A pristine white unicorn weakly dragged a goldish-grey coated earth pony onto a sandy beach, gasping for air as she finally reached dry land.
The unicorn started to sputter out salt water as she tried to get both of them away from the deep blue ocean, a piece of seaweed hung as an ordainment from her horn as she mustered all of her remaining strength to get the other mare to dry land.
She collapsed as soon as she felt that they were far enough away from the unforgiving ocean, releasing the mare's hoof that she used to drag her to safety. She then fell down on her rump in the, rather pleasantly, warm sand, almost giving her a goofy smile even after her struggle.
The unicorn started to cough and beat at her chest with a hoof, causing her trademark shades and the seaweed to fall off of her horn and into the sand. She was trying to rid herself of the heavy feeling in her lungs. After hacking up a mouthful of water her throat became strained from the salt and her voice turned raspy as she slowly crawled to her friend's side in the sand, "Y-yo Octy, are you alright?" She asked, hoping that her friend would be well.
The mare's eyes remained closed, looking a little pale without response.
The unicorn's eyes widened as she saw her friend grow pale, so she started to frantically shake her friend like there was no tomorrow, "C'mon Octy! I don't know CPR, wake up!" She warned her friend, even though she wasn't even conscious to hear her.
The mare finally awoke after some vigorous shaking and her eyes shot open as she was being shaken, her neck flailing around and spoke as if she were riding the bus on a bumpy road, "V-v-in-nyl s-to-op!"
The shaking abruptly stopped and being illogical as Vinyl normally was, she just stopped and fully let go of her friend, letting her drop onto the hot sand once more.
Octavia hit the ground on her back and felt her mane get infiltrated with sand. She quickly reacted and sat up to start shaking her mane wildly to try and quickly rid herself of it, growing angry as she did so, "Vinyl! Do you have any idea how annoying sand is in your mane?!"
"Sorry Octy..." Vinyl apologized as she rubbed the back of her wet head, showing sincerity, but it quickly changed to a bit of a glare, "But it's hard to think straight after carrying a pony that weighs more than a ton about a mile in the ocean." she said, a hint of spite in her voice, but tried to keep her usual calm self.
"I do NOT weigh that muc-" She was about to protest, but then was hit with the realization of where they really were. "Ocean?" Octavia finally snapped into reality and looked past her friend, seeing miles upon miles of calm clear blue waters. "Vinyl!"
"Yeah Octy?" She finally stood up, wanting to stand upright on dry land again, they felt sore after a solid fifteen minutes of kicking through the water.
"We're in the middle of the ocean!" Octavia started to panic, looking around frantically, hoping to see the salvation of a large mass of land in sight. She even began looking in the same place more than twice; showing clear hopelessness even though it had only been but a minute since she regained consciousness.
"Uh... correction, we're on a small remote island in the middle of the ocean." Vinyl observed, pointing out that they both were on an island no bigger than Sugar Cube Corner with a single palm tree in the middle. The wind was calm, but present, blowing salty air through their manes.
Octavia had already started to hyperventilate, unpleasant thoughts of their bodies being found by fishermen a year later began to plague her mind. Her thoughts began to run wild to even the extremes the more she thought about it, racing with possible images of her ultimate end- until a hoof smacked her semi-lightly across the cheek.
"Snap out of it!" Vinyl commanded as she performed a wake-up slap to her friend.
The slap stung her cheek, reminding her that she was still alive and the horrifying thoughts were practically hit out of her head. She rubbed the side of her cheek, now calming down, "Th-thanks Vinyl..."
"Anytime!" She gave her friend a wide toothy smile, really meaning that.
Octavia saw her Vinyl acting calmly and even smiling, "How are you staying so calm?" she asked as she slowly pulled herself up to get on all fours, wanting to stand up-right more than sitting in the sand.
She raised an eyebrow as if it were a stupid question, "Don't you watch any movies? People get stranded on islands all the time, but this time we don't have a volleyball to paint..." Vinyl started to let her mind wander about all of the movies shes watched.
"...But movies aren't real." Octavia told her friend, now silently questioning to herself how Vinyl could think that something written as fiction and acted out could be real.
"Hey! A lot of them are based off a true story... like Toy Fable." She quickly countered.
"T-...Toy Fable is an animated movie about toys that can talk and go on adventures!" Octavia retorted, throwing her hooves into the air in protest.
"...Tavi, I challenge you to prove me wrong, right here, right now." Vinyl challenged, smirking in firm belief that she was right.
Octavia started to put a hoof in the paw of the other, tapping it as she counted off her reasons, "Toys cannot talk, and they do not go on adventures, it's quite fairly obvious that they don't even have souls." She had never wanted to face-hoof so hard in her life.
"That's what they want you to think." Vinyl pointed an accusing hoof, "They just don't do anything while you're in the room- they like to keep their lives secret."
Octavia looked at her friend, her mouth agape in surprise. 'I...I can't believe this is happening... I'm on a remote island with no hope of getting off... With Vinyl?!'
"See..? True story." She smiled as she basked in the triumph of being right in her own eyes.
"How can this be possible Vinyl?" Octavia finally had to ask, last time she knew, she was lounging peacefully in her suite on the cruise ship she was taking to go and perform in the trans-equestrian orchestra.
"...I don't know, I just woke up surrounded in water, and all I could think of was that one movie 'The Gigantic' where the boat sank and all those people got caught in the cold water... I'm glad we're in the tropics." she shuddered at the thought of the movie actually happening to herself but continued, "and then the next thing I knew after waking up, was that I was swimming down to you- you were sinking like a rock. And then poof, we wound up here."
She took a moment to realize that their ship had sunk for a reason neither of them knew, but she looked at her friend in a light of gratefulness that she had saved her life.
Vinyl continued to stand, now turning herself to face the sea with courage and determination.
Octavia only sighed, "So any ideas on how we're going to get off this Celestia-forsaken pile of sand?" She asked her friend, now sitting down on her haunches in defeat. By now she was willing to believe in anything.
"Well in the movies they spelled out a giant word like 'help' with rocks they found on their island..." She turned her head to look at what she had to work with, "Well that looks like a big 'N' 'O' to that plan..." She said as she saw that they had sand, sand, a palm tree that looked like it had some coconuts, and sand.
Octavia looked in awe at her friend, wondering what could possibly be going through her childish but daring mind at the moment, possible thoughts of brave escapes from an explosion or possibly being the life-of-the-party at one of her raves were at the top of the list.
'I like pudding.' She thought as she surveyed the area. "Well we don't have much to work with... Maybe if we start a fire, the smoke will signal a ship in the distance to come and rescue us... or maybe the ECG have been alerted and they might be coming to save anyone left from the accident." She said, now thinking about the movie 'The Protector' where an old stallion was teaching a young colt to not be so caught up in glory, and to just do his job as a colt of service.
"V-vinyl... th-that's surprisingly smart of you, I would have never thought of something like that." Octavia started having regrets for anything bad she’s said about her friend's intelligence.
"Huh?" Vinyl's eyes blinked, "Sorry I zoned out... pudding... So what did you just say?"
"...It's nothing, so how can we start a fire?" Octavia asked her friend, still not moving up from her haunches until there was a clear course of action set in front of them to follow.
Vinyl suddenly started to ignore her and looked at the tree, "Coconut." She trotted over to the tree which was only a few feet away from Octavia.
"Coconut?" Octavia asked herself, showing clear confusion on her face, ignoring her friend as she trotted by in her thoughts of confusion as she looked out into the sea.
Vinyl took a moment to look at the tree, it wasn't very thick and it looked weak enough that even she could make her prize fall. She turned away from the tree and bucked it right at its base, using all the strength she had left from the difficult swim of carrying her friend across the water to attempt to knock down the fruit.
The tree rattled and then four coconuts fell from the tree, all landing to the ground near its base.
The pristine unicorn smiled giddily as she quickly picked up one of the fruits, "Yes... The air is clean, the soil is fertile... we will thrive here for many generations."
"What?" Octavia turned and made a face that could only be described as pure confusion, "V-vinyl are you alright?" She asked her friend, now looking at her as she watched her hold the coconut as if it were the purest gold.
"It's not pudding, but hey, nothing wrong with coconut." She turned her head, still smiling like a mad-mare, "Hungry?"
"Shouldn't we be starting a fire?" Octavia asked, now standing up to go be next to her friend.
"Yes, but I'm hungry and we should totally eat first before we try to start a fire." Vinyl said as she started to shake the coconut next to her ear, hearing the milk inside the fruit swish around.
"And how are we going to open the coconut?" Octavia asked, but then the coconut was now being levitated in front of her.
"Hold this out away from you." Vinyl commanded, now preparing herself.
Octavia grasped the coconut, making sure her grip was firm. "Okay, it's steady..." She said, curious to see what kind of magic Vinyl might try to open the coconut.
Vinyl took a deep breath, only a few inches from the coconut, focusing all of her inner thoughts as she was about to perform something dating back to the time of the archaic arts.
"Hi-yah!" In a flash she brought her forehead down on the dead center of the coconut, splitting it in half with just the sheer force of her thick skull.
The coconut was now in halves, a surprised Octavia holding the separated fruit in her hooves, stunned at what her friend just did. She had managed to keep the coconuts up-right in her hooves even past being dazed at the random action.
Vinyl grabbed one of the halves, "Drink up!" She said happily, now tipping the fruit to her muzzle to drink greedily from its succulent juices.
Octavia blinked and sighed, realizing she should have known better than to try and predict Vinyl, she’s known her since kindergarten and their time together has been full of surprises, well at least for her side it was surprising. She looked down at the fruit, "Thank you again Vinyl." She said, now feeling peckish herself as she sipped at the coconut milk, trying to maintain her lady-like manners even though she was out of her element.
As Octavia was trying to be civil, Vinyl was attacking the coconut ferociously; you might say she was as hungry as a horse.
Minutes later the two finished eating their fruit and Vinyl started looking at the palm tree, "How well do you think this thing can light up?"
"How are you going to light a palm tree on fire that's probably has too much moisture inside of it?" Octavia questioned, unsure if it was possible or not.
"Hmm... Octavia come here for a moment." Vinyl said as she tested the trunk of the tree with a hoof, it didn't seem to strong, but an idea came to her head as she thought of carrying her friend in the water earlier.
"Yes?" Octavia came closer, ready to do what she asked of her.
"I want you to step on the base of this tree, your weight should make it snap and fall no problem." Vinyl smiled, already gesturing for her to start, unaware of what she just said.
"What?! I'll have you know I'm very normal weighted for a mare of my age!" Her anger started to flare slightly, growing tired of the over-weight jokes.
Vinyl had used her magic to lift up Octavia's hoof to the tree's trunk, "C'mon Octy, now isn't the time, the ECG could already be nearby!"
"Ugh... Fine." Octavia started to apply pressure to the tree and it began to bend to her will, she felt a little surprised that it bent so easily.
The tree snapped at its base and fell downwards, the tip of the tree had reached the waters and Vinyl quickly used her magic to get it out of the water, not wanting it to make it any harder to light.
"Alright... let's see if I can still do this." Vinyl said as she trotted to the top of the palm tree, trying to get any lose, dry branches she could find.
After just a few moments of searching she came back levitating a small pile of sticks and started placing them around the base of the freshly broken tree, "Alright... here goes nothing." Vinyl said as she lowered her horn near the small pile of branches.
She focused and forced her magic through her horn and sparks started to fly from the tip of her horn. The sparks began to cover the branches as the barrage continued a small flame began to emerge in the heart of the pile, slowly growing as the sparks poured down on it to heat it up even more.
Once Vinyl felt the heat on the tip of her horn grow too hot, she knew it had ignited the sticks and lifted her horn away.
Both of them stepped back, cautious not to let the fire die to their cause. They watched on-edge as the fire began to rise and tickle the end of the palm tree.
Octavia bit her lip, her heart began to rise as the stakes were high as their only possible chance of escape was low and pinned on the fire.
After the flames started to expand Vinyl already was celebrating. "Yes!" Vinyl shouted in triumph as the palm tree began to ignite as well from the pile of sticks beside it.
"O-oh my, i-it worked!" Octavia exclaimed as well, wanting to hug Vinyl at that moment.
The two worked together to line the half-ignited sticks along the rest of the tree, and soon enough the tree was almost fully ignited, beginning to send a large trail of smoke high into the sky.
The smoke stuck out like a sore thumb against the clear blue skies and the serine sea.
"Alright, do you see anyone else up there Soarin'?!" One of the earth ponies wearing a wet-suit asked as he sat down in the rescue boat filled with ponies. They were all soaked to the bone and all were looking at their saviors in gratefulness.
They were about to head back to the mainland, sure that they had gotten everypony possible from the wreckage of the ship's accident. The ship's engine exploded and made a hole in the hull, causing it to sink and endanger the lives of it's passengers.
"No Captain I...W-wait... Hey Captain!" Soarin' started to point off in the distance, a trail of grey smoke started to creep into the sky, disrupting the peaceful sky, "I think some ponies are over that way!"
The captain turned his head to see the smoke, he blew his whistle and pointed towards the smoke and yelled out to the other rescue boats, "Head that way! There could be more survivors!"
All of the rescue boats manned their oars and started to rotate and change direction to the captain’s orders.
Octavia and Vinyl were sitting down in the sand, watching their fire anxiously, if the wind picked up they would have to shield it with their own bodies in a flash before the fire can die, a long with their chances of being seen.
"V-vinyl... do you think we're going to get off this island and back to land?" Octavia asked her friend, looking at her as she sat next to her.
Vinyl had her shades back over her eyes, she wrapped a firm and caring hoof around her friend, "Not a doubt in my mind." She smiled, wanting to comfort her worried friend.
Octavia rested her head on her friend's shoulders, they had only been out there for half a day and it felt like a week has passed to her already.
All was silent on their tiny island, the only sounds were the soft waves clashing against each other as if there were a tiny war being waged against itself. It all felt peaceful to them both, the gentle almost-silence was almost intoxicating, all until a whistle rang out and broke the trance of silence.
The ears of the mares perked upon hearing to the noise. They both looked straight at its source, in the distance they could see some small yellow boats heading in their direction.
Vinyl immediately hopped up and ran to the shore of their tiny prison, "Hey! Over here!" She started jumping up and down to flail her hooves in both excitement and joy to signal the rescue boats.
Octavia scrambled to get up on all fours to join her, wanting nothing more than to get off of the crummy island, "Sirs! We're over here!" She called out, yelling at the ocean as loud as she could.
Within minutes the boats had reached them and the two were shuffled on board by the captain, "Get in here, we need to get rowing if we want to get back home before sundown!" He commanded the two, now preparing his oar to shove off the island it was docked onto.
Octavia wasted no time scrambling on board, eager to get back home soon and be safe once again from the clutches of the sea.
"Hey, one second sir." Vinyl jumped off the boat and trotted back to the island and picked up one of the coconuts with her magic and then galloped back to the boat and jumped in right next to Octavia, drooling as she did so.
The boat shoved off the shore from the mighty strength of the captain and they started on their way back home.
"Vinyl? Why did you go back to get a coconut?" Octavia asked her friend, wondering why she would possibly want to spend another minute on the island.
"A snack for the way back, what else?" Vinyl smiled giddily, holding her coconut close to her, now already starting to feel hungry.
The End
