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.”