground and managed to get it lit with the aid of one of the minotaurs, who struck his spear against the wall to provide a spark. The minotaur then took the torch from his grasp and began to light fire bowls along the walls while the other two minotaurs and Coals turned their attention to the ponies beginning to stand along the walls of the chamber.
Coals breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Ruse, Gauze, and even Black Flag begin to cautiously congregate and watch the minotaurs moving about the shrine with worry. When they saw Coals, however, they started to relax, albeit only slightly. “Coals?” Flag asked, narrowing his eyes at the former pirate. “What the fuck are you doing with the walking sirloins?”
“Forget about that!” Ruse said, trotting away from the group and making a beeline right for the stallion. “They just chopped all those mummies into pieces! I sure as hell ain’t gonna complain about the company so long as it doesn’t eat us alive!”
The minotaurs watched the ponies congregating with obvious mistrust, though they didn’t make a move against them—yet. Instead, they busied themselves with examining the dais and the pony figurines arranged on the pedestals surrounding it, and one spread the papers out on the dais so they could read them easier.
Gauze noted it and nodded his head in their direction. “Looks like they’re literate,” he said. “We might have underestimated them.”
“They showed up a little while ago and cleared the island of all the mummies,” Coals said. “About fifty of them all arrived in canoes and waded ashore. The only reason they didn’t immediately butcher me was because Chirp showed up.”
“Chirp?” Ruse blinked in surprise. “Really?”
“I think he’s some kind of religious symbol for them,” Coals said. “They seemed to treat him with reverence.”
“Huh. Imagine that.” Ruse chuckled and shook his head. “I always knew there was something funny about that bird.”
“Yeah.” Coals looked past the group and noticed that Ratchet still sat on the sidelines, staring out into space. Frowning, he pointed to the chief engineer and cocked his head. “What happened to him?”
“Soft Step did something to him,” Gauze said. “She broke into his mind to find out where the pegasi had gone. She was hardly what I’d call ‘gentle’ about it.”
“Well… shit. Hopefully we can help him when this is all over.”
“I certainly hope so,” Gauze said. “I might be able to help if I had some time to examine him, but I can’t do that from down here.”
“We should get the fuck out of here,” Flag said. “If the minotaurs have cleared the island, we need to leave before Soft Step comes back. She was going to sacrifice us to her god as soon as she got the pegasi.”
Ruse nodded along. “I agree entirely with you, my scallywag brother,” he said, earning an annoyed scowl from the pirate. “The sooner we’re out of here, the better.”
“Then let’s get moving,” Coals said, gesturing back toward the exit. “Let’s grab Ratchet and get out of here. Leave the minotaurs to… whatever it is they’re doing.”
Before they could move, however, the shouts of minotaurs echoed up the stairway leading out of the shrine. Everyone present immediately tensed and turned to the hall to see one of the two minotaurs left behind running back into the chamber—only to be cut down with a powerful surge of lunar magic.
As the smoking corpse fell to the ground, Soft Step emerged from the hallway behind him. Her horn glowed faintly from the spell she’d just cast, and she turned her predatory eyes to everyone assembled in the shrine. She parted her lips and revealed her fangs in a murderous smile, and her horn flared as she flung Champagne and Stargazer into the chamber. “Well, well, well, looks like I have uninvited guests,” she said, glaring at the minotaurs. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I need privacy while I work!”
The minotaurs were the first to make a move, with the war chief and his two companions charging right at Soft Step with their horns lowered. Soft Step leisurely waited for them to reach her before she turned incorporeal and passed through them, reforming into something solid on the other side. She let her horn flare up, and magic grabbed onto one minotaur’s arms and legs and pulled in opposite directions. The hulking warrior screamed in pain as Soft tore his limbs from their sockets and crushed his trachea with his own separated bones, and the alicorn licked her lips as she faced down the two remaining warriors.
Hot Coals, meanwhile, had rushed over to the side of the two dazed pegasi Soft had thrown into the chamber. “Are you guys okay?” he asked them, helping Champagne sit up. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
“I think she bruised my ribs, but I’m okay,” Champagne said, coughing once. Her eyes widened when she saw the fight unfolding at the exit. “Oh, Celestia, she’s going to kill us all…”
Black Flag, meanwhile, immediately shuffled to the side of the room. “We have to overwhelm her now,” he growled, and he grabbed his pistol that the mummies had taken from him when Soft had surprised them. He quickly checked that it was loaded, and he took aim at the alicorn while she toyed with the other minotaurs.
But some sort of sixth sense seemed to alert Soft Step, for she turned around and immediately smacked the pistol out of Flag’s mouth with her magic. The weapon clattered to the floor, and Soft grabbed the pirate by the throat and bashed his head into the wall, immediately knocking him unconscious. The other survivors cried out in alarm or shock, and a few began to rush at Soft Step in desperation.
“Foals, all of you,” Soft growled, and she blinked to the other side of the room before the minotaurs could stab her. She managed to separate the two of them, and her magic turned the stone beneath one into quicksand. The warrior shouted in alarm before he fell through the earth as if it wasn’t even there, and the shifting, roiling rock turned solid again as she let go of the spell. The last remaining minotaur, the one with the skull on his head, stumbled to the side in alarm, and Soft knew by the way he gripped his spear that she’d terrified what was undoubtedly the primitives’ finest warrior. That fact alone made her impending victory all the more delicious.
Four hooves connected with the back of her skull, and Soft whirled around even as she staggered forward from the blow. Growling, she pulled Stargazer out of the air, her lips peeling back in a vicious snarl. “Fall still and accept your fate!” she roared, and she snagged hold of the stallion’s tail with her horn and whipped his face into the floor. Bone crunched and teeth flew loose, and the stallion twitched on the ground from the force of the blow.
Her hooves cracked the stone floor as she stomped over toward the other survivors. “You are making this much more difficult than it needs to be!” she roared, her magic lifting Ruse off of the ground and choking him until he stopped struggling. “I will win, regardless of whether or not you struggle like the insects you are! Lie down and die as I command it!”
She flung Ruse aside, advancing on the remaining survivors with a relentless fury. Coals, Gauze, and Champagne all tried to take her down in one quick burst of magic and flight, but the twisted alicorn’s horn pulsed and enveloped them all in a telekinetic hold. “Go to sleep,” she commanded them, and the pale magic holding them turned a sickly black. One by one, the three figures fell limp, and Soft dropped them into a pile on the floor.
Pain split through her sides, and Soft staggered from the sudden force of a blow from behind. When she looked down, she saw the tip of a spear emerging from her body just in front of her right wing. She could feel the length of the shaft running across her body from left to right, and when she turned around, the minotaur let go of the spear and stepped back in horrified awe.
Soft smiled and advanced on him at a leisurely, menacing pace. “Did you think it would be that simple?” she taunted the chief, her fanged grin glowing in the dim light of the shrine. “Did you think that I, the avatar and embodiment of all of His power, the instrument that will set Him free, could be killed by something as simple as that?”
The minotaur tripped and fell backwards, and he scooted away as fast as he could on his hands. Soft Step stopped next to one of the pedestals and plucked the unicorn figurine off of it. “Do you see this?” she asked, holding it between her feathers. “There may not be a moon down here, but this effigy was carved in his likeness. Even as the followers of the Usurper struck down my predecessor, one of His faithful remained hidden in their ranks. She carved this totem to resemble him and engraved it with tiny runes to give it his power. She knew that another opportunity like this would arise even as the Ponynesians crumbled to dust around her.”
She set the totem back on the pedestal and grabbed both ends of the spear in her wings. Grimacing, she snapped the head off with a twist of her feathers and pulled the entire bloody length out of her body with the other wing. Instead of dropping it, however, she twirled it in her grasp and marched closer to the minotaur. “His power flows to me through that totem, perhaps even stronger than the moon’s light. After all, this totem was drenched in blood less than a thousand years ago, and blood magic is the strongest magic of all. So long as I am in this room, I cannot be killed.”
She stopped in front of the minotaur and looked at the crimson-painted stick in her grasp. “Allow me to put this in terms your primitive mind can understand,” she said, leering down at the minotaur. Then, instead of dispatching him with magic, she swung the bloody stick as hard as she could at the minotaur’s skull. The spear haft exploded into millions of tiny splinters from the force of the blow, and the hit picked the minotaur up and flung him across the room where he fell in a crumpled heap against the wall. Soft took the remains of the stick she still held in her magic and dropped them into a fire bowl, then calmly looked around the room. Nobody was left standing to challenge her, and she grinned.
“Time grows short,” she said, and her magic lifted her sacrifices into the air and arranged them around the central dais. “But there is still more than enough to finish the ritual.”
Rainbow Dash shed no tears as she rocketed away from her friend and her lover, leaving them behind as the sea blurred by beneath her. She was strong, determined, and resolute in her conviction. She had to do this, even if it would kill her. The fate of the world depended on it. The water shed from her eyelashes was just the wind blasting into her face.
Yet she did take a deep breath to ready herself, not to calm any emotions roiling within her breast. What she faced before her was an impossible task: stopping an all-powerful alicorn of death and darkness by herself. She didn’t even have Melody’s enchantment to make her coat glow with daylight. The only thing that had given her a chance to take out the alicorn was a daylight-infused Sonic Rainboom, and she’d squandered that opportunity so horrendously she knew she’d never get it back. There was no feasible way for her to take down Soft Step in a cramped shrine with no room to fly and very little light. She’d be trying to fight the alicorn in her element. The only advantage she could remotely consider she had going for herself—if it even mattered at all—was that there was no moonlight in the shrine. Would it help her? She had no idea… but she wasn’t going to count on it.
This was a fight she couldn’t win with hooves and force, she soon concluded. It wasn’t a fight she could win at all, but that didn’t mean she could give up. If she could do anything, anything, to buy a few extra minutes for Rarity and Gyro, then she would do it. Her life was merely a tool to pry a little more time out of the alicorn before she finished her ritual. Nothing more.
She looked up to the sky, where the glow of the sun rounding the world was just beginning to needle its way through the darkness of the night. It wouldn’t be long now before that cheerful golden light would climb above the horizon once more, chasing away the nightmares of the dark. Rainbow had to stifle a yawn and vigorously shake her head to chase away her exhaustion. She’d flown so much tonight, done so much and fought so hard. There wasn’t much of the night left now; could she fight her way through what was left of it and finally emerge to see the fiery herald of the day poke its head out in the east? Or had she seen her final sunrise, lived her final day, and never even known it?
Her mind was wandering, and wandering into the sentimental. She tried to push all those thoughts aside. She had a mission to do, and it would likely be the most dangerous thing she’d ever done in her entire life. If she wasn’t focused, wasn’t prepared, then it would also be the last.
Her sights settled on the rocky bluffs of the island which concealed the entrance to the shrine beneath the waters of the rising tide. A tiny twitch of her feathers was all it took to adjust her attitude and dive towards the water on the edge. She could just barely make out the shadow of the overhang concealing the entrance and had enough time for one final adjustment before it was too late.
She hit the water and let her momentum carry her through to the other side.
-----
Gyro clutched onto the log as it plowed through the water in silence. Since Rainbow’s departure, neither she nor Rarity had spoken a word. An awful quiet hung around them, heavy and foreboding, only interrupted by the splashing of Rarity’s fin on the water or the sound of the waves breaking against the log.
Would she ever see Rainbow again? Gyro didn’t know if she could answer that. Rainbow Dash had already fought Soft Step and escaped with her life, even winning before she wasted her opportunity to finish it all with a single blow. The mare could fight, and she could hold her own against demigods and supernatural beings stacked against her. But could she pull off the impossible without her wings, without her flight, in a lair that gave all the advantages to Soft Step? It didn’t seem possible at all.
It would take nothing short of a miracle to save the pegasus… an admission made all the more difficult when she heard Rarity sniffle above her.
She craned her head back and saw Rarity’s scaly lips had parted as she gnashed her teeth together. The siren’s body trembled, and Gyro wondered if the water on her face was only the spray of the sea or something else. But when she sniffled again, the sound was unmistakable, even over the din of the sea. “Rarity?” she asked, hazarding the reaction she might get from the siren. “Are you… you know…?”
“Hmn?” Rarity blinked and shook her head from side to side, as her hooves were occupied with pushing the log so she couldn’t wipe at her eyes. “What… what do you mean, darling?”
Gyro lightly frowned at the siren. “You know what I mean. Are you okay?”
“I’m… I’m fine,” Rarity said, shifting her attention back to the island in front of them. “Don’t worry about me.”
“You’re not fine, Rarity, I can tell.” Sighing, she slid over on the log until she could put her hoof over Rarity’s. “We’ll see her again. I promise it.”
“But will she be okay when we do?” Rarity asked. “She’s going to fight Soft Step alone…”
“She’ll be fine,” Gyro assured her, even as she held her own doubts. “You’ve gotta admit, she’s too stubborn to die.”
Rarity chuckled slightly; Gyro considered that a victory. “She’s certainly been through a lot and come out the other side not much worse for wear. If there’s any mare that could go through Tartarus and walk out the other side unscathed, it’s her.” But her momentary mirth faded and she frowned at the sea. “But I think she’s walking into more than Tartarus…”
“Then we just need to get to the island,” Gyro said, tightening her grip on the slippery log. “The sooner we can get there, the sooner we can help out.”
“I... I suppose you’re right.” Gyro felt the log shift as Rarity redoubled her speed. “We can’t afford to waste any more time, can we?”
“No, no we cannot,” Gyro agreed. “I just hope that there will be enough when we get there.”
Soft Step cleared the dais with a wave of her magic, scattering the papers the minotaurs had laid over it. All around her, the ponies that would soon fuel the ritual lay motionless, the fight throttled out of them. With any luck, they wouldn’t wake before Soft had sacrificed their hearts and completed the ritual. She had everything she needed and all the peace in the world to work on it.
Her magic adjusted the statuettes on their pedestals, leaving each one perfectly aligned and centered. She would need their energy to manifest Him into the world, rejuvenated by the blood she was about to offer them. Her eyes momentarily lingered on the crystal pony statuette. She had no crystal ponies with her, so she needed to offer it a fitting substitute. Thankfully, the blood of an alicorn would work just fine.
It would be a honorable sacrifice for her Lord. She couldn’t be angry about that.
She began to sort out her sacrifices, using her considerable magical power to make sure that their coats were clean and presentable, not stained with sand, dirt, and blood. The unicorns she left by His statuette, the pegasi by the Usurper’s, and the earth ponies by the common soul of the Ponynesian civilization. She had two of each race, and even three in the case of the unicorns. Two hearts from each would be more than enough to bring Him into the world. The shrine would run red in pony blood in the twilight of the world of light beyond.
Soft pulled a knife of moonlight out of the air and admired the ceremonial snake-like curve to the blade. As a mortal mare, she would not have known how to do any of this, would not have known what she needed to do for the sacrifice. But His knowledge flowed through her, giving her the wisdom she needed to undo the set of locks keeping him bound to another plane. She was the key to opening the divide between the worlds, and all she had to do was turn the pins out of the way.
“In the foaling of the world, there was only dark,” she said, speaking in an ancient tongue as if somepony else spoke through her. “The world was perfect and pure as the black of the night. The cold cleansed the worthy and the fire of the moon burned the impure.”
Her magic picked up Ratchet, who still twitched and muttered after she’d shattered his mind earlier that night. “Then came the Usurper, wielding light between his wings, and searing away the tranquil purity of the night. Through his hubris came the sins and tragedies of the sun, laying bare the defects and horrors of the impure to scar a perfect world.”
She placed Ratchet on the dais and spread his limbs out. “The ponies of the earth were the first to arise in this horrific world. They dragged themselves from the sands of the seas, where they set about marring the world with grotesque constructions of their own creation. By their sins, the foundation of the Usurper’s power was established. By this one’s sacrifice, I undo the first of your binds.”
The knife plunged through Ratchet’s sternum, vaporizing bone and flesh by the awful power of the moon. The stallion writhed in pain on some primal instinct, but Soft held him in place with her magic. The blade danced around his heart, and all it took was a little more work to sever the organ from his chest and hoist it out. Soft examined the twitching organ for a second before she ignited it with a spark from her horn and let the flames consume it. In mere moments, the heart turned to ash, and the earth pony figurine on the pedestal began to glow.
The body breathed its last below her, and Soft unceremoniously deposited the corpse on the other side of the room. She still had the other earth pony, but she didn’t need to use him just yet. He could wait until the end of the ritual in case something had gone wrong. Instead, she reached for a unicorn, dragging one of the stallions onto the dais. After positioning him and shedding the blood from her moonlight blade, she continued. “The unicorns emerged next, stealing the blood of the gods from the world below, blood they could not have found if the light of the treacherous sun did not illuminate the veins of the divine. They consumed this blood and used its power to further twist the natural world. What the earth ponies could not accomplish through toil and labor, the unicorns achieved through their stolen gift, cursing the pure world to scream as they molded it to their own twisted desires. By this one’s sacrifice, I undo the second of your binds.”
Once more, her blade plunged into the chest of her next victim, cutting out his heart with relative ease. As she burned the organ away, Soft looked at the older face of her victim. The little mare still clinging to existence inside her skull recognized him as a doctor, but she paid her no mind. Doctor or not, the unicorn was a means to an end, and nothing more. Once she’d taken his essence and imbued the unicorn statue with it, she discarded his body as well, dumping it next to Ratchet’s corpse. Two down, one more to go.
“Yet that would not be the end of the Usurper’s sins,” she continued, and her magic dragged over a pegasus mare and positioned her on the dais. “It was only the beginning, for the true mockery of the natural world would arise with the pegasi. Jealous of the skies and the home within which He slept, they stole wings from the birds and defiled the clouds. Their jealousy and their hatred of His lofty domain drove them skyward, away from the filth of their compatriots, but carrying it with them all the same. By this one’s sacrifice, I undo the third of your binds.”
She readied the knife to slice out the mare’s heart only for her eyes to begin to open. The alicorn hesitated, momentary surprise staying the blade, and that gave the pegasus all the time she needed to understand what was happening. “No! No, please, please! Soft!” the mare wailed, trying to thrash herself off the dais in a futile attempt to break free of the alicorn’s magic. “Please! I don’t want to die! Soft!”
Soft grimaced and tried to force the blade down, but the desperate remains of the mare she once was conspired with all their strength to stop her. Perhaps motivated by the pitiful pegasus’ cries beneath her, she fought with a surprising ferocity that stalled the twisted alicorn. But she could only last so long, and little by little, the twisted blade of moonlight descended toward the struggling mare’s heart.
“Soft Step! Stop this!”
The new voice stalled Soft’s attempts to sacrifice the mare, and she pulled the blade away as she looked over her shoulder. There, standing in the doorway was a rainbow pegasus, her mane plastered to her face and dripping water. Her eyes were widened with horror, and when she saw the two heartless corpses lying on the side of the room, she swallowed hard but managed to keep her composure. “Soft Step,” she said, her voice quickly taking on a pleading tone, “please, please stop this. I know you’re in there, somewhere, beneath that fanged face. You can stop this, I know you can!”
“You still believe there’s anything left of her in here?” Soft Step said, raising an eyebrow. She started to walk away from the dais but kept Champagne pinned to it with her magic, who had fallen silent out of fear over what would happen next. Soft twirled the moonlight blade around and jabbed it at Rainbow, stopping it just short of her throat. To the pegasus’ credit, she barely flinched back from the glowing knife, though her muscles tensed nonetheless. “I killed her. My Lord killed her. He created me from the pieces He’d broken apart, rearranged into something perfect to suit his needs. Now, in the twilight of the world, I finally fulfill my purpose.”
Rainbow swallowed hard but managed to meet the alicorn’s eyes. “That’s a lot of bullshit coming from a pawn. That’s all you are. And that’s not the real Soft Step doing this.”
“Am I not?” Soft extended her wings to their impressive lengths. “This is her body. I was built from her mind. The only thing added was the horn on my head, imbued with the sheer power of my Lord. If you believe otherwise, you’re simply deluding yourself.”
“I’m not,” Rainbow said. “There’s still the mare I knew inside of you somewhere. You just have to fight off this moon god’s grip on you! You can break free, I know it!”
Soft Step winced as the mare began to struggle for control of her limbs, motivated by the pegasus’ pleading words. Soft’s focus faltered and she had to turn her attention inwards to try and push her away. Why was she suddenly so insistent?! She had been so weak before, but now, in the hour of His triumph, she seemed determined to collect the shattered pieces of herself and cement them back together into something strong enough to fight off His will and influence.
“You… are… wrong!” Soft screamed, and a burst of sheer force of will sent that little mare scurrying for cover in her skull again. Her magic clutched Rainbow’s throat and hefted her into the air, and the pegasus clawed at the intangible hand crushing her neck as Soft whirled around. She screamed in pure rage and slammed Rainbow against one wall, then tore her from the slick stones and smashed her into another. The pegasus coughed and cried out, but Soft didn’t stop. She was too enraged. How dare she question her loyalty to her Lord? How dare she speak about Him in such an irreverent way? She would be better off as a colorful stain on the wall!
When she flung Rainbow at the next wall, her body left visible cracks in the stone. Blood smeared the rock, and the pegasus gasped and sputtered for breath. Peeling Rainbow from the wall, she dropped the twitching pegasus to the ground and stalked over to her. “You nearly killed me earlier,” she said, letting the summoned moonlight knife vanish. “You nearly undid all of His hard work. You nearly ruined everything. Perhaps I should sacrifice you instead. You’re a fighter, and your blood will make His return to the world all the greater.”
Rainbow tried to kip up to her hooves, but Soft Step pushed her back down with her magic. Growling, Rainbow had to spit bloody spittle out of her mouth to breathe clearly again. “Don’t do this, Soft,” she croaked again. “You can do this… you can fight him…”
“There’s nothing you can do to stop this,” Soft growled, and her magic glowed around Rainbow’s wings. “And if you insist on fighting me, then I shall have to tear it out of you!”
Two pegasi pleaded with her to stop: one on the ground beneath her, and one inside her mind. But she did not stop—not even when the screams of pain reached a feverish pitch.
Rarity could feel the burn coiling its way through her body like a hot river of lead from her tail to her neck. She’d pushed herself so much and so hard throughout the night that she was amazed she had any energy left. She felt like she was running on fumes, and she knew she wasn’t the only one. Gyro also seemed on the verge of collapse, and she knew that Rainbow had been much, much more tired than she’d let on when she’d flown off to the island on her own. If they survived through the night, Rarity knew they were all going to sleep for a full day before they all felt like themselves again.
But right now, she had to push through the remaining stretch of sea between her and the island. Gyro was right; it was so tantalizingly close now. What had felt like such a long sprint to the finish was finally just about at its end. All she had to do was get close to it and then collapse the south hill on the shrine—killing Soft Step, Rainbow Dash, and anypony else trapped inside.
She faltered. Could she really do that? Could she really drop an entire mountain of stone and dirt on the shrine below? She’d seen the cave in that had killed Uncharted Lands so long ago. She knew that the ground was loose and wouldn’t be hard to collapse. It wasn’t a matter of whether it was physically possible—the matter rested entirely with her conscience.
Could she kill the pony she loved—the pony she’d only discovered she loved a month ago—to save the world?
It was a much harder decision than the one Rainbow had faced earlier. Where Rainbow only had to kill a tormented and twisted friend, Rarity would have to do far, far worse. She didn’t know if she would be able to live with herself afterwards. And if it did kill everypony in the shrine, it could very well just end up being Gyro, the minotaurs, and herself left on these islands. Sirens lived a long time; if the barrier never fell, would she take Melody’s place as the mythical creature lost to time and desperate for companionship?
“Can you do it?”
Rarity blinked and looked down at Gyro, who had craned her head to look up at her. “Erm… do what, darling?”
“What Rainbow asked,” Gyro said, her voice wavering a little bit. “Her plan to end this whole thing.”
“I… I-I don’t know,” Rarity admitted, feeling lost. “I don’t think I can just… just kill everypony like that. Coals might even be in there! Aren't you concerned about that?”
Gyro winced and drew back. “I... I-I mean... what choice do we have?” she asked her. “We can’t beat her in a fight. I don’t know if there’s another way. And if she pulls this ritual thing off, we’re all boned. Coals and Rainbow included.”
Rarity bit down on her lip, nearly drawing blood with her sharp teeth. Her eyes wandered to the sky, which had already lost most of its dark, shadowy color. The moon had nearly set, and the sun would rise very soon. It had been quite the night and now, right at its conclusion, the fate of the world hung in the balance. Everything was running down to the wire. Either the nightmare would end tonight, or it would last forever.
But she was at the island now, and she wasted no time in quickly hopping over the western ridge sheltering the lagoon from the sea. Gyro shouted in surprise and held onto the log for dear life, but Rarity clutched it close to her chest so the mare was in no real danger of falling off. She landed in the lagoon a bit harder than she would have liked due to the shallow water, but she safely deposited Gyro on the sand and turned her attention to the hill rising up in front of her.
Gyro staggered a safe distance to the shore, where she flopped down on the sand. “Oh, sweet land!” she exclaimed, practically kissing the sediment. “I thought I’d never see you again!”
Rarity dragged herself halfway out of the water and sized up the hill in front of her. Somewhere beneath that mound, the fate of the world hung in the balance. How deep was it, really? How thick was the hill on top of it? How did she bring it down?
Gyro turned around and raised an eyebrow at Rarity. “What are you doing, Rarity? We gotta hurry before it’s too late!”
“I know! I just… I don’t know how!” Rarity nervously pawed at the sand, shoveling huge piles around the beach. “Melody never taught me the songs for this! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!”
“You’re a siren!” Gyro exclaimed. “Music should be like, second nature to you! Just sing!”
“It’s not that simple! I wasn’t born a siren!” Rarity felt her heart begin to pound. Should she just try to flop on it? She surely had to weigh a considerable amount. It might be enough to drop the shrine, but if it wasn’t, then she’d just be giving Soft Step a warning to hurry things up.
And she would be killing all her friends, too. She couldn’t do that. If she did, she was a monster. A monster who saved the world, but a monster nevertheless.
Was there really no better way?
She heard birds begin to chirp and call through the darkness of the dusk. They were already waking up, preparing themselves for the new day. The glow to the east was slowly growing brighter; daylight was quite literally minutes away.
Then she remembered what Melody had told her. All she had to do was sing, and the notes would come to her to shape her song. And here she was, changing the song minutes before the concert.
“Stand back,” Rarity said, rising up straighter and focusing on the east side of the hill. “I’m going to try something, and I don’t know how well it’s going to work.”
Gyro shuffled back into the water and away from the hill, and she shot Rarity a nervous look. “Should I be ready to run?”
“It might not be a bad idea.” Then, slowly drawing in a fresh breath, Rarity closed her eyes. “Please be okay, Rainbow,” she murmured to herself.
Soft Step had to take a moment to stand back and let the red haze clear from her vision. She’d lost her temper in the crucial moments of His return. She’d stained the shrine with blood not taken from the heart. This was a sacred, hallowed place. She needed to control herself better if she was going to welcome her Lord back in all of His resplendent glory.
Sweat beaded on her forehead, brought out through her rage more than any exertion, so she wiped it away with a hoof and glared down at the pitiful sight below her. Rainbow Dash whimpered and cried on the floor, blood smearing her feathers and the stone underneath her. Soft had stopped just short of tearing the pegasus’ wings off of her body, but she’d crumpled the bones into tiny splinters, some of which poked through the flesh. She didn’t know if it was a mercy or not for the damnable foe. On the one hoof, she got to keep her wings and die with them still attached. On the other, they had to be hundreds of times more painful than if she’d just torn them off completely.
Regardless, it would all be over soon. Her horn lit up again, and she almost had to peel Rainbow off of the floor. The pegasus cried out in a pained daze, but she didn’t struggle—merely moving her broken wings would be a horrifically painful endeavor. But Soft Step was hardly gentle to the mare, roughly turning her about and dropping her onto the dais from a foot or two in the air just so she would land harshly on her back and scream in pain again. Her torment and dying screams were pure catharsis, and they would be the music to herald the return of her Lord.
But she couldn’t resist taunting the suffering mare one last time. After materializing the sacrificial knife, she held it close to Rainbow’s face, near enough that the pegasus could feel the heat coming off of the blade. “You struggled for so long out there,” Soft whispered through her fangs. “You nearly killed me. You could have won, if you had the conviction to do what you had to do.”
She flicked the knife to the side, slicing off some hairs on the side of Rainbow’s bloodied muzzle but not injuring the flesh beneath. “And then, after all of that, what do you do? You confront me at the shrine, where the ritual will be finished, and you don’t even attack me. You merely talk.”
The alicorn leaned back and looked down her nose at the pitiful pegasus lying beneath her. “You never had a chance to beat me or to stop any of this. Not because you weren’t capable of it, but because you were too weak to do what you had to do. A part of me can respect your honor. The rest of me knows that it was what doomed you to fail.”
The knife twirled about in midair and Soft Step raised it above Rainbow’s chest. On the far side of the room, the pegasus who had woken up, the one she was originally going to sacrifice, cried Rainbow’s name and sobbed in vain. Pinned to the wall by Soft’s magic, there was nothing she could do except watch the final moments of her friend.
Yet before Soft plunged it through Rainbow’s ribcage, the pegasus coughed and raised her head. “You’re… wrong,” she croaked, each word accompanied by a pained breath and a tremendous amount of effort. When Soft Step raised an eyebrow, Rainbow gave her a bloody smile. “Wasn’t… trying to… beat you. I… knew I couldn’t… gah! Couldn’t win.” Soft didn’t know if she winked at her or if it was merely one of her eyelids swelling shut. “Only had… had to get you talking… slow you down!”
Soft growled and moved the knife from Rainbow’s chest to just underneath her chin while her magic yanked the pegasus into a sitting position. “What are you talking about?!” the alicorn hissed at her. She didn’t know if something was happening above ground; she didn’t have a connection to the moonlight down here. But if this was all part of the runt’s plan, then she needed to react accordingly. “Answer me or you’ll suffer pain unimaginable!”
Rainbow coughed and looked to the side. “You… really ought to reconsider… threatening a pony with death… when you were gonna kill her anyway…”
“Answer me!”
Soft Step shook the pegasus, but the blue mare only grinned at her. “Come on, Soft? Can’t you… can’t you hear the music?”
The alicorn dropped Rainbow back onto the dais and whirled around. If she strained her ears… yes, there was music. Singing. But she’d killed the sirens. She knew she did! Unless the white one…
“You can’t stop this!” Soft roared, raising the knife once again. She didn’t know what the siren was trying to do, but she had to finish the ritual fast. She could have just stepped into shadow and been safe, but then she would lose her chance to bring Him into the world. Damn the mortals meddling with the ritual! Damn that pony in her head, who cheered as all her plans started to unravel!
“Yet that would not be the end of the Usurper’s followers’ sins,” she said, rushing through the sacrificial words once again now that she had changed sacrifices. “It was only the beginning, for the true mockery of the natural world would arise with the pegasi. Jealous of the skies and the home within which He slept, they stole wings from the birds and defiled the clouds. Their jealousy and their hatred of His lofty domain drove them skyward, away from the filth of their compatriots, but carrying it with them all the same. By this one’s sacrifice, I undo the third of your binds—!”
The shrine shook and rumbled. Rocks fell from the ceiling, smashing into the ground. Instead of cutting Rainbow’s heart out, Soft threw up a shield over herself to protect the dais, the figurines, and her sacrifices. Cracks and seams appeared in the rocks as the siren magic tore through them like paper, and a thick cloud of dust filled the air. Soft felt her shield absorb multiple stones slamming the surface, but it held through the strength given to her by the unicorn totem.
When the rumbling finally stopped, Soft lowered her shield and looked up. The shrine hadn’t collapsed, but an enormous hole had been torn through its roof along one side. No longer closed off from the outside world, the shrine grew lighter as the glow of the early morning entered it through the new opening.
“No!” Soft screamed, stepping forward and summoning magic to her horn. The ends of her mane began to curl and blacken, and the first of many tiny lesions started to open on her skin as the pre-dawn light filled the shrine. “No, I won’t let you! You will not ruin His plans! You will not stop the ritual! The light has lost, and the darkness shall consume the world!”
Her magic began to repair the hole in the shrine, even as a song somewhere else tried to force it wider. Soft widened her stance and lowered her horn, throwing everything she had into the spell to overpower the arcane song fighting against her. Little by little, she began to patch up the damage, and the hole began to close.
Gyro stared in awe at the side of the south hill. Rarity’s music had carved a deep gash through the structure, inadvertently triggering a minor landslide as brush and trees toppled off the gaping stone. A cavernous structure loomed beneath the dirt and stone, only a dozen feet beneath the hill’s crest at best. Gyro had no idea that the hill was that hollow. How the Ponynesians managed a feat of engineering that impressive was beyond her, but then again, she’d seen the mountain temple to their sun god. They had a way of doing the impossible.
But even as Rarity’s song tore the rocks apart, magic from within began to patch them up. The stones enlarged in strange ways, forming crossing projections that slowly knitted themselves into a solid whole. Soft Step had to be trying to undo the damage Rarity was inflicting to the shrine. She didn’t know how well the alicorn could multitask, but hopefully it was keeping her magic preoccupied and unable to complete her ritual. If it wasn’t, then Rarity needed to sing harder, and fast.
But where was Rainbow? Surely she would have either flown out through the gap in the shrine or started doing something to Soft to interfere with her attempts to repair the shrine. But neither of those happened. Either Rainbow was preoccupied with something else, or…
Were they really too late?
Gyro looked at Rarity, who had squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to sustain the song. Her entire body quivered as she forced out the notes without any pause for breath. Gyro knew that Rarity’s lungs were probably as big as she was, but she couldn’t go on forever. Eventually, she’d have to stop to breathe, and Soft would be able to significantly close the gap.
She had to do something. If she didn’t, then Rarity’s plan would fail. She didn’t know what she could do exactly, but she’d find a way to help. Her hooves splashed through the shallow water as she began to gallop toward the hill, moving as fast as her weakened back would let her and then some. “Don’t stop singing!” she called out to Rarity as she ran past the siren. “Keep it up! I’m going to find out what’s going on!”
One of Rarity’s slit eyes tracked Gyro for a few seconds, but it closed again as the siren nodded. With her shoulders tightening, Rarity raised her head to the heavens and began to sing louder, putting enough magic behind the spell to fight back against Soft’s counterspell and widen the gash once more.
But before Gyro could even get close to the hole in the hill, however, she heard a squawk from the skies above. Craning her head back, she saw Chirp silhouetted against the eastern horizon, glowing faintly red in the light of the pre-dawn sky. Just the mere sight of the macaw comforted her and gave her hope. Chirp had saved her before. And if the macaw could survive the island when it was infested with mummies, then he could survive anything.
Yet her heart skipped a beat when the macaw let out a valiant cry and folded his wings, diving through the gap in the hill like a falcon hunting prey.
----
Pain had become a worryingly common part of Rainbow’s life lately. She thought she’d gotten her worst treatment at the hooves of Squall and the pirates, but the furious sadism of Soft Step’s corrupted self had easily dwarfed that. Maybe not in terms of creativity—it took a truly sick and twisted mind like Squall to invent some of the torture she inflicted on Rainbow with her knives—but easily through sheer agony. She’d shattered her wings beyond all belief. There probably wasn’t a single sliver of bone still connected to another fragment. Soft’s terrible magic had crumpled them like a sheet of paper, paying no mind to the feverish screams of pain that had worn Rainbow’s throat ragged.
But miraculously she had remained conscious through the ordeal, even if the torture had left her dazed and confused as a side effect. She could still feel the cool kiss of the dais under her back and against her cheek. It gave her something to focus on other than the pain shooting through her sides like she was on the receiving end of a hug from a cactus made out of knives. It reminded her that she was somehow still very much alive, and the beautiful singing she heard in the background gave lucidity to her hurt mind and body.
Rarity’s music.
She cracked bleary eyes open and looked across the shrine. Soft Step stood near her, her wings outstretched as she forced arcing lightning out of her horn. It took a little more effort to see what she was focusing it on, but the glow of the outside seeping into the shrine was unmistakable. Rainbow smiled a little bit and would have chuckled if it wouldn’t have been so painful. Morning was coming. Morning was coming, and she’d nearly survived to see it. Definitely not bad for a reckless pegasus trying to take on a god with only her bare hooves and her words.
But the longer she watched, the more she realized that Rarity wasn’t succeeding in bringing down the house, so to speak. She’d only opened a chunk of the ceiling and wall facing east and nothing else. Soft Step’s magic slowly forced her back, closing up the hole inches at a time. At the far end of the room, Champagne still struggled against her magical binds, and nopony else stirred or moved. Rainbow had done her job and done it well, but now she worried that it wouldn’t be enough to seal the deal.
What could she do? In her current state, even moving pushed her to her limits. The only thing she could possibly do was strangle Soft Step with her hooves, and she knew the moment she even got close to the alicorn the twisted mare would just swat her down like an insect. There had to be something else she could do...
Black Flag’s gun! It glinted in the light cast by Soft’s magic, and her eyes locked on it as soon as she realized what it was. The gem in the side still glowed faintly, so Rainbow knew it was loaded. If she could just make her way to it and shoot Soft while she wasn’t paying attention…
Yet when she tried to drag herself off the table, she had to stop and stifle a scream of pain. She couldn’t even get to it; assuming she managed to roll off the dais, she’d hit the ground hard and that would likely be the end of her willpower. And Champagne couldn’t get to it either, rooted in place as she was by Soft’s magic. What did she do?
She heard a chirp make its way over the cacophony of magic and singing around her, and her eyes widened in surprise when Chirp landed on her chest. “C-Chirp?” she wheezed, staring at the macaw in disbelief. “What are you… you gotta go, little dude!”
But the macaw didn’t leave. Instead, he looked at Rainbow’s wings and hopped over to one. Rainbow hissed as the bird’s talons touched tender flesh, but she didn’t jump or recoil. Instead, she watched as the bird extended his own wing, pulled out one of his feathers, and tucked it among Rainbow’s own.
“What… what are you…” she asked, watching the bird as he hopped across her chest and repeated the process with the other wing. Almost as soon as he tucked the feather into her own, she gasped as a sensation of cool water ran over her injured wings. The feather Chirp had planted in each enlarged to match the length of the blue feathers around it, and her wings snapped and popped as the bones began to fuse back together. In a few seconds, her mangled wings had returned to their former glory, each accentuated by a red stripe of feathers running from the very tip to near the blue crests of each one.
Jaw hanging agape, Rainbow stared in disbelief at the macaw sitting on her chest. “You… you’re not just a macaw, are you?” she asked him.
Chirp angled his head to the side and fluffed his wings. “Rainbow!” he proudly cried, and Rainbow didn’t know if he winked at her or if that was just her imagination.
But now she was free of pain and could move normally again. Chirp’s feathers had done more than just repair her wings; they’d reinvigorated her body. She felt as refreshed as if she’d slept for twelve hours straight. There was so much energy coursing through her body, begging to be released.
Chirp flew off of Rainbow and to a safe distance on the other side of the shrine. Soft Step heard the commotion behind her, and she turned around just in time to see Rainbow stand up. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she momentarily forgot the spell she was casting to seal up the entrance. “No…” she murmured, taking a step back. Her eyes fell on Rainbow’s wings and the stripe of crimson running through them. “No!”
Her horn began to charge magic, but she couldn’t ready a spell fast enough. Instead, Rainbow opened her wings and did the one thing she knew how to do.
Rainbow Dash barreled into Soft Step’s gut faster than the eye could blink. She led with her shoulder and felt a solid impact on the other side—the mare had not been unable to turn to shadow. But she didn’t stop flapping her wings just because she’d run into a wall of alicorn. They continued to beat at the air, the crimson streak in each blurring by as she turned her charge into upward momentum, carrying the alicorn with her.
Soft roared and grunted in pain, but Rainbow slammed her against the far wall of the shrine. The sudden blow once again cancelled any spells the alicorn may have been trying to cast, but Rainbow didn’t give her a chance to recover or catch her breath. Instead, she wrapped her forelegs around Soft’s neck and flew in the opposite direction, spinning in place until she’d slammed the mare into the ceiling. Loose pebbles and dirt fell on the dais from above, and the stone splintered from the sheer force with which Rainbow had flung Soft into it.
Rainbow blinked in awe. She thought she’d merely been energetic after… whatever it was Chirp did to her. But this? She felt like she was her own demigod now. The moon god had his avatar, and maybe now she had the sun god’s blessing to be his champion.
Her momentary distraction in awe of her abilities cost her. Soft dropped off of the ceiling and fired magic from her horn, clipping Rainbow’s wing. But instead of knocking her out of the air, the notched blue feathers quickly regrew as the red feather embedded among them glowed. This time it was Soft Step who faltered in the face of the powerful magic now fighting on Rainbow’s side, and Rainbow smirked at her.
“You’re not the only one with a god looking out for them now,” Rainbow said. Instead of taunting the alicorn further, however, she simply charged straight into her with her hooves outstretched. Once again, the glow of the world outside of the shrine prevented Soft Step from sliding into the shadows like she’d done earlier, and Rainbow managed to catch her on her hooves and pummel her across the room. Stone shattered and Soft’s horn sparked as it glanced along the walls, but the alicorn managed to kick Rainbow away.
Sweat beaded on Soft’s forehead as she tried to counter the pegasus, but Rainbow was much too fast—by far faster than she’d ever been during the fight over the open sea. She was only able to fling a hoofful of simple mana bolts before the pegasus was upon her again, leading with her hoof into a savage uppercut that sent the alicorn reeling. Soft briefly felt stone slam against her back, but the pegasus once more fell upon her… only this time the forceful volley of her punches and blows sent the alicorn out of the gap in the shrine, away from the dais and her sacrifices below.
“Party’s over!” Rainbow squawked as she spun about and bucked Soft Step further into the air. “I’m sorry if this hurts, Soft, but I gotta do what I gotta do!”
Soft whirled around and brought magic to her horn, but again she was too slow to cast it before Rainbow fell upon her. This time, Rainbow locked Soft onto her shoulder as she carried the helpless alicorn skyward. The island blurred into a speck behind her as she flew faster than she’d ever flown before, and soon the icy chill of high altitude began to prick at her coat and her tears froze to her eyelashes. The blood staining her coat froze into tiny crimson marbles, and they fell to the ground far below. But still, she climbed upwards until she found her limit.
Soft Step choked on the thin atmosphere, and even Rainbow found it hard to breathe. But way up there, high above the island and the horror of the world below, she could actually see around the horizon to the sun lurking just beyond. Only a sliver of that amazing golden orb danced far to the east, but it grew by the second, albeit ever so slowly. Rainbow couldn’t help but stare at it as gravity stole her momentum away and dragged her closer to momentarily weightlessness high in the sky. Daylight was coming. She just had to finish off the night before it did.
Pivoting about in midair, she wrapped her limbs around Soft Step and began to dive. The alicorn’s skin hissed and popped as the sun burned into it, but Rainbow ignored her shrieks of pain as best she could. This would end one way or another, right here and right now. And she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. It had already nearly cost her everything; she couldn’t afford to lose it all twice in one night.
The island grew and grew, and once more, Rainbow Dash felt herself poking away at the sound barrier as she picked up speed. For the second time that night, she would utilize a Sonic Rainboom against Soft Step. Hopefully this one would put her down for the count, but she didn’t know for sure. The alicorn had proven incredibly resilient to everything she’d thrown at her, but maybe now that the sun was coming out she wouldn’t be able to recover.
It was time to find out once and for all.
-----
Rarity stopped singing when she saw two figures streak out of the cave so fast she nearly missed it when she blinked. It took them all of a split second to fade into a tiny speck in the sky, leaving behind a rainbow trail streaked with more red than usual. She craned her neck back, back, back, but soon she couldn’t even see the two anymore.
“Holy crap, I think that was Rainbow!” Gyro shouted from halfway up the hill. The gray mare jumped for joy and cheered. “She’s alive! I knew she’d be fine!”
“Did she take Soft Step with her?” Rarity called back. She kept her eyes sky and pulled herself onto the sand when the tiny speck began to dive down again.
“I think she did!” Gyro hobbled to the gash in the hill as quickly as she could and gasped. “Rarity! They’re still alive down here!” She emphatically waved a hoof to the siren. “Get over here and help! Make some stairs or something so they can get out!”
Rarity started to move and readied herself to fly, but before she did, an explosion of light and color blasted through the sky above her. Both she and Gyro flinched and looked up as a line of color pierced the expanding ring of light and continued to streak downwards.
Gyro cried out in alarm and jumped out of the way when it went straight back down into the shrine below in a blur, and a thunderous crack of stone broke through the morning.
Rainbow Dash’s hooves gently touched down on the stone floor with four soft clops that echoed in the stillness of the chamber. For the longest time, nopony moved. Champagne remained awestruck by the wall, Chirp watched from the top of a column, and Rainbow held her breath. All their attentions were turned to the very center of the room.
The blood soaked dais had been shattered, the table depicting the islands cracked in two. What had once been a beautiful sculpture had been reduced to rocky rubble littered across the floor. And, lying in the middle of it all, was the broken body of an alicorn.
Rainbow let out the breath she was holding and spotted Flag’s pistol still lying on the far side of the room. She slowly trudged to the other side of the room, her hooves once again breaking the stunned silence filling the shrine, and stopped in front of the firearm. Nostrils flaring, she reached down and picked up the weapon with a wing, her feathers reluctantly tightening around the grip.
Champagne watched her as she turned around and paced back to the dais. Picking her way through the rubble, Rainbow stood right over Soft Step and shivered at the gruesome sight. Most of the mare’s bones had been broken, but the truly disturbing part was how they moved and snapped back together. Though it wasn’t a fast process, somehow Soft’s body was repairing itself, stitching itself back together from wounds that would have killed anypony else.
Swallowing hard, Rainbow held her wing out and put the pistol to Soft’s head, right below the horn. She’d wasted an opportunity before to end it all—she wouldn’t a second time. But before she could work up the willpower to pull the trigger, Soft’s splintered jaw reformed, and pained eyes looked up at Rainbow. “It won’t work, Rainbow.”
Rainbow hesitated; the voice she heard from Soft now was quiet and meek, not angry and zealous. Was that the original Soft speaking to her instead of the twisted and corrupted one? When she looked into Soft’s eyes, all she saw was regret and misery.
It took her several seconds before she found her tongue. “Why, Soft?”
“Because of the totem,” Soft said as more of her body snapped into place. “It’s fixing me. If you shoot me, my head will just come back together. I know it will. And then I’ll kill you… and everypony else, too.”
Rainbow looked at the menacing unicorn totem somehow still standing on its pedestal where all the others had fallen. She could practically feel the dark energy and the evil radiating off of it. “Should I destroy it?”
“If you break it you’ll never lower the barrier,” Soft said. “You’ll never go home.”
“How do we go home?” Rainbow asked her, her heart beginning to race. If she could get the answer out of Soft before her corrupted self took over, then maybe it could all be worth it. “How do we get rid of the barrier?”
“The barrier was raised with pony blood,” Soft said. “To lower it, it needs blood again.”
Rainbow looked at the totems lying around her. Two glowed faintly. Two remained dark. Pegasus blood had yet to be given, but how did Soft plan on getting crystal pony blood? “There aren’t any crystal ponies here.”
“Alicorn blood works just as well,” Soft said. “After I sacrificed a pegasus, he was going to have me…”
“Oh.”
Rainbow looked to the side where Champagne still watched everything going on. “Grab the unicorn totem and get out of here,” she said. “Go to the other side of the island with it. Be quick.”
Champagne nodded and scrambled to her hooves, rushing forward and taking the totem off the pedestal. She spread her wings and began to fly, and Rainbow felt her feathers tighten around the grip. The cracked enamel on Soft’s curved horn was beginning to heal, and it wouldn’t be much longer before she regained the ability to cast spells again.
“I’m… I-I’m so sorry, Rainbow,” Soft said, her voice cracking as she watched Champagne fly out of the hole with the totem. Her wounds slowed down in their recovery, but didn’t stop altogether. Tears welled at her eyes, and she sniffled. “I didn’t… d-didn’t want to do any of this… b-but I-I couldn’t c-control myself…”
Rainbow’s throat bobbed and the pistol in her grip shook. “I know,” she breathed. “It wasn’t you. It was something else.”
Soft closed her eyes and shook. “I don’t want to hurt anypony anymore,” she said. “But I can feel it coming back. Scratching at my mind like nails on glass. It’s already trying to make me kill you.”
“Is there anything I can do to help you?” Rainbow asked. “I… I-I don’t want to kill you if I can help it, Soft.”
But the alicorn shook her head. “Do it. You have to. You need my heart if you’re going to lower the barrier.”
The ends of her mane started to wave, and the mare gasped and shuddered. “Soft?” Rainbow asked, her wing shaking and sweat beading on her head. “You can fight it, girl, I know you can!”
Soft groaned and placed her newly mended hooves on her temples. “Nnnrghh… no, no I can’t!” she wailed, and her shaking nearly bucked Rainbow away. “I can’t fight it, Rainbow! Do it! Kill me! Kill me before I kill you!”
“Grrrr… fuck!” Rainbow screamed, and she pulled the trigger in the same moment that Soft’s horn flew to life.
Dark magic caught the hammer before it struck the firing gem.
Rainbow blinked in surprise as the gun failed to fire. She tried to pull the hammer back again with her other wing, but Soft’s thrashing toppled her over and sent her tumbling across the floor. The gun flew out of her grip, and the chamber echoed with a crack of thunder as it struck the ground hard and fired, ricocheting the bullet off of a wall where it shattered on impact with the next.
Scrambling to her hooves, Rainbow immediately tensed and readied herself for another fight—only to watch Soft flail and struggle with herself. “No!” she screamed, her large hooves kicking around pieces of rubble like they were nothing. “Get out of my head! Get out of my head!”
Rainbow whipped her head back and forth as she looked for a weapon of some kind, any kind. She knew she couldn’t just rainboom Soft again; even after Chirp’s blessing, she felt too utterly exhausted to do that yet again. She gasped when she saw a minotaur spear lying on the ground, and she immediately lunged for it. Sliding across the floor, she grabbed the spear in her teeth and flipped onto her back to see Soft stumbling after her, horn glowing. For a split second, she thought her friend could win, but with a primal scream, Soft Step the masseuse sank beneath the wave of seething hatred that was Soft Step the slave. Fangs parted into a furious screech, and Rainbow braced the butt of her spear against the ground, ready for Soft’s lunge—
A second crack of thunder echoed around the shrine, and a plume of blood exploded from Soft’s ribcage. The alicorn stopped and stared at the hole in her chest, touching it with a hoof. When she pulled her hoof away, the wound did not heal, and her life began to drip onto the floor beneath her.
A few feet away, the crystal pony totem began to glow.
Soft Step tilted her head back and looked across the floor at Rainbow, whose eyes were wide open in shock. The alicorn’s body shook and trembled, but when she saw Rainbow, her lips began to curve into a happy smile. “Rainbow… I…”
Her words faded as the alicorn of the dark, the twisted champion of a god, and a poor, tortured mare, collapsed into a growing pool of her own blood.
Rainbow stared in disbelief at the alicorn’s body for the longest time. She only tore her eyes away when the pegasus stallion silhouetted against the glow of the morning outside tossed his pistol aside and staggered out of sight.
Now suddenly alone deep inside the shrine, Rainbow crawled over to the alicorn’s cooling body, laid her cheek against Soft’s, and stroked the dark hair along her neck. The poor, tortured soul had suffered so much. They all had, and it had been the worst night of Rainbow’s life, bar none. Many had died, all through the unwilling actions of a mare twisted to an evil being’s will. The islands were a lot emptier now than they were just twelve hours earlier. But it was over. Finally, the longest night Rainbow had ever lived through was over.
The tears poured down her face as she broke apart, crying.
Rainbow Dash perched on top of a palm tree, the base of the fronds forming a comfortable-enough platform to sit on. Down below her, the life of the island began to return to normal. The birds woke and began to sing to each other, the bugs began to buzz through the humid undergrowth, and the wind changed direction. But Rainbow felt strangely detached from it all.
She hadn’t bothered to wipe away the sticky blood that dried into her coat. It was all that remained of Soft Step that she could carry with her, and maybe she thought that by keeping the blood warm with her own body heat, she was keeping the mare’s spirit alive with her. But the mare was dead inside the shrine, her suffering finally brought to a merciful end by a pirate’s bullet.
The horizon to the east gradually turned from gray to yellow and blue. It wouldn’t be much longer before the sun came up. But Rainbow knew it would never come up again on the mare she was last morning. She’d been broken in more ways than one, defeated in more ways than one, and changed so much she hardly recognized herself. The crimson feathers that now seemed to be a permanent part of her wings were a sign of that. She’d tried tugging on them with her teeth, but they seemed firmly rooted in her wings. Though she didn’t hate the way they looked—quite the opposite, actually—they would always be a reminder of the horrible pain she’d experienced that night, both physically and spiritually. Every time she preened her wings, she knew she would be reminded of all the friends she’d lost and what it had taken just to make it to the next day.
She could still feel the pistol in her wing, even though she’d left it in the shrine when she’d retreated. Guilt plagued her for pulling the trigger, even if it wasn’t her bullet that had killed Soft. Had there really been no other way? Did Soft really have to die to end the nightmare?
She kept searching the horizon for some sign that there had been something else she could do. Instead, it only repeated to her what she already knew. There had been no other way to walk away from the shrine. It was either kill or be killed, and even though she wasn’t the one who killed the mare, she felt drowned in the guilt regardless. She had been so desperate for survival that she’d tried to kill her friend. The only consolation she had was that she had failed.
And for what? Soft Step was dead. Ratchet was dead. Gauze was dead. Melody was dead. So many people had died. So many people had died, and their deaths would all be in vain, because not enough ponies had died. Three of the totems had been given blood, leaving only one that still needed a sacrifice to lower the barrier. The only way to get it to go down was to sacrifice a pegasus heart… like the one beating inside of her chest.
Rainbow held a hoof over her heart. What was one small thing to give so that everypony could go home? She knew she couldn’t ask Champagne or Stargazer or even Jolly Roger to give it all up for everypony else. She could never ask somepony to do something she wouldn’t do herself. And that’s what it came down to. It would be easier to cut out her own heart and let everypony go home than to ask somepony else to do it for her. It would be easier to die so that Rarity could go home than to live with the guilt that somepony else had died for her. Everything was backwards, everything was wrong, and everything was horrible. Soft’s death had not been the end to their troubles she had hoped it would. If anything, it had only made them worse.
“Hey, Rainbow?”
Rainbow’s ears perked at Gyro’s voice coming from somewhere beneath her. She couldn’t actually see the engineer due to the thick palm fronds of the trees, and she didn’t know if Gyro knew exactly where she was either. In any event, she decided to hold still and remain silent in the hopes that the mare would go away and leave her to grieve.
But Gyro didn’t go away; Rainbow could hear her slowly pacing across the floor beneath her. “I know you’re up there somewhere, Rainbow. What… what happened down there? I saw your rainboom, then I saw Champagne fly out with a totem, and Jolly Roger flew in from nowhere and shot his pistol…”
Rainbow felt her throat tighten, but she didn’t say anything. Sighing, Gyro sat down against a tree, the impact of her body on the sand just barely loud enough for Rainbow to hear from her perch. “Anyway, I guess it’s over now, isn’t it?” she continued, maybe still trying to speak to Rainbow, maybe just speaking to herself. “I saw Soft’s body. I guess Jolly shot her. Rarity used her magic to make a staircase into the shrine, and we got everypony out of there. Ratchet and Gauze, too, and even that minotaur chief. But Champagne said something about the unicorn totem being too dangerous to keep near Soft so we left her down there. We took the ponies to the lagoon, and a bunch of minotaurs showed up and took their chief back to our camp. Heh… I guess that’s theirs, now, but they didn’t attack us. So that’s good.”
Nothing. There was no response Rainbow could give that she knew wouldn’t make her feel worse. If she hadn’t cried her tears away over Soft’s corpse, she likely would have started crying now.
Eventually, however, Gyro seemed to yield. The mare grunted as she stood up again, and Rainbow could barely catch a movement of gray through the fronds between them. “Well… I know you probably feel awful, Rainbow, but you should come to the lagoon. Everypony’s waking up again, and they’d all like to see you. You saved them, Rainbow. Your stupid plan saved everypony. So come and see us, okay? We can all grieve together.” When Rainbow didn’t respond, Gyro pulled out one last request. “If nothing else, do it for Rarity. She’s worried about you. And I know nothing would make her feel better than to talk to you again.”
Rainbow almost formed a response, but the words died in her throat before she even made a sound. Instead, silence reigned until Gyro finally gave up and walked away.
Only then did Rainbow find the room for more silent tears.
Rainbow Dash awkwardly stood on top of the hill that once concealed the shrine beneath it. Down below her, the lagoon was filled with the ponies recovering from the tortures of the night—the survivors of a twisted ritual. They sat in a rough circle in silence as the gravity of what had barely passed them by weighed down on their shoulders. Rainbow suddenly had the distinct feeling that she wasn’t the only one suffering from survivor’s guilt.
But now that she’d had her time to cry and feel vulnerable, she felt strong enough to face her friends and companions and offer them her shoulder to lean on instead. She was the closest thing to a leader these ponies had, and she knew she had to appear strong after the horrors they’d all barely survived. But strong didn’t mean callous. She knew there would be few brash or cocky smiles to be shared down below. There would only be a quiet mourning for all they’d lost.
Spreading her crimson-streaked wings, Rainbow hopped off some rocks on the hill and simply glided down to the lagoon. She landed a short distance away from everypony else and cautiously approached, quietly hoping that somepony would notice her before she had to be the one to announce her presence to the group. Thankfully for her, Rarity saw her approaching along the beach, and Rainbow could practically see the weight of worry and unease evaporating from her shoulders. “Rainbow!” the siren exclaimed, happily splashing her tail through the water. Rainbow had no doubt that Rarity would have tried to rush up to her had she not been an enormous siren on a beach full of exhausted ponies, so she flew over to Rarity instead.
“In the flesh,” Rainbow said, sitting down on the water’s edge just in front of Rarity. Sighing, she flopped onto her back so she could look up at the siren without craning her neck. “Celestia, it’s… it’s been a long night.”
Rarity nodded and happily hummed now that Rainbow had finally shown herself once again. “I’m just so, so happy that you’re alive, darling,” Rarity said. “I thought… I-I feared that I’d never see you again after you flew into the shrine alone.”
“I didn’t think I was gonna make it out either,” Rainbow said. “I was fully expecting Soft to kill me in there, and she got close. I did stall her enough before she could kill Champagne…” Rainbow craned her neck around and glanced at the other survivors. “…but I was too slow to save all of them.”
“You can’t possibly blame yourself for that, Rainbow,” Rarity said. “You did more than anypony else could have possibly done. If you hadn’t flown ahead and so selflessly risked your life, then we’d all be suffering in eternal dark by now. You’re a hero!”
“I’m no hero,” Rainbow said. She spotted Chirp sitting in a tree nearby, nonchalantly masquerading as nothing more than an ordinary macaw. “Chirp’s the real hero.”
Rarity blinked. “What?”
“I mean it.” Rainbow extended her wings, letting Rarity see them for the first time. “When I went to go stall Soft Step, she lost her temper and beat me within an inch of my life. Then she decided that wasn’t enough, so she crumpled my wings like paper. It was… it was probably the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
Rarity gasped and held a hoof over her beak. “Oh, Rainbow…”
“She was gonna sacrifice me in place of Champagne,” Rainbow said. “Then you cracked open the shrine, and it distracted her. Chirp flew in like an angel and put his feathers in my wings. They fixed everything. It was magic, I swear.” She smiled across the lagoon at the bird, who fluffed his wings and yawned. “He fixed me and gave me the strength to go do that rainboom. And now I’ve got some sick crimson feathers in my wings, too.”
“Are they permanent?” Rarity asked. “They certainly are very pretty.”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow said. “They’re rooted in place. I might lose them come next molt, though. Enjoy them while they last.” But, sighing, she shuddered and closed her eyes. “I just wish they wouldn’t remind me of everything horrible that happened down there.”
“It’s over, Rainbow,” Rarity said, her voice soothing and sweet. She lowered her neck until she could gently rub her beak against Rainbow’s cheek and smiled. “You don’t have to worry about it anymore, okay, darling? The nightmare is finally over.”
Rainbow nuzzled Rarity’s beak and managed to sit upright. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Rares,” she said. “I just… just wish that we didn’t have to lose so many to make it happen.”
“We’ll give them a proper burial,” Rarity said. “Ratchet, Gauze, Melody, and Soft… we’ll give them the rest they deserve.”
“I… I-I still can’t believe Melody is gone.” Rainbow’s voice hitched and she coughed to try and clear it. “She spent decades here, trapped and looking for a way to go home. And then she died trying to help us fix our mistakes…”
Her limbs trembled and she struck at the sand in frustration. “It’s not fair,” she growled. “It’s not fair at all. We failed her, Rares. We failed her. We were supposed to help her get out of here and go home to her mother and family. And we failed.” Rainbow shook and shook, but she lacked the energy to actually cry out. “Even when we win, we still lose.”
“No, Rainbow.” Rarity drew back and shifted to her right, her eyes looking out over the gap between the hill and the ridgeline that dominated the east end of the island. “We didn’t lose. Sure, it cost us much more than we could have ever anticipated, but we still won. Melody wouldn’t want us to grieve on behalf of her account. She’d want us to be happy that it’s over.” She raised a hoof and pointed toward the yellow glow sitting on the horizon, glittering where the sky met the sea. “Look at that.”
Rainbow raised her head and took wing, flying up to Rarity’s eye level to see what the siren saw. There, to the east, the first sliver of sun began to rise above the horizon. Cheerful and yellow, bright yet so far away, it chased away the shadows and the darkness of the night. Minute by minute it grew and grew, rising higher above the sea, slowly filling out as Celestia dragged it out of its sleep, hundreds of miles away. Its glow was like a beacon of hope, and finally, after such a long and horrid night, the comforting light of day broke through.
Rainbow didn’t even realize she was smiling until she saw the matching smile on Rarity’s face. “Huh,” she said, wings lazily flapping to keep her hovering in place. “We did do it, didn’t we? I never thought I’d see the sun again last night.”
“Me neither,” Rarity admitted. “But it sure is beautiful, wouldn’t you say so?”
“Yeah.” The pegasus nodded and turned her gaze to the siren next to her. “Probably the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen.”
Rarity hummed, and she offered the length of her snout for Rainbow to perch on, which the pegasus happily took. Dropping down onto the bridge of Rarity’s elongated face, she squeezed her legs tight against it in an approximation of a cuddling embrace and kissed the scaly top once. Then, together, the couple watched the sun continue to swell and rise, promising a new beginning and a new hope to everyone in the days to come.
Gyro watched the sun continue to rise higher and higher over the east end of the island, its golden rays cutting their way through vines and rocks to chase away the darkness hiding beneath. There was no feeling like the warmth of the sun on her dark coat after such a long night. The sunrise was more than just a sunrise to her and the other survivors; it was a sign that they’d done it, and against all the odds, they’d found a way to survive and foil a dark deity’s plans for the world.
She glanced toward the water, where Rainbow and Rarity happily watched the sun rise in each other’s company. Gyro was just happy that Rainbow had finally come down after she had pleaded for her to do so. The best way to deal with survivor’s guilt was to be with friends, and the last thing she wanted was for the hero of the hour to hide herself away and drown in misery. So far, it seemed to be working, and the rising sun seemed like it was brightening everypony’s day.
Even hers. She heard stirring at her side, and she looked over to see Hot Coals beginning to wake. She froze and bit down on her lip as the stallion slowly came to his senses. The sudden change in his location startled some lucidity into him, and the stallion abruptly sat up. “Where—How—?” His eyes fell on Gyro, and he blinked at the practically vibrating mare sitting next to him. “Gyro? Am I… is this heaven?”
“Heeeee!!!” Gyro launched herself at the stallion, knocking him back into the sand as she fell on top of him. “You’re alive!” she cried with joy. “You’re alive! I was so worried about you when those mummies attacked you but you’re alive!”
“Heh… well, I—ow!” Coals clutched at the side of his face and recoiled from Gyro’s hoof. The mare’s jubilant expression had turned into an angry frown, and for a second, Gyro considered slapping him again. “Gyro! What was that for?!”
“That was for trying to get yourself killed saving me,” Gyro said, glaring down at him. But then the glare broke, and soon she was giggling and smothering him with kisses. She grabbed onto his body with all her limbs as tightly as she could, as if fearing that the moment she let go, he would fade away into nothing. Only when she broke off did she wink at him. “And that was for not dying.”
“Heh…” Coals wiped some of the wetness off his lips and placed his hooves on his mare’s shoulders. “If that’s the reward for not dying, I think I’ll live forever.”
“Good. You better.” Giggling, Gyro laid down on top of him, letting her ear rest against his chest. His heartbeat was strong and comforting, a steady, percussive reminder that he was back in her life again. So long as he stayed by her side, she knew she could weather any storm—and she’d certainly weathered her fair share of storms since crashing on these islands.
“What happened down there?” Coals asked her. “Soft Step showed up and we tried to fight her, then… nothing. Though I take it by the fact that the sun’s coming up and everypony’s happy, she failed in completing her ritual.”
“Mmhmm.” Gyro shifted about a bit, snuggling a little closer against Coals and giving his sides a light squeeze. “Rainbow Dash and Chirp took her out. They stopped her when she was halfway through the ritual.”
“Halfway?”
Gyro sighed and her nostrils flared. “Ratchet and Gauze are dead,” she said, her voice wavering. “She sacrificed them. She was going to sacrifice Champagne too, until Rainbow got the better of her.”
“And where is she now?” Coals asked. “Soft Step, I mean.”
“She’s dead,” Gyro said. “Flag’s bastard brother showed up out of nowhere and shot her. I don’t know where he flew off to while we were fighting for our lives, but he came back when it mattered most.”
“And he shot the alicorn instead of one of us,” Coals said. He glanced across the beach and Gyro followed his gaze to where the two pirate brothers sat side by side in the shade, talking to each other in quiet voices. “Maybe he realized what this was all about in the end.”
“Maybe,” Gyro said, nodding slowly. “But, like him or not, he dealt the deathblow to Soft. Rainbow might have done all the hard work, sure, but he at least finished her off.”
Coals nodded, his cheek brushing back and forth through the sand as he attempted to do it while lying on his back. “That’s got to count for something, then.”
“Yeah.”
They lay in silence, soaking up the moment, until Coals broke it once again. “So what happens now?” he asked. “Is it too much to hope that the barrier is gone?”
“I don’t think it is,” Gyro said, and she turned her attention to Rainbow. “If anypony knew what to do next, it would be Rainbow Dash. She was the one in the tomb with Soft during all this. She must have picked up something about our next move.”
“Shame,” Coals said. “I was hoping that you’d tell me Equestria is on its way.”
Gyro chuckled. “Oh, yeah, sure. All four princesses are personally on their way to rescue us. They’re bringing a whole flotilla of airships, including a little tug filled with all the food we could possibly want. You know, to make up for having to eat only like, three things to survive since we got here. I heard some musicians were coming too to make a song about us.”
“That would be nice. ‘The Ballad of Sand Island’. How’s that sound?”
“Sand Island? Really?” Gyro scoffed. “That’s the best you can come up with for this place?”
“If Rainbow Dash doesn’t catch flak for naming a bird ‘Chirp’ I don’t see why you have to make fun of my idea.”
“Because Rainbow Dash is an idiot,” Gyro said, smirking in the direction of the oblivious pegasus. “It’s about what I’d expect from her. You and I have degrees, Coals. Show a little bit of professionalism, at least.”
Chuckling, Coals picked his head up and kissed Gyro’s cheek. “How about I pitch the name to Rainbow,” he said, winking at his marefriend. “I bet she’s gonna love it.”
“Don’t you dare do that,” Gyro said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re right; she is gonna love it, and then that’s what it’s going to be called from now on.”
Coals crossed his forelegs over his chest, erecting a playful barrier between him and Gyro. “Alright, so what’s your idea, then?” he asked her. “Got anything better?”
“Uhh…” Gyro floundered and tried to look anywhere but Coals’ smug eyes. “Fuck you, Coals.”
“That’s a really odd name for an island, I have to say.”
“No, actually, fuck you.” Gyro flopped down on the stallion, making him grunt. She fluttered her eyelashes and slid forward until her lips were practically against Coals’. “And maybe find some time for me too, while you’re at it.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Coals asked her. “The last time we tried, mummies tried to join in.”
“I think they get the memo now,” Gyro said, sliding forward and pecking Coals on the lips. “If they don’t, I’m keeping a stick with me to beat ‘em off.”
Coals blinked. “I’m offended.”
“Shut up,” Gyro said, and she slid a forehoof down towards his tail, making the stallion flinch. “You’ll get your turn. You just gotta be patient.”
“Patient, eh?” Coals smiled and closed his eyes. “After everything that happened last night, I think we’ve got all the time in the world now.”
Black Flag watched the rest of the survivors slowly come to and celebrate their victory from afar. He and his brother had sat themselves beneath the shade of a cluster of palm trees on the edge of the lagoon. Nopony would disturb them there, and nopony seemed to have any intention of doing so, anyway. Which was good; the last thing Flag really wanted to do was talk with the crippling headache splitting his skull in two. He could feel the welt on the back of his head from the alicorn smashing it against the wall. Without any painkillers out here in the wild, he knew it was only going to get much worse before it got better.
“I can’t believe you let a bitch throttle you around like that,” Jolly Roger said, sitting comfortably by his brother’s side. The normally loud and angry pirate kept his voice uncharacteristically restrained for his brother’s sake. “She wasn’t so tough when I put a bullet through her heart.”
“Way I hear it, you got lucky she was fighting with herself,” Flag muttered. Even the act of talking was painful enough. “She thrashed the rest of us around real good. Apparently, the others were fighting her all night even before she got here.”
“No shit?” Roger scoffed and stretched his wings. “Now I feel even better about smoking the whore. If a bunch of sirens and that rainbow bitch couldn’t take her down, then it sounds like I’m the hero of the fucking world. Wasn’t she gonna do some eternal night bullshit?”
“I think it was something more to the effect of darkness devouring the world,” Flag said. “A lot more hardcore than just eternal night. Speaking of which,” he continued, shooting his brother a look, “where the fuck were you all night?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Roger said, sly smile resting on his face.
“That’s why I’m fucking asking, you jackass.”
“Hungover, mostly,” Roger said. “I flew up to a cloud to take a nap. Spent most of the day up there, and then I started wondering if there really was this fucking barrier around the islands like they were talking about. If there wasn’t, I could have just rode a cloud to land and got help.”
Flag raised an eyebrow at him. “And?”
“I damn near broke my neck on it,” Roger said. “It’s invisible, utterly invisible. Couldn’t see a fucking thing and then wham! Right in the face. I thought it would like, I don’t know, at least shimmer or something.”
“That sounds like too much to ask,” Flag said.
“Yeah, well, somepony had to go and take a look at it.” Roger grunted as he shifted positions, and when he cocked his neck to the side, the vertebrae cracked in rapid succession. “After that, I flew back to the cloud, decided I was still pissed at you, and pushed it around the area. I just wanted to get a feel for the islands, y’know? In case we needed to make a getaway from this one.”
“Glad to see you dropped the idea of killing them,” Flag said, attention turning to the survivors gathered on the beach. “They’re alright when it comes down to it.”
“I still think it’s only a matter of time before somepony snaps, but that won’t be for a while, now. Not after I just murdered a fucking god.”
“Yeah. Right. So, what next?”
Roger fluttered his wings and scratched his back against the tree he leaned against. “Well, I was heading over to the island with all the minotaurs on it, and I saw a whole bunch of canoes rowing out to this island. I decided to follow them to see what they were up to, and that’s when the light show started back on the island where the tomb was. Some shit was going down there; I guess that was those sirens fighting the alicorn bitch.”
“Yeah,” Flag said. “I didn’t see it because I was stuck down in the shrine with the mummies. At least those minotaurs you saw were good for something.”
“And they haven’t killed the rest of you yet, so that’s a start.” Roger shook his head. “Anyway, I guess that rainbow bitch did a rainboom or something and that blasted away the cloud I was using to ride around on. Almost knocked me out of the sky, too; I had to dive below the thing. Thankfully, the island wasn’t too far away, so I just hung out here and kept a low profile since the minotaurs were starting to crawl all over the thing.”
“And the mummies?” Flag asked.
“Oh, they were pretty easy to avoid. You just gotta stay quiet and don’t move, and they can’t see you. Besides, I wasn’t going to fucking make a move while they were all over the place. I waited for the minotaurs to deal with them before I left my hiding space.”
“And then?”
Roger shrugged. “I saw another rainboom over here, so I decided to take a look at what was going on. Saw the alicorn bitch and shot her in the back. It was that simple.”
“Wow.” Flag chuckled and slowly shook his head from side to side. “That is probably the least climactic ending to a battle with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.”
“Shut up,” Jolly grumbled. “I probably did more than you did.”
“That’s true enough.” Flag looked at his brother and offered him a sincere smile. “Listen, I’m sorry about what I said yesterday morning.”
“Mmrrff… yeah, yeah, whatever.” The younger pirate sighed and closed his eyes. “I’ve just had enough of this bullshit,” he said. “We lost our entire crew because Squall was a dickhead. I was practically ready to dig my own grave a few days ago and blow my brains out. I mean, what are the chances we’ll ever get home?”
“Better now than they were a day ago,” Flag said. “That evil alicorn is dead, and there shouldn’t be any more mummies wandering around. Even the minotaurs aren’t attacking us. We’ve got plenty of time to figure out what to do next without having to worry about some damn god’s champion trying to rip our hearts out.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s a plus.” Jolly hummed and shifted in place. "Fuck, we should get another bottle of rum to celebrate."
"Let's not do that right now," Flag said. "We'll save that for the party later."
"Hrmm... fair enough."
With some peace and quiet after a long and painful night, it didn't take very long for Flag to fall asleep.
Rarity yawned and swayed in place as her lack of sleep through the night slowly caught up with her. Sure, the sun was bright and shining as it rose through the sky, but she didn’t care about that. She’d been awake for almost a full twenty-four hours now, or at least was getting awfully close to it. It wouldn’t be long before she simply keeled over from exhaustion.
But at least with Rainbow dozing on her snout, she had an incentive to stay awake and alert. The pegasus had more than earned her rest after everything she’d done that night to save all their lives. Rarity didn’t want to force her to move so that she could rest or accidentally send her falling if she happened to zone out for a few seconds. Even if the urge to lay down and close her eyes was so tempting…
A magic glow surrounded Rainbow’s snoozing figure, and Rarity blinked in surprise as something lifted her off her snout. Looking around, she spotted Ruse sitting by the shore, his horn aglow as he gently lowered Rainbow down to the beach. He set the pegasus someplace dry and away from the gently rippling shore and smirked at Rarity. “I figured you didn’t want to do a balancing act forever.”
Rarity smiled at him and sighed, letting out the tension in her shoulders and neck as she lowered her body toward the beach. “Not particularly, no. Thank you for that.” She cast a loving glance at Rainbow, who had already rolled onto her side and had started to drool on the sand. “She’s earned her rest, however undignified it may be.”
“Indeed.” Ruse shook his head as he watched her, but Rarity could tell by the way he fidgeted and the way his tail flicked that he had something more he wanted to say.
“What is it, darling?” she asked him, arching her back in the meanwhile. After being awake and active all night, her muscles had started to seize up. Sleep couldn’t come soon enough, but she didn’t want to rest while others still had their own problems.
Ruse hung his head. “I’m just… just upset by everypony we lost,” he said, averting his gaze. “Ratchet, Gauze, Soft…”
“…Melody,” Rarity finished when he couldn’t bring himself to say the siren’s name.
The ventriloquist winced and his shoulders sagged. “So… it’s true, then?” he asked her. “She’s really…?”
Rarity could only slowly nod her head. “She died fighting Soft Step,” she said. “Rainbow said she was shot through the heart. I… I found this near her body. Take it.”
Digging one of her cleft hooves into the sand, Rarity pulled out the chunk of Melody’s heartstone she’d recovered and kept close for safekeeping. She set it down in front of Ruse, who could only look at it with pained awe. “Melody told me all about heartstones before she turned me into a siren like her,” Rarity said. “She said that they’re the seat of a siren’s soul and where she draws her magic from. She said that when the first siren was born from the First Song, she entered the world through a gemstone, and it became her bridge between the real world and the realm of the Eternal Chorus.” Swallowing hard, she pushed the heartstone toward the stallion. “I’m… I’m very sorry, Ruse.”
“What… What is there to be sorry for?” the stallion said. He drew the stone closer and lifted it with his magic, his eyes watching the way the gem sparkled in the light of the rising sun.
“I know how you felt towards her,” Rarity said. The corners of her mouth twitched for barely a moment before sadness once more overtook them. “Sirens can feel these things.”
“Then you must know how… how stupid it all was,” Ruse bitterly remarked. “I let my fascination with a mythical creature get the better of me. That’s it.”
“She liked you, too.”
The simple statement was enough to make Ruse stop and freeze. Blinking in disbelief, he tilted his head back toward Rarity. “You’re serious?”
This time, Rarity could offer him a genuine smile. “You’re a real charmer, Ruse,” she said. “She really liked you. I had to talk some confidence into her. She was too nervous to talk about it, too afraid that it would never work. But I could feel the connection.” Her smile faded as the pain of her loss once again made itself clear in a new and tragic way. “I just wish you could have told each other that.”
Ruse dropped the heartstone from his magic so he could hold it with his hooves. “I… I wish we could have, too.” He sighed and ran a hoof over the faintly glowing stone, feeling the cracks and notches in the surface where Soft’s spell had shattered it from the siren’s chest. “What happened to her body?”
“It’s… it’s still on the seafloor,” Rarity said. “I didn’t have time to do anything with it, but I don’t want to just leave it there. I want to give her a proper burial somehow. We shouldn’t leave her for crabs and scavengers to tear apart.”
“Yeah… a burial would be nice.” Ruse clutched the heartstone close and gave Rarity a sad smile. “Thank you for this, though,” he said. “I can at least have something to remember her by.”
“Hold it close to your heart and imagine that she’s still there,” Rarity said. “If there’s any bit of her left in this world, it would be in her heartstone. If you keep it with you, she’ll always stay with us.”
Ruse closed his eyes and nodded. “I will,” he said. After a few seconds, he lowered the stone and looked over his shoulder, further up the beach. “We need to bury the others, too,” he said. “Ratchet, Gauze, and even Soft. She may have been twisted and turned, but she was still our friend. I just wish it didn’t have to end this way.”
“A sentiment I agree with completely.” Rarity sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “Let’s give everypony some time to rest before we do that,” she said. “I think we all just need a break and a reprieve from this mess. Some time to unwind and catch up on some sleep.” With an exhausted chuckle, she couldn’t help but add, “It’s been a wild night.”
“That it has,” Ruse agreed. He yawned and flopped onto his back, letting the sun warm his coat. “That it has.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t sleep as long as she would have liked. Even though she’d been up for almost a full day, she barely slept more than five or six hours before she woke again. The sun scorched down on her from overhead, and she had a suspicion that the high noon light searing into her eyeballs was to blame for interrupting her rest.
Though she had wanted to go back to sleep, she didn’t for fear of what it would do to her sleep schedule. Instead, she reluctantly forced herself to her hooves even as everypony else slept around her. Though she still felt tired and drained, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the sheer exhaustion that had driven her to pass out earlier. For a moment, she wondered if everything was a dream; it all seemed too surreal to be true. But when she looked over her shoulder, she saw a white siren sleeping with her head against the sand, and when she held out her wings, the stripe of crimson running through her feathers proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that what she remembered was no mere dream.
And just like that, it all hit her again. The guilt. The shame. The frustration. So many ponies had suffered and died because of her foolish idea to open up that tomb so many nights ago. All in the quest to go home. Was it really worth all that pain to go home? Did it make home worth it if she sailed there on a raft made of bodies?
Would it somehow be better if she was the selfless sacrifice that got everypony home safely?
Rainbow growled at herself in frustration. There wasn’t any need to think about this. Thinking about it was a waste of time and energy for now. There would always be time to find another solution, another way. She didn’t need to rush headlong to her death because she didn’t want to take the time to puzzle out an alternate, bloodless way to get home. Between Rarity’s siren prowess and the sudden change of heart the minotaurs seemed to be showing, there were no more threats to their continued survival out on these islands.
Which led Rainbow to another thought: would it really be so bad if they never went home?
She didn’t plan on giving up—far from it. She planned to use every possible means to get home. But if it all came down to it and the only way they could ever go home was through a blood sacrifice, maybe it wouldn’t be worth it. Sure, it would suck never being able to go back to Equestria, and it would suck to know that everypony back home would think she was dead, but not having to sacrifice a friend would be worth it.
All this worry about what might happen was starting to drive Rainbow crazy. She growled to herself again and paced about for a few seconds before her stomach helpfully reminded her that it’d been at least twelve hours since she last ate anything, and likely far longer. Thankfully, most of the fruiting plants on the south hill were still intact despite the gash Rarity had torn open on the shrine, so all Rainbow had to do was flutter up to the top of the hill and start tearing into the assortment of fruits available to her.
She never would have thought a week ago that star apples and sugar apples could taste so delicious, but after fighting a demigod for far longer than any mortal should have been able to… well, the taste was far more pleasant than she remembered.
Next on the agenda was water, so she casually hiked down the hill into the interior of the island. Here and there, she’d come across the still and smelly remains of a mummy, its preserved flesh finally decaying in the extreme moisture of the island’s jungle after remaining sealed beneath the earth for so long. Whatever magic had once animated them was long gone, and they were food for flies now. Rainbow shivered and tried not to hurl as she walked past one after another. If they were going to be on this island for some time, then Rainbow knew she needed to organize everypony to help get rid of the bodies as soon as possible. Maybe with Rarity’s help they could lash all the bodies to a log and sink it deep in the sea. That would certainly take care of the problem.
The water of the lake was cool and refreshing, and perhaps most important of all, free of mummies. If the minotaurs had killed some mummies and dumped them into the only source of freshwater on the island, Rainbow would have been very upset, to say the least. But the little pond’s water was crystal clear, and Rainbow felt like it practically sparkled as she slaked her thirst. She’d pushed herself so hard for so long the night before that she’d shoved all of her body’s basic needs out of mind, but now they all came crashing back. Simply addressing them was like a shot of adrenaline and a tickle of ecstasy at the back of her mind for finally catering to her survival instincts.
She heard gruff voices calling out to each other through the trees, and she tensed with her wings half-spread. The gray and muscular bodies of the minotaurs moved between the branches ahead of her, carrying something between them. At first, Rainbow thought that they were stealing their salvage, but after a second to peer through the darkness, she realized that the minotaurs had fashioned a stretcher from some of the survivors’ material and were using it to bring their dead through the jungle. They must have begun bringing their fallen warriors back to their canoes so they could return them to their home island.
“Pohnaa’ae.”
Rainbow nearly bolted upright at the deep voice behind her. Whirling around, she spread her wings and readied herself for a fight, but instead only saw a single minotaur watching her from afar, arms crossed and weapons nowhere to be seen. It only took Rainbow a second to recognize the minotaurs’ chief by the skull on his head, even if it was cracked next to a harsh line of bruises and welts on the side of the bull’s face.
But when the minotaur didn’t move after nearly ten seconds of tense silence, Rainbow started to relax. “Oh… okay then.” She cleared her throat and let the smallest hopeful smile settle onto her lips. “I take it that since you aren’t trying to rip me to pieces and stuff that we’re cool now, right? You know, with the whole evil alicorn thing?”
The bull’s brow lowered ever so slightly before Rainbow realized that he likely had no idea what she was saying. Sighing, she shook her head. “Well, uh, in any event, I’m super jazzed and stuff that you guys showed up to help kill the mummies. Even if Soft did kill a bunch of you. I’m really sorry about that.”
She awkwardly fluttered her wings, and the red stripe running through the feathers seemed to catch the chief’s attention. His eyes widened the slightest bit, and he bowed his head slightly toward Rainbow. “Saksi flaga beleten’sot U’a,” he said, and he seemed to look away in reverence. “A sogolo’set of fumpo’sat U’a. A noal.”
Rainbow blinked. “…Right.” She shuffled her feathers back together and folded her wings by her sides, then coughed awkwardly into her hoof. “Uh, look, dude. We’re gonna be staying here for a while. This has been great and all, you know? Like, really swell. But do you guys think you can turn down the pony murder? Just a little bit? That’s what being a good neighbor is all about, you know.”
All she received was a blank and confused look from the chief. Shrugging, Rainbow took flight, looking for a literal way out of the conversation, as much as it could be called one. “You know, you guys have a great idea taking care of your dead and stuff. In case I don’t see you around any time soon, uh, it was fun, dude. But now I’ve got my own… my own friends to take care of, ya feel me?” When the silence dragged on for too long, Rainbow instead smiled at the minotaur and winked once. “Maybe try a vegan diet, you know? Or one that doesn’t involve ponies. But, uh, yeah! Gotta fly!”
And then she was gone, leaving the confused bull behind.
By the time Rainbow returned to the lagoon, most of the others had awoken as well, and likely due to the same cause that had driven her from the restful embrace of sleep. There was very little shade out on the open beach of the lagoon, and nopony could tolerate the heat and light for that long, even while oblivious to the world. Thankfully, they’d chosen the lagoon to rest next to, so it wasn’t too much of a problem for the survivors to stagger to their hooves and wade into the cool water to wash away the sand and sweat.
Rainbow landed next to Rarity, who was curled on her side at the edge of the lagoon so the water could soak at least some of her scales. When Rarity saw the fluttering of Rainbow’s wings, she looked away from the rest of the survivors and shifted her attention to her marefriend. “Rainbow! There you are. I was wondering where you’d flown off to.”
“I was hungry and thirsty,” Rainbow said, sitting down in the sand by Rarity’s side. “I had to take care of that.”
Rarity nodded. “I’m feeling famished as well, but I’m not sure if I can bring myself to go hunting,” she said. “Melody had taken care of that for me until now. Now I have to go catch fish with my beak and kill them myself.”
“Better get used to it,” Rainbow said, even deflating slightly as she realized what she was asking Rarity to do. “It’s not like we’ll have much of a chance to go home anytime soon.”
“What do you mean?” Rarity asked her. “It’s over, right? Now that Soft Step is… gone, we can focus on getting back home in peace!”
“Rarity…” Rainbow fidgeted in place. “…How much did Melody ever tell you about what it will take to get home?”
The siren sighed and seemed to deflate. “Enough to know that it’s not going to be easy. The barrier was raised with a blood sacrifice of some kind. And Soft Step wanted pegasi for the ritual she was performing…”
“Yeah.” Nodding her head, Rainbow watched Champagne and Stargazer splash through the water in front of them. “She sacrificed Ratchet’s and Gauze’s hearts, and then Jolly Roger shot her through hers. Three hearts were sacrificed to the shrine down there—and three totems were glowing with power when she died.”
“All except for the pegasus figurine,” Rarity finished.
Rainbow’s nostrils flared and she bowed her head. “The only thing that stands between us and home is a pegasus heart. If we’re going to lower the barrier… one of us pegasi is gonna have to bite the bullet.”
Rarity blinked in disbelief. “No!” she protested, shifting away from Rainbow as if the horrid thought was contagious. “We… we can’t do that! We can’t do anything like that!”
“I know,” Rainbow said. “I don’t want to make anypony else do it anymore than I would volunteer myself. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the only way to lower the barrier. And if it really is the only way to go home… what do we do?”
Rarity’s beak moved a few times but no words formed. Finally, with a rough shake of her head, she crossed her legs and slapped her tail on the sand. “I… I-I don’t know, Rainbow…”
“Me neither,” Rainbow admitted with a defeated sigh. “We can always try to find another way. I mean, surely there’s gotta be something we can do. But… I’m not really hopeful that there will be.”
“Melody spent decades trapped in this island chain,” Rarity said. “She had years and years to puzzle out a solution to get home that didn’t involve these totems or rituals, and she never figured it out. What… what chance do we have to solve the mystery in even half the time?”
“A much better one than she did, admittedly,” Rainbow said. “We already gathered all the totems. Three of them have been activated. We’ve got all the ingredients in one place for this whole big ‘get off of the islands’ birthday cake we’re trying to make. We just need to figure out if we can replace ‘pegasus heart’ with, I don’t know, coconut oil or something.”
The analogy at least made Rarity giggle. “You sound like Pinkie Pie, darling.”
“What can I say?” Rainbow shrugged and smiled a bit. “I miss the crazy girl. Celestia, what I wouldn’t give to go to one of her parties again…”
Rarity smiled as well, though it faltered and fell after a few seconds. “Yes… That is perhaps the most difficult thing out of all of this,” she said. “We either spend the rest of our lives here and don’t see our friends ever again, or we go back to them with the blood of our friends here on our hooves. I don’t think I could ever bring myself to look at Fluttershy the same way again if I had to kill a pegasus to go home. I don’t think she would ever look at me the same way either.”
“So what’s worse, then?” Rainbow asked her. “Is it better to give up on going home and letting everypony there down just so you can keep your conscience clear? Or doing whatever it takes to get home, no matter what that might cost us, so we can see our friends and family again?”
“That sounds like a pirate’s way of thinking it through,” Rarity said. “‘Doing whatever it takes,’ I mean. After everything we’ve done to overcome this together, to work as a team, I’d hate to see us backtrack into their lifestyle and their morals.”
“Me too,” Rainbow said with a sigh and a sad shake of her head. “I just… I just wanna go home, you know?”
“You’re not the only one, I assure you,” Rarity said. But, steeling her gaze, she shifted her attention away from the survivors in the water and toward the bodies lying on the beach. “In any event, I think this can wait to be discussed until later, and with the group as a whole. We shouldn’t make decisions affecting all of us without their input as well. In the meanwhile, we can at least bury and remember those we’ve lost.”
Rainbow nodded and followed her gaze to the lagoon’s sandy beaches. “Yeah,” she said. “Go and get everypony else. I’ll get things from the camp so we can do this right.”
Rainbow Dash had to pause and wipe the sweat from her face. Dragging things from one side of the island to the other on a few hours of sleep was pushing her to her limits. Her limbs were still sore from everything she’d done the night before, and hauling wood from the camp to the lagoon only made them ache worse. At least she had some help from the others and didn’t have to carry everything herself.
She dropped the somewhat damp planks of wood she’d been carrying in the sand and tried to spit out the splinters digging into her lips and tongue. For a moment, she wished that she was a unicorn just so she didn’t have to lug things around with her mouth, but it didn’t last all that long. As much as she loved Rarity, unicorns and magic were nowhere near as awesome as pegasi and flying.
Though that didn’t matter all that much when Rarity was a big scaly siren, did it?
Panting lightly and with sweat drenching her coat, Rainbow wandered off to the shade for a few quick minutes of rest before she got back to it. Directly in the center of the lagoon’s beach, the survivors had put together a huge pyre from their scrap and salvage. Rainbow didn’t really want to waste wood like that, but after a brief conference with the others, they’d decided that the safest way to get rid of Soft’s body and all the mummies scattered around the island would be to incinerate them. After all, the last thing they needed was to leave any corpses around that dark magic could reanimate again if somehow the worst happened and the moon god found another way to create an avatar. But if they destroyed the horn attached to Soft’s skull, they hopefully wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore.
Rainbow wasn’t sure if she should feel relieved or angered that Jolly Roger was more than happy to fetch Soft’s body and smash her horn with a rock until it was too cracked and fractured to channel magic. Just in case.
Ruse walked by with his horn aglow, towing several mummies in a telekinetic aura. “You might wanna stay upwind,” he said to Rainbow as he passed, his nose wrinkled in disgust. “These things smell awful. I can’t imagine just how much worse it’ll stink when we light the pyre.”
“Hopefully it’s hot enough that it will just burn away the stench,” Rainbow said, reluctantly surrendering her shade to stay ahead of Ruse and away from the mummy smell. At least she could always stand in the water and let it soak a few inches around her fetlocks. She watched as Ruse unceremoniously dumped the mummies onto the pyre and grimaced, almost as if he’d still contaminated himself by touching them with his intangible magic. “If not, we’ll just have to get used to it.”
“The smell of thirty or forty rotten and burning corpses?” Ruse gagged and trotted away from the pyre. “I don’t think there’s a way to get used to that. Not at all.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right about that.” Rainbow’s eyes fell on the pair of graves dug in firmer ground closer to the base of the hill. The pirate brothers hung around next to them, sweat dripping from their faces as they finished carving up the earth for Ratchet and Gauze. “Run into any minotaurs while you were hunting for mummies?”
Ruse shook his head. “I think they’re all gone,” he said. “I didn’t really go to the shore to check it out. But there’s a lot less hooting and hollering now, don’t you agree?”
Rainbow nodded, noting that it did seem quieter around the islands. Once again, they had returned to their usual ambient sounds of insects and the occasional bird. Chirp watched them from the shade of a palm tree perched on the east ridge, his feathers puffed out and his beak occasionally opening in a wide yawn. Even the god bird seemed like he could get tired, a fact Rainbow found endlessly amusing for some reason.
The water splashed behind her, and she turned around to see Rarity trying to drag herself back into the lagoon. “I hate this shallow water,” she growled as she used her legs to pull herself in. “I don’t have any room to use my tail and I have to haul myself all the way back out past the rocks before the water gets deep enough to swim again.”
“You could just try flying in,” Rainbow said. “Everything’s better when you fly.”
“Flying is too difficult when I don’t have wings,” Rarity said. “Much as I complain about this, it’s easier than trying to move through the air on sheer willpower alone.”
“Right.”
Ruse quietly cleared his throat, and when Rarity looked in his direction, he cautiously moved a few steps closer to the beach. “Is it… Is she…?”
Rarity sighed and nodded. “I took care of it,” she said. “The crabs won’t be able to get to her.”
The ventriloquist sighed and nodded. “Well… thank you for that. At least she can rest easy.”
“I would’ve liked to see her one last time,” Rainbow said. “But I don’t think I can if she’s at the bottom of the ocean… and under a ton of sand now.”
“I would have liked to speak to her one last time, too,” Rarity said. Ultimately, however, she sighed and hung her head. “Celestia, if we keep talking about this, I feel like we’re going to be buried in misery.”
Rainbow reluctantly nodded. “We’ve already got enough to dig out of as is.” She again looked toward the beach, where Champagne and Stargazer had returned with dried brush they could use to start the fire with. “But I suppose there’s no point in waiting around any longer. Might as well get this over with.”
The others nodded, and Rainbow and Ruse approached the pyre while Rarity remained in the water. The rest of the survivors slowly formed up, and Rainbow lightly bumped Stargazer’s shoulder with her hoof. “Didn’t see any more mummies out there? Ruse got them all?”
“Looks like it,” the pegasus said. “Though I’m sure we’ll find more.”
“I’m sure of that, too.” Rainbow sighed and lowered her head. “At least we’re getting this done with, one way or another.”
She walked past the others and stopped in front of the graves dug in the dirt. Flag and Roger watched her from the shade, and Rainbow spared them a thankful nod for their hard work. Then she turned her attention to the bodies lying next to them, the gaping holes in their chests covered by palm fronds to at least hide the bloody mess from sight. It wasn’t too hard to imagine that they were merely sleeping and would wake up if she touched them, but she knew that wouldn’t happen.
After a moment to collect her thoughts, Rainbow turned around to find all the survivors and Rarity watching her. Clearing her throat, she took a step forward and tried to relax. “I’m… I’m not super good with speeches and stuff,” she said, letting her gaze sweep over the ponies assembled before her. “But I can at least say a few nice words for them now. I didn’t get to know them all that long—only a few days, really—but I could tell they were good people. All of them. Even Soft Step.” She let her eyes linger on the pyre and the alicorn body resting within. “We need to remember that it wasn’t her that did all this, but some evil spirit that possessed and enslaved her. She tried to fight it all she could, but she wasn’t strong enough. At least… at least when she died, she was finally free during her final breath.”
She faltered and hung her head. “The rest of us? We made it through an awful night. It’s probably the worst thing any of us could ever have to deal with. But it’s over now, okay? We’ve got the sun back and the threat is over. Now we can start trying to go home for real… but we can’t forget everyone who died along the way.” She swallowed hard and added, “That’s the price we pay for surviving. We’ve gotta live with that weight on our shoulders, and we owe it to them to go home. Because if they’ll never see Equestria again, we have to for them.”
Rainbow felt tears prick at her eyes, but she forced them away. “I’ll remember them,” she firmly stated. “I’ll remember everything they did for us. And if we go home in two days from now or two decades, I’ll make sure to keep them close to my heart. ‘Cause that’s all we can do.”
Wings trembling, she closed her eyes and walked away, passing through the meager crowd of survivors assembled around her. She didn’t stop walking until she felt her hooves touch water, and then she sat down. She simply had no more words left to say.
Strong, scaly limbs gently caressed her and pulled her into a calming embrace as she struggled to fight back her tears.
Smoke rose high into the sky as the day beat on into the afternoon.
A blazing inferno roared on the lagoon’s beach. Rainbow Dash watched the pyre’s flames flicker and flash as the wood snapped and popped. A haze seemed to settle over the island as the thick smoke dispersed every which way, while Stargazer and Champagne sat on a cloud nearby in case they needed to quickly douse the flames. It would be nothing short of catastrophic if they accidentally set their home ablaze, especially if there was no clear sign that they’d ever be heading back to Equestria.
Rainbow scoffed inwardly. ‘Home.’ That’s what the island had become now. It was more of a real home than Ponyville was, now. At least the island was here. Ponyville was so far away that it felt like it didn’t even exist.
But with the bodies buried and the pyre lit, the mood around the lagoon had turned dark and somber. Even though the night was over, everypony seemed to be coming to terms with the fact that it hardly meant their suffering was finished. They still hadn’t lowered the barrier, and therefore they still couldn’t go home. Sure, they’d ended an immediate threat to their existence, but how long would it take before the next one showed its ugly head?
All this meant one thing to Rainbow Dash: it was time to come clean with the others and sort out what their next move would be.
She rubbed at her eyes to get some of the salty tears out of her face and steel herself for what was likely to be an unpleasant conversation. Then, spreading her wings, she flew above the water and cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. “Hey, so, uh, there’s something we need to discuss,” she said, raising her voice so that they could all hear her over the roar of the pyre in the background. “Can everypony come closer?”
Ears perked and heads turned in her direction, and within a few seconds, the scattered survivors congregated at the water’s edge around Rainbow. “What is it, Rainbow?” Ruse asked after he’d taken a seat on the sand.
“It’s about going home,” Rainbow said.
Black Flag scoffed. “Really? We’ve finally figured it out now? Let’s hear it, then.”
Rainbow hung her head. “It’s not that simple,” she said. “Soft Step did most of the work lowering the barrier—that’s what she needed sacrifices for. Jolly shooting her through the heart took care of another part of it. But it wasn’t finished.”
She sighed. “To lower the barrier, Soft needed hearts from each race and then herself. She already got unicorn and earth pony, and getting shot through her heart finished off the crystal totem. But she never got to the pegasus part.”
“So, what?” Roger asked, crossing his forelegs. “You’re saying that the only thing stopping us from going home is a pegasus heart?”
“Yes,” Rainbow said, narrowing her eyes at him. “A pegasus heart. Like mine. Or yours.”
“Do we even know that it will bring down the barrier if the totem were to be given a pegasus heart?” Ruse asked. “As a hypothetical question, of course.”
“It should.” Rainbow’s gaze swept to the hill behind the fire. “The barrier was raised with pony blood. It needs blood to lower it again.”
“There’s really no other way?” Champagne asked. “Couldn’t we try to achieve the same effect with… I don’t know. A little blood?”
Rarity nodded. “It’s certainly worth the effort at least. We don’t have anything to lose.”
“We can definitely try that,” Rainbow said. “And in fact, we should try that before we do anything else. But to be honest, I’m not all that hopeful that we’re gonna be able to pull it off that way.”
“So what do we do if we can’t?” Stargazer asked. “We aren’t really gonna…?”
“We should draw straws for it,” Roger said. “Pegasus with the short straw gives up their heart.”
“That could be you too, you know,” Ruse flatly stated.
The pirate shrugged. “I got one in four chance of it being me. I’ll take those odds.”
“We are not drawing straws to see who lives and who dies,” Rainbow said. “And to be completely honest, I’d rather not have to kill anypony else just to go home.”
Champagne nervously fidgeted on her cloud. “But if that’s the only way…”
“Then we’re stuck here,” Flag flatly concluded. “Stuck here until we all grow old and die.”
“There’s always hope that maybe there will be some other way to go home,” Rarity said, trying to remain optimistic. “Melody said her mother would come to the edge of the barrier whenever her choir was in this area. Maybe we can say something to her and have her relay a message back home!”
Roger frowned at her. “Do you even know when the siren bitch’s mom would come around or where she’d even be?”
The white siren fidgeted. “Well… not exactly. We did hear her one time, somewhere out to the east…”
“And nothing since,” Rainbow said. “But… at least that’s something we can fall back on, right? It just means we’ll be stuck here a little longer.”
“A year is a lot more than just ‘a little,’” Flag said. But he nevertheless shrugged and looked away. “But it’s a lot shorter than the rest of my life, too.”
“Right.” Though it wasn’t exactly the most pleasant situation, she could at least try to appear hopeful for everypony else’s sake. “I think we can do it,” she said. “We’ve already been here for almost two months now. Two months. And they’ve been pretty sucky two months, sure, but now that we’re all together and united, maybe we can make the next ten less sucky. What do you say, guys? Do you think we can do it?”
“I’m with you, Rainbow,” Rarity said, her tail swishing through the shallow water. “You can always count on me.”
“Me too,” Ruse said. “You saved our lives, you know? We’ll always be thankful. And besides, we need a new leader now.” He looked over his shoulder, and both pegasi sitting on the cloud nodded along.
Flag scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Spare me the cheerleader routine,” he said, but he nevertheless dipped his head once. “But fuck it, it’s a better plan than nothing.”
All eyes fell on Roger, who frowned at the sand around him. “Yeah, sure, fuck it,” he said. “So long as we’re not at each other’s throats by the end of the week.”
“We’ll just have to learn how to play nice,” Rainbow said. She offered everypony a relieved smile. “Thanks, guys. I was… really worried that we’d have to do the unthinkable to get home.”
“If we do that then we’re nothing more than animals,” Ruse said. “We can survive and keep our dignity intact. We don’t need to stoop so low just to get home.”
“We can treat it like an extended vacation,” Champagne said. “There are worse things than spending a year in the sun, right?”
“Running out of booze, for one,” Roger grumbled.
“Maybe we can find a way to make some more,” Stargazer said. He nodded to Champagne and winked. “Champagne’s Prench, after all. Making alcohol should be in her blood.”
“I was a weathemare,” the mare protested, “not a vineyard worker!”
Rainbow couldn’t help but chuckle at the playful banter around her. Sure, they were stuck out here, and who knew for how much longer. But even out here, they had friendship to get them through the tough times ahead.
She let her eyes wander toward the sky. Twilight would be proud of her and Rarity.
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.
There wasn’t much that needed to be done that day apart from the basics. With everypony agreed on a course of action, they had little to discuss save for the mundane task of preparing to survive another day. But with eight ponies and a siren, it was simple enough to divvy up the tasks so they were easy to handle. Thus, by the time night fell again, there was nothing that needed to be finished for tomorrow.
That didn’t stop Rainbow from being wary. She felt like she was personally traumatized by the night, and she worried that she’d never be able to sleep soundly once the sun set ever again. The previous night had been the worst night of her life, and she hoped that nothing would ever top it or even come close to it in terms of the sheer amount of pain she’d suffered through, both physically and emotionally. Even now, as darkness reclaimed the island once more, she found she couldn’t settle down just in case the evil god of darkness had something more in store for the rest of them.
But she’d checked the ashes of the pyre. Soft’s body had been completely incinerated, leaving only tiny shards of bleached bone that hadn’t been destroyed in the blaze. She had seen something that might once have been the wicked and curved horn, but she didn’t know for sure. Jolly Roger had badly broken it with a rock, and the fire had destroyed the rest. What had once been a cursed remain that had twisted Soft into an alicorn of darkness had finally surrendered to the dust and dirt of the earth. It should have made her feel better… but in reality, being unable to identify its remains only made her worried again. Perhaps more worried than she should be, even.
Rainbow hated herself for it. Why couldn’t she relax when they’d won? Didn’t she deserve some respite after everything she’d done the night before?
All this led to her sitting on the east shore long after most everypony else had gone to sleep. Though she was tired, her mind had pushed the exhaustion aside in favor of horrible paranoia. She was determined to not get caught flat-hoofed again. If something happened in the middle of the night, she knew she needed to be the first to respond. She had Chirp’s blessing, after all. Only she could foil the moon god’s plans if he happened to show his ugly face that night.
The waves crashed against the beach, once more bathing her in that hypnotic rhythm. Her eyes watched the swash come in and out without her even thinking about it. She felt like the ocean had the only calming remedy to soothe her troubled mind. Would this really be so bad to look at for the rest of her life? Would it really be so bad to wake up every morning to the sound of the tides, to bathe in the salty water, to play in its crystal clear hands from sunup to sundown? Would it really be so bad to leave Equestria behind, to make a home for herself and her friends out here, so far from civilization?
It was something that she realized was worth thinking about. That possibility seemed all the more real every day. If she couldn’t go back home, she could at least try to make herself comfortable out here. Maybe now that she had Chirp’s feathers in her wings she could negotiate with the minotaurs and learn their language. If they could work with the natives instead of trying to fight each other, then they all had a much better shot at surviving this ordeal. The cooperation they showed while fighting off Soft Step’s minions was a start. Perhaps it would be worth it to look into fostering a growing bond in the future.
She saw Rarity approaching through the water long before the siren actually made it to the beach. When she did, Rarity groaned and rolled onto her side, her tall dorsal fin keeping her propped up. “The siren thing is nice and all, but I’m really starting to grow tired of it,” she said in a weary voice. She yawned, opening her beak wide and revealing the sharp and pointy depths of her maw for the world to see. “If I want to go anywhere on this island, I have to swim around the edges. I can’t just walk into the middle anymore.”
“At least it means I won’t lose track of you,” Rainbow said, smiling slightly. “Besides, I’m sure you can fix that in some way.”
Rarity blinked. “Fix it? Fix it how?”
“With your magic, duh.” Rainbow looked Rarity’s scaly body over. “If you can sing and tear apart rocks, surely you can sing and turn yourself back into a pony, right? That sounds like something a siren could do.”
“I… suppose.” Rarity shrugged and gazed up at the stars. “I’d just need to figure out how to do it.”
“We’ve got time,” Rainbow said. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere any time soon.”
“I know,” Rarity said. Sighing, she idly drew nonsensical patterns in the sand with the tip of her hoof. “The other plans aren’t going to work, are they.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, one that Rainbow unfortunately agreed with. “I don’t see why they would,” she said. “The sacrifice was made with hearts. Not blood. Soft didn’t care about the blood, she only wanted the heart. There’s a big difference between the two.”
“Is there?” Rarity asked. “I’m not quite up to date with my ritual sacrifice 101.”
“Isn’t, like, the heart where the soul is?” Rainbow asked. “That’s probably why she needed them. There’s nothing special about blood.”
Frowning, she shook her head and rolled onto her stomach. “It doesn’t mean we can’t try.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Rainbow said. “I’m just not gonna get my hopes up, because I know we’re going to be disappointed.”
Silence fell between them once more, long and uncomfortable. Both knew the truth but didn’t dare to speak it: that it would take nothing short of a miracle to go home once again. Perhaps they’d been doomed since the moment they set hoof on the island, or perhaps they had a window to go home long ago and missed it. Perhaps the opportunity hadn’t yet arisen. There was always the guaranteed way to go home, but it was too unacceptable, too wrong. Nopony was willing to kill another to make that final sacrifice. And even though it might mean that they’d all be stuck out here for the rest of their lives, Rainbow was proud of them for it. Surviving on this sandy island wasn’t merely about making it to the next day. To Rainbow, it meant making it to the next day with her equinity intact. If she sacrificed that, then Rainbow Dash would have died on the islands, and some doppelganger would be the one going home. It simply wasn’t worth it.
“You know, darling,” Rarity began once the silence had dragged on for long enough. “It’s simply beautiful out here.”
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, it is,” she said. “It’s a perfect night. There’s almost nothing like it back home.”
Rarity hummed and moved closer to Rainbow, her large, purple tail fin curling as she stretched. “We’ve spent so much time grieving that we’re never going home. But just for once, I’d like to imagine the opposite.” When Rainbow turned to her with a brow raised, she smiled and gestured out into the great dark emptiness around them. “If this was to be our last night out here, darling, what would you like to do? If we were to be brought home tomorrow…how would you spend this last night?”
The question caught Rainbow off guard. “I… I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s just… I haven’t really thought about it, you know? Because I’ve been expecting the opposite. I’ve just accepted the opposite.”
“It certainly wouldn’t hurt to at least imagine the best case scenario,” Rarity said. “But I think this is just perfect. I’d like to sit on the beach, listen to the waves, and let the noise of the ocean lull me to sleep. There’s nothing quite like the serene tranquility of the beach under the stars.”
“You know, I think I’d like that, too,” Rainbow said.
Rarity scoffed in surprise. “Really? I would’ve thought you’d be spending your time on a night flight high above the sea, where you can watch the moon glitter on the waves far below you.”
Rainbow chuckled. “Yeah, well, that sounds pretty awesome, now that you mention it.” But she shifted closer to Rarity and leaned against her scaly side. “But if I did that, I couldn’t be with you.”
It was sappy, Rainbow knew, but she also knew that it was exactly the kind of thing Rarity would have loved to hear. And judging by the siren’s stunned reaction, she’d played her cards perfectly. “Why… I… Oh, you’re too sweet, darling.”
“Hey,” Rainbow said, looking up into Rarity’s eyes, “just because you’re a big fish doesn’t mean you’re not my big fish. Even if you can’t change back, I’m gonna love you no matter what.”
Rarity blinked in surprise and had to look away. “Oh, Rainbow, you… you don’t know how much that means to me to hear you say that.”
“I think I do,” Rainbow said. “And no matter what happens, Rares, we’re gonna get through this together. Whether you’re a siren or a pony, we’ll always be in it to win it as a team. I promise you that.”
“And I promise you the same,” Rarity said. She turned back to Rainbow, eyes sparkling, and lowered her beak to the pegasus. “I love you, Rainbow. No matter what happens, and no matter what comes. If we go home or not, it doesn’t matter much to me anymore. So long as I have you, I can survive anything.”
Rainbow felt her heart swell, even if she didn’t want to admit it. “Same, Rares,” she said, nuzzling the siren’s cheek. “I love you, too. And we’ll get through this. We’re too awesome not to.”
Rarity giggled. “That, I can believe.”
She curled up on the beach, and Rainbow moved to huddle into her protective scaly warmth. Resting her chin on Rarity’s cheek, the two lovers watched the waves roll in and out and let the stars shine down on them from high above. They’d braved everything that had been thrown at them so far. They’d faced it all down and come out on top, no matter how dire things may have seemed. They’d lost friends of all kinds, but they knew the fallen would always live on in their hearts.
There were mysteries that had yet to be solved. The missing body from the sunken temple. What exactly the minotaurs had found in those papers that were so important to them. If Chirp was really just a bird with magical powers or something more. But there was always time to solve them. There would always be time to figure out what had happened. After all, it wasn’t like they were going anywhere, right?
What was important was that they had survived. And not only had they survived, but they had thrived, and they’d done so together. Now they had a group of friends so they wouldn’t be so alone, and even out here in the middle of tropical nowhere, they had made the magic of friendship bloom once more.
No matter what might come, no matter how good or bad, Rainbow knew that she would be alright.
