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.

Hopefully they weren’t making a big mistake.