Chapters The safe lowered gently to the deck of Russian research vessel Keldysh, watched by everyone around it. That consisted of the majority of the crew of the Keldysh, both submersible crews, and Filthy Rich, the financier of the expedition. In addition, a young colt named Pipsqueak held a camera that had to weigh at least as much as he did, filming the historic moment.
The three members of Mir one’s crew trotted up to the safe, smiling like little foals on Hearth’s Warming Eve, led by Steep Dive, all four hooves off the ground, “Who’s the best, Say it…”
“You are, Dive,” Rock Heart rolled his eyes, then turned to Pipsqueak, “You rolling, kid?”
Pipsqueak nodded, “Yes sir.”
Rock nodded to the technicians, two heavyset Earth ponies who set to work breaking open the safe. As they worked, he started speaking again, “Here it is, the moment of truth. Here’s where we find out if the time, the sweat, the money,” a gesture at Mr. Rich, “and all the people brought out here to the middle of the North Atlantic… Were worth it. If what we think is in the safe, is, it will be the greatest…”
The safe door clangs to the deck, and Rock’s face flips towards it, Pipsqueak barely able to follow him as he moved up and almost shoved his muzzle into the open box. His gleeful smile started to droop. His eyes dimmed. His jaw dropped. “Horseapples.”
Dive clapped a hoof across Rock’s back, “You know, this happened to Jury Rig, and his career never recovered.”
Rock shoved the camera away, almost bowling over the colt holding it, “Get that outta my face.” He stormed off, hooves clomping against the deck.
__
A pair of Unicorns carefully extracted several sheets of paper from the safe and slid them into a water-bath to separate them, while others, and a couple of Earth ponies and Pegasi worked on other artifacts, cleaning them up and settling them in magically treated bags to preserve them.
Filthy Rich scowled at the phone in his hoof, “I don’t care. I know honey. This was a big risk. It didn’t pay off. Yes, yes, I know. I’ll be home in a couple of days. Bye.” He hadn’t meant to be so abrupt with his daughter, but she was wanting him home as soon as possible. Even as an adult mare, she still insisted on living at home, helping him with his finances, and she had been watching when the money had disappeared from his accounts.
__
Rock scowled at the video crew. Three colts and a filly with a hammer and apple on her flank. He flicked his eyes back to the colts, “You can’t just pack it up! I’m paying your checks, you send what I say to, when I say to. Now get that video ready!”
Rich ducked in, “How’s it going in here?”
Rock turned his face to the financier, “How’s it going? How?” He sputtered, flecks of saliva splattering on the deck at Rich’s hooves, “It’s going like a first date in prison! What do you think?” A moment later, he composed himself, “Sorry, what does the company think?”
Rich held up his cell-phone. Immediately after hanging up with his daughter, he had called the financial department of Rich Enterprises. Rock took the device and pressed it to his ear, voice going from harried and strained to a sort of oily smooth texture one usually saw in second-hand cart salesponies.
“Hi Daven? Buried? Look, it wasn’t in the safe. No, don’t worry about it, there’s plenty more places it could be. The floor debris in the suite, the mother’s room, the purser’s safe on deck C… Hang on a second,” he moved over to a screen showing the camera view of the two unicorns cleaning up the papers. One hoof tapped the screen, “I think…” He darted across the corridor, into the room with the cleaning trays, “Let me see that portrait.”
His blue-green magic encased the page gently, and he lifted it closer to his face, drawing a photograph out of his jacket pocket and setting them side-by-side. The charcoal drawing was in beautiful condition, though frayed at the edges, and showed a slender mare lying back on the divan he had glimpsed in the suite, a nude that made sure to show every detail. She was posed with a casual sort of modesty, the sort that turned it from pornography into art. And right there, at the base of her throat, sat the diamond necklace in the reference photo. Scribbled in the lower corner was a date, April 14, 912. Three letters, not mouth-written, nor magically scribed. R J D. Initials of the artist probably.
The phone slipped from his magical grip as he handed the two images to the technicians, “I’ll be damned. It is.”
__
“Welcome to the Equestrian News Network. Today, we have a very special event. Broadcasting live from the deck of the ESS Keldysh,” the announcer pointed at Rock, “Treasure Hunter Rock Heart is best known for finding ancient Zebrican gold in sunken galleons in the Caribbean. Now he is using the latest in deep-diving technology to work three kilometers down at another famous wreck, the Titanic. And here he is Mares and Gentlestallions, Rock Heart!”
The announcer stepped aside, levitating the microphone over to Brock, who took it in his own magic.
“Thank you Tracer. You know, Titanic is not just A shipwreck. Titanic is THE shipwreck, the Mount Everest of shipwrecks.”
__
In a small home, surrounded by ceramic models and crammed with art of all shapes and sizes, the TV looked out of place. Only one pony could even see it, an elderly mare sitting a a potter’s wheel. Sitting with her back to the TV, another mare, much younger, helped the older one spin the heavy wheel as the two listened to the broadcast.
“I planned this expedition for years, searching for funding, searching for the right spot to dive, the technology to reach her. Now, finally, after so long, we are out here recovering amazing artifacts, things that will have immense historical and educational value.”
“Now, it’s no secret that education is not your main purpose. You are a treasure hunter by trade, and talent,” the announcer indicated the shovel and gold emblem on his flank, “so what exactly is the treasure you are hunting here?”
Rock smiled, “I’d much rather show you, though not just yet.”
The older mare raised an ear towards the TV, “Turn it up please, dear.”
Your expedition is at the source of a storm of controversy, both over the salvage rights, and even the ethics of this dive. Many are calling you a grave robber.”
“Nobody called the recovery of artifacts from King Mire’s tomb ‘Robbery’. I have museum trained professionals here, making sure every artifact we recover is brought up and perfectly preserved and catalogued,” the champagne bottle floated into the frame, “A bottle of champagne, from the floor of a stateroom. Unfortunately, although the wax seal remained intact, water was able to work its way into the cork, and ruin the fine beverage. As the bottle floated off screen, the charcoal sketch floated into the frame, carefully blurred by both magic and the censor board. The camera panned in on the image, staying far enough back that it was obvious the image still sat in the water-bath it had been in before Rock grabbed it. He had taken the water too, “This drawing here, a piece that has been under water for eighty-four years, and we were able to preserve it intact. Should this have been left, remaining unseen at the bottom of the ocean for eternity, when it could instead be hung up and enjoyed in the here and now?”
The old mare stopped moving for a long moment, her jaw creeping down slowly with a bony creak, “I’ll be damned…”
__
Day three, third dive to the Titanic, Mir one and two were already in the water, just waiting for Rock to climb into his spot. He had one hoof in the hatch when Filthy Rich ran up to the edge of the floating dock, “There’s a call for you sir.”
“Mr. Rich, see these submarines, in the water? That means we’re launching. Take a message.”
“Sir, I think you’ll want to take this. Trust me.”
Rock had found that many of Filthy Rich’s instincts were correct, after all, it was how the stallion had made much of his fortune.
He reached out with a tendril of magic and snagged the phone from Rich’s hoof, bringing it down to his ear, “This is Rock Heart, what can I do for you…”
“Rose Culvert,” Rich spoke quickly.
“Mrs. Culvert?”
“Oh, I was just wondering if you had found the ‘Heart of the Ocean’ yet, Mr. Heart.”
He almost dropped the phone in the water, his magic flickering momentarily, with Filthy Rich smirking above him, “I told you, you wanted to take this call.”
“Alright Rose, you have my attention. Can you tell me who the mare in the picture is?”
“Of course. That mare, in the picture, is me.”
__
“It can’t be,” Steep dive muttered as he watched Mir two start a dive, going alone this time, “She’s a Celestia-damned liar. A nutcase, like that… What’s her name, Anasazi, the Russian babe?”
“Anastasia,” Rock’s expression didn’t shift. It had been locked in the same position, a stunned sort of glower, since he had hung up the phone. Though maybe that was too gentle a way to describe what he did to the poor device after Rose had hung up her end. Filthy Rich had fished what was left out of the ocean with a guppy-net, only for Rock to stomp phone and net into the deck. Everything he knew had to be wrong, if this woman was who she claimed to be.
Rich spoke up, voice shaky, as he stood well back, “They’re almost here. I can hear the chopper.”
The cold face melted away in an instant as the treasure hunter went into cart-saleman mode, “She says she’s Brilliant Rose Anwitt. It’s not possible, right? Brilliant Rose died on the Titanic, at the age of sixteen. If she had lived, somehow, she’d be what, a hundred?”
“Last month. Looked her up,” Anatole broke his own silence.
“So she’s a very old liar. You traced her back to the twenties.”
“Actress at the time, Last name at the time, Darkson. Then she married this stallion Open Culvert, moved to Cedar Rapids, had two kids. Now Culvert’s dead, and from what I heard, so is Cedar Rapids.”
The helicopter dipped in, forcing Rock to raise his voice, “And everybody who knows about the diamond is either dead, or on this ship, but she knows. I don’t know how, but I want to at least hear what she has to say on the matter. Got it.”
The helicopter settled onto the helipad, bouncing lightly on the rocking deck before the rotors slowed and stopped. Two men leapt from the vehicle and quickly secured the wheels to the deck before pushing a ramp into place. A little less than a dozen suitcases slid down the ramp, courtesy of the pilot, a broad shouldered Pegasus with a damaged wing. Finally, a wheelchair with the frail old mare rolled down the ramp, a tiny dog in her lap. As the younger mare wheeled her forward, the crew of the helicopter finally got around to unloading the important equipment, and Rock let them be, sending Rich and Anatole to help.
Dive smirked, “I’ll go check our supply of Depends.”
__
Inside a small room, below deck, Rock watched as the younger mare arranged several pictures on the dresser carefully.
“Is this room alright?” He was almost willing to give up his own, somewhat larger room, if necessary.
“Yes. Very nice. Have you met my grand-daughter, Fuzzy? She takes care of me.”
Fuzzy Culvert smiled softly, “Yes, Granny, we met up on deck, just a few minutes ago. Remember, up on deck?”
“Oh, yes, of course. You know, my memory isn’t as good as it used to be.”
Rock glanced over his shoulder at Dive, who rolled his eyes, before looking back to the pictures. They were normal family photos. Foals, Grandfoals, a stallion they assumed was her late husband, “There, that’s nice. I always have to have my pictures with me when I travel, and Freddy of course,” she patted the dog on the head, “Isn’t that right sweetie?”
Rock nodded silently along with the dog’s bobbing head, “Can we get you anything?”
“I should like to see my drawing.”
Rose smiled at the drawing lying in the water-bath, still being kept under until it was able to be sealed and preserved permanently. Her younger self looked out at her from eighty-four years ago, swaying and rippling , almost like it was alive. In her mind’s eye, she could still see delicate wings lightly flicking the pencil across the paper, tracing the curve of her curled mane. His blue eyes peeking at her over the top of the page. She could feel her cheeks growing hot at the memory, how it had felt lying on that divan, bare and exposed, yet at the same time, entirely comfortable with it.
Only half listening, she heard Rock start droning through the history of the stone, “Blueblood the twelfth wore a fabulous stone called the Blue Diamond of the Night, which disappeared in Seven Ninety-two, about the same time he lost everything from the neck up. The theory goes that the diamond was chopped too… Supposedly recut into the shape of a heart, where it became…” he paused for a moment, rolling the words silently over his tongue to ensure proper pronunciation, “Le Coeur de la Mer. The Heart of the Ocean. Today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond.”
“It was a dreadfully heavy thing,” she traced her hoof through the air over the page, “I only wore it that one time.”
“You actually believe this is you Grandma?”
“Of course, it is me, dear. Wasn’t I a hot number?”
Rock blinked a couple of flashes of unwanted thoughts out of his head, “I tracked it down through insurance records… And an old claim that was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. Do you know who the stallion who made the claim was, Rose?”
“I imagine his name was Hockley.”
“Night Hockley, right. Pittsburgh Steel tycoon. For a diamond necklace his son Kale Hockley had bought in France for his fiancée… You… a week before he sailed on the Titanic. The claim was filed immediately after the survivors reached New York. The facts say the diamond must have gone down with the ship,” he turned to Fuzzy, “See the date here?”
She nodded, “April fourteen, Nine twelve.”
“If your grandmother is who she says she is, she was wearing the Heart the day Titanic sank,” he turned back to Rose, “And that makes you my best friend right now. I will happily compensate you for anything you can tell me that will lead to its recovery.”
Rose didn’t turn away from the water-bath, her voice rang out softly, “I don’t want your money Mr. Heart. I know how hard it is for ponies who care greatly for bits to give them away.”
Dive raised an eyebrow, “You don’t want anything?”
“If anything I can tell you is of any use to you, the only thing I ask is for this,” her hoof lowered to the surface of the water, “That is all.”
“Deal,” Rock’s eyes flicked over to a table piled with artifacts from the stateroom, “We recovered these from the staterooms.” Various objects mundane and valuable both, lay across the table. Her magic gently caressed a cracked tortoise-shell mirror and floated it over to her. Her yellow magic glinted off the inlay of pearls as she rotated it towards herself.
“This was mine, yes. How extraordinary! It looks the same as the last time I saw it,” As it rotated to her face, her smile shrank only slightly, “The reflection has changed a bit though.”
She lifted a slightly corroded silver and moonstone mane-tie, “My mother’s. She wanted to go back and get it. Caused quite a fuss,” her smile widened again at the memory of her always dignified mother, kicking and biting, trying to get to that little piece of metal.
A steel comb with a jade butterfly on the tar black stone handle rose into the air, spinning lightly in the air, “I always hated this thing. The butterfly made it impossible to position properly to do my own mane, so I had to have my mother do it for me. And she objected to getting a more practical one for me to use when she wasn’t around.”
As the objects settled back onto the table, Rock switched gears again, “Alright Rose, are you ready to go back to Titanic?”
__
The dark TV room showed video, recorded during the safe’s recovery dive, still uncut and raw. Images panned across all of the screens from the internal and external cameras on both submersibles and the two ROVs, Snoopy and Tank.
Dive waved at the camera-colt as they entered, “Still rolling?”
Pipsqueak nodded, “Yes.”
Rose glanced past the two co-workers, at one of the screens. It showed the disturbing clip of the bow of the ship, hauntingly covered in long, red rust strings. Her eyes went wide as she remembered how it had looked from the other side, so many decades ago. Rock took notice and tapped Dive on the shoulder, pointing to the screen with his horn.
“The bow struck the bottom like an axe, from the impact. I can show you a simulation of what we have been able to discover, over on this monitor here,” Fuzzy turned the wheelchair so Rose could see better as Dive kept talking, “We’ve put together the largest database on the Titanic here. Alright, here goes…”
“Rose might not want to see this, Dive.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m curious. Go ahead,” she prompted the yellow Pegasus with a gentle push on his hoof with her magic.
The animatin starts, and Dive follows it with a blow-by-blow narration, “She hits the iceberg on the starboard side and it sort of bumps along…Punches holes like morse code. Dit Dit Dit, down her side. Now she’s flooding in the forward compartments. She was meant to float with four bulkheads breached. This breached five. Then water starts spilling over the tops of the bulkheads, going aft. As the bow comes down, the stern climbs into the air. Slowly at first, until the stern is entirely elevated, and begins to rise faster. Twenty or thirty thousand tons. The hull can’t deal, and tears. Skritt! The keel acts as a big hinge. Now the bow swings down, and the stern falls back level. The weight of the bow is too much, and pulls the stern back to vertical before the keel finally breaks away, heading for the bottom. The stern bobs like a cork for a few more seconds before flooding and going under about 2:20 AM, two hours and forty minutes after the collision.”
The animation shows the path the bow took down to the ocean floor. Rose watches with a clinical detachment, no visible emotion.
The bow pulls away and planes almost half a mile under the ocean before it collides with the bottom at about twelve miles per hour,” the animation shows the collision without the spray of mud that no doubt was there for the real event, “The bow dug itself into the mud, nearly twenty feet in, putting the entire water-line beneath the mud, including the tear,” the animation flipped to the stern as it sank, “The stern imploded from the pressure, the air inside being expelled through any surface that couldn’t take it, landing like a big pile of scrap,” he let the animation finish, “Cool huh?”
“Thank you for your fine forensic analysis, Mr. Dive. Of course, the experience of it was somewhat less clinical,” Rose still had that unnerving flatness to her gaze as she stared at the screen.
Rock came to the rescue, “Will you share it with us?” Aged eyes flicked across the screens, showing the various views of the wreck below, The camera from Rock’s own hoof, panning over the fore-deck, past one of the davits for the life-boats, still intact.
Rose felt her eyes begin to tear up as she imagined the ghostly waltz music, the echo of a shouting officer, calling for ‘Mares and foals first’. Screaming faces in a running crowd. Pandemonium. Terror. People crying, praying, begging Celestia to save them, kneeling on the deck. Just flashes in the dark, but every view brought more back. Another monitor showed an endless, dark corridor, wooden doors long-since corroded away, gaping open like monstrous maws. A colt standing in ankle deep water, lost and alone.
She let her head fall to her hooves, and wept softly.
Fuzzy began to turn the wheelchair, “I’ll take her back to her room to get some rest.”
She wa about to push the chair out the door when Rose let out a sharp, “NO.”
Everyone flinched and every eye in the room locked on the strong-willed old mare. The sweet old lady was gone. The faded gray eyes had turned to steel in an instant. Rock held a hoof to the side, indicating that everyone was to be silent. “Tell us Rose.”
“It’s been eighty-four years…”
“Just tell us what you can.”
Her hoof rose into the air, limply, but still with an air of strength, “It’s been eighty-four years…and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. I remember the smells of wood varnish, leather polish, wood and rope. Sweat and copper,” her voice turned wistful for a moment, and Rock took the opportunity to place a small recorder at her side, starting it up with a soft whirr. “Titanic was called the ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was…”
The ship was a majestic tower. From the ground, it blocked most of the sky. What the ship itself didn’t block, the orange funnels did. Crewponies darted back and forth, massive Earth ponies dragging heavy loads, nimble Pegasi flicking back and forth carrying light loads up and down. Unicorns ensuring that tie-downs were secured. Even Gryphons and Zebras made appearances, along with a hoof-full of broad shouldered Minotaurs and the odd Thestral. And every-one looked like an ant on the awe inspiring size of the cruise ship.
The date was April tenth, Nine-Twelve, I was sixteen, and to that day had never before seen so many ponies in one place. Crowds of them, swarming so thick that law officers had to clear a path for my mother’s carriage. It was a fine carriage, designed for luxury. A Renault. Four passengers, with a small steam engine to assist the driver on hills. I rather liked that car. A shame it went down with the ship.
A white carriage, the Renault, eased up to the dock, the gray Earth pony pulling it smiling as he came to a stop and engaged the wheel lock. Slipping out of the harness, he moved around to the side and tugged the door open, letting in the sheer volume of the crowds. It was here that the aging pony felt most at home, not travelling through the cavernous expanses of land between country estates.
He reached a hoof up and carefully took hold of a white leather boot, trimmed in purple lace. Stepping back, he helped a young mare climb down from the carriage, baring her white travelling dress, trimmed with more purple lace. As she reached the ground, she raised her head, tilting a broad-brimmed white hat with a series of purple Pegasus feathers laced to the crest. Her blue eyes shone in the sun, one slightly covered by a light red curl of mane. Her sun-colored fur shone under the efforts of her mother’s careful application of makeup and glitter. Her lips curled up in a dignified smile, “I don’t see what all the fuss is about, Hoof. It doesn’t look any bigger than the Mauretania.”
Behind her, a stallion in a dark travelling suit slipped out of the carriage, oozing arrogance and money as he stepped onto the concrete, “you can be blasé about a lot of things Rose, but not about Titanic. It’s over a hundred feet longer… Yes, Kale may have been educated, but he never liked to use ‘higher language’, like meters… and far more luxurious. It has Squash courts, a Prench café, Griffonian baths… It has everything,” the stallion turned around and held out a hooficured forehoof, helping a middle aged mare down. Truth Anwitt, Rose’s mother, and a social empress, from a prominent family in Fillydelphia. Recently widowed, she held the stance of a dignitary, her own tan fur glistening in the light.
Kale turned to Truth, “Your daughter is much harder to impress than you ever were,” he pointed at a puddle, “Mind your step.”
“So, Kale, they say this ship is unsinkable,” gears turned in the young mare’s head. She had spent most of the ride reading everything she could about the ship without making it obvious to the other occupants of the carriage. It wasn’t that they objected, necessarily, to her reading. They just preferred that it be upper-class literature, rather than the gritty, factual, detailed forms about the ship she was going to be sailing on. She didn’t buy into the hype, although she was fairly confident that the ship wouldn’t sink.
“Oh, she is unsinkable. Celestia herself couldn’t sink this ship,” he spoke with the pride of a host, providing a special experience.
Behind him, climbing off the back of the carriage, Kale’s personal valet, Spicer Lovejoy, dropped to the ground. The Earth pony stood just over two meters tall, fur the color of slate, and a short cropped mane and tail the color of tar bringing out his steely eyes. Strapped to either side of Spicer’s flanks, almost blending into his cutie-marks, were a pair of dueling pistols. A pair of Pegasus mares in red trimmed white dresses joined him, Rose and Truth’s personal maids.
As the group moved away from the carriage, Rose giving the driver, Helping Hoof, a last hug before joining the group. A porter rushed up to them, checking something off on his clipboard, “Sir, you’ll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, down that way,” he pointed into the crowd, and was about to continue talking when he was silenced by Kale pushing a folded bill into the stallion’s breast pocket and patting it gently.
“There’s a five bit note,” five bits was quite a lot back in those days. Roughly the equivalent of me giving someone a hundred bit note. The porter blinked slowly for a second, as Kale added, “I put my faith in you, good sir. See my stallion here,” he indicated Lovejoy.
“Yes sir. My pleasure, Sir,” the porter moved away, and Kale smiled. He loved the effect money had on the unwashed masses.
As the porter reached Lovejoy, he looked up at the towering stallion, who spoke in a measured tone, like every word he said was a fifty bit poker chip and he was holding a pair of twos, “These trunks here, and twelve more in the carriage. We’ll have all this lot up in the rooms, and the carriage in the hold.”
The porter flinched, then his horn started glowing as he summoned several of the large Griffons and Minotaurs to help load everything. Kale waved Lovejoy to join him as the group approached the boarding ramp.
“We’d better hurry. This way ladies,” his pocket-watch slipped back into his pocket, the silver surface sliding smoothly into his breast pocket.
Bearing heavy saddlebags, filled with all the things too fragile for the baggage handlers, the two maids and Lovejoy followed the three noble Unicorns through the crowds. Kale led the way, weaving past carts, carriages, and passengers. At this point it was mostly second-class and steerage, as well as well-wishers. Above them, the majority of the first-class passengers are staying clear of the smelly mass by using elevated boarding bridges.
On their way, they passed a line of steerage passengers lined up between rope barriers, with Unicorn inspectors sweeping across them, looking for lice.
A well dressed, though obviously second class, stallion stood behind a camera, cranking the handle on the side with one hoof as another gestured at his young bride, who stood before the ship, “Look up at the ship, darling. Yes, like that. You’re amazed, can’t believe how big it is. Like a mountain. That’s great.” It wasn’t. The mare lacked even the slightest hint of an acting bone in her body, and as such did an overly dramatic, though patently false expression of amazement, hooves raised in the air.
Kale went to scoff at the terrible acting, but was interrupted by a pair of colts, both with cherry red manes and brown coats, barreling past him. One skidded under him, almost clipping his chest with a flick of a muddy red tail. A moment later, a large brown stallion with a green mane, chopped almost to his scalp, barely managed to side-step in front of the noble.
“Steady!”
“Sorry squire,” the stallion charged after the two colts, “You two get back here! If we miss the boat, I’m selling the both of you to the mines!”
Kale spat on the ground, “Steerage swine. Apparently he missed his annual bath,” the unicorn raised his nose high into the air, keeping it at such an angle that his muzzle didn’t entirely block his view of the ground, just in case.”
“Honestly Kale, if you hadn’t weren’t always booking everything at the last possible instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like some squalid immigrant family,” Truth raised an eyebrow as she sidestepped a suspicious looking pile of something brown on the decking.
Kale glanced back for a split second, “All part of my charm, Truth. At any rate, it was my darling fiancee’s beauty rituals which made us late.”
“You told me to change. Why I would have been happy in nothing at all, were it appropriate to do so.”
“Yes, but dear, I couldn’t let you wear black on sailing day. It’s bad luck.”
She wrinkled her nose, “You’re wearing black.”
He sighed. Why had he picked the most strong-willed filly he could have laid eyes on, “Because it’s traditional for stallions to wear black dear.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, “I felt like black.”
Kale guided her off to one side, away from a carriage pulled by four massive stallions, labeled Marmalade. Food for the chefs.
“Here we go,” he pushed closer to the ship, “I’ve pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites…” Rose faked a smile. “And you act like you’re going to your execution.”
The great wall of the ship loomed over them. An iron wall, tall and imposing as it curved out gently over her head. Black all the way up. It reminded her of a prison, the way the railing on the top was just barely visible, peeking out over the curled lip. Kale motioned up the broad gang-plank, “”Come along dear. We wouldn’t want the ship to leave without us.”
She trotted up the ramp in as dignified a manner as she could, entering the massive iron doors to D deck in a cloud of overwhelming dread. It was the ship of dreams, to everypony else. To me, it was a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains. Gilded though it was, it was still a prison, still chains.
He took her hoof in his, escorting her into the dim lighting of the ship. Outwardly, I was everything a well-raised filly should have been. Inside, I was screaming.
She shuddered as the dread dug into her back, pressing down on her more than any saddle-bags ever had. She flinched as the steam horns four decks above, and up on the towering funnels, screamed the departure warning.
The Millionaire Suite was designed to be as luxurious as possible, opulent in the extreme. Two bedrooms, a bathroom, a sitting room, and a large wardrobe, as well as a small side room for servants, and a private promenade outside. The same deck Rose now stood on, watching the shore depart. A waiter stood at her side, levitating a bottle of orange juice, which he was pouring into a wine-flute Rose held in her own magic. She didn’t want to go back inside. Numerous paintings covered the walls, unknown artists, unappreciated artists, expensive artists, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to get out of there. Eventually, though Kale called her back inside to the sitting room.
“Those mud puddles were certainly a waste of money.”
Rose glanced at the indicated image, a cubist style painting, hideous and repulsive to look at, but the best way to make Kale leave her alone for the rest of the trip was to disagree with him. Maybe he would even break off the engagement, “You’re wrong, Kale. They’re fascinating. Like in a dream. There’s truth without logic. What was his name again…?”
Kale peered through his glasses at the lower corner, “Picasso. He’ll never amount to a thing. At least they were cheap.”
A porter rolled a safe in on a small cart, pushing it up to Kale, “Where do you want your safe Sir?”
Kale dismissively waved to the shared wardrobe, “Put it in the wardrobe in there.”
Rose walked into the bedroom and inhaled the scent of the new room as the porter walked out, towing the cart behind him. Truly Marvelous, her personal servant, was already in the room, hanging some of Rose’s dresses in the wardrobe, through the side door.
She smiled at Rose, “It all smells so new. Like it was built just for us. I mean…Just think, tonight, when I crawl into my bed, between those sheets, I’ll be the first…”
Kale stepped into the doorway behind Rose, one hoof cradling her back, and glancing to his side at her, “And when I crawl between the sheets tonight, I’ll still be the first.”
Trudy blushed and stepped back from the couple, “Excuse me, Miss, Sir,” she slipped out the door into the wardrobe, bypassing the two in the main doorway.
Kale smiled and pulled Rose tighter to him, possessively, rather than intimacy. Rose tried not to shudder. “The first and only. Forever.” Now, Rose shuddered at the thought, pulling away from him slightly.
__
Titanic sat at the edge of yet another dock, ramps out to bring in the passengers from Prance and Germaney. The tugboats sat at its shoulders, looking like tiny rowboats beneath the shining lights of a thousand portholes. The lights of the harbor itself completed a postcard image, one that was, in fact, taken by a Pegasus photographer by the name of Deft Feather. He would become very popular in the years to follow, as his photographs would be some of the last taken of the ship for eighty-four years.
__
In the first-class reception room, a number of prominent passengers filed in, pursued by porters and servants carrying their luggage. A broad-shouldered mare in an even wider feathered hat walked up with heavy saddlebags on her back, glancing back at a spindly Unicorn porter, “Well, I wasn’t about to wait all day for you sonny. Take ‘em the rest of the way if you think you can manage.
At Cherbourg a mare aboard named Mossy Brown. History would call her the Unsinkable Mossy Brown. Her husband had struck gold someplace out west, and she was what mother called ‘New Money’. At forty-five years old, she was a tough-talking straight-shooter who dressed in the same finery as her peers, but would never really be one of them.
Mossy Brown huffed as she handed her saddlebags off. As an Earth Pony, she was very much capable of carrying her own bags, and in truth would have preferred to do so. But she had an image to uphold, a role she had to fit into, and behaviors to display. It was uncomfortable, but it was necessary for her latest position as the wife of a multi-millionaire.
She trotted calmly up to the counter and pulled a quill pen with a well chewed feather out of her coat, using it to sign in on the sheet with her name on it. A quick shake of her head to put the scribble on the page, and she glanced over at the colt, who was still struggling to carry the bags. For a few moments she debated letting him struggle with the sacks of expensive jewelry her husband had bought for her, but in the end, she took pity on him and bit the belt, flipping it up onto her back like it weighed nothing, despite the clatter of stone-on-stone and gold-on-silver from within. “Come, colt. Show me the way to my room, and I’ll make sure you are rewarded.”
The gangly youth started down the hall, striding tall, and navigating the hallways with a practiced ease, checking that his tail was still there, ensuring he would still receive his tip. As they reached her room, he nimbly opened the lock with his master-key, “Right in here, milady.”
She smiled and walked past him, letting the bags slide onto the floor with a soft clatter before reaching into one of them with her muzzle. Grabbing at something, she pulled her head back and walked over to the colt. She moved her head over his, cautious of the sharp horn as she moved a thick silver chain around his skull and gently released the clasp from her mouth. The unicorn looked down at the chain, specifically at the pocket-compass on the low end, “Now go get yourself some rest. Maybe at some point you’ll figure it out.”
She shuffled out of her coat as the colt departed, and closed the door.
The next afternoon we made our final stop, and we were steaming west from the coast of Ireland, with nothing ahead of us but ocean.
__
The ship glowed in the light of the setting sun. Jack and Honor leaned on the beautifully curved railing, looking down at the sea below. Eighteen meters down to the ocean, the knife-like prow cut through the surface like a knife, throwing up waves on either side like two sheets of glass.
__
Up on the bridge, the captain, Wind Smith, turned from the binnacle at the front and looked to First Officer Merdock. “Take her to sea Merdock. Let her stretch her legs.”
Merdock gripped the engine telegraph lever in his magic and shoved it forward to ALL AHEAD FULL.
__
Down in the vast engine compartment, a bell rang loudly. The paired telegraph displayed the order with a red arrow. Chief Engineer Chiming Bell, a grease stained Earth pony, looked at the telegraph, “ALL AHEAD FULL!” He kicked the telegraph handle to the matching position, and the arrow on the bridge moved to match it.
On the catwalk overhead, Tom Shipsmith, a silver maned white Unicorn, watched carefully. He had been at the forefront of the design for the lovely vessel, and wanted to make certain everything ran smoothly. Below him, Engineers, Greasers, and relay messengers darted about, adjusting knobs and valves. Towering overhead on either side were the twin engines. Four stories tall, their three meter connecting rods surged up and down, turning crankshafts thicker than a carriage. The engines thundered all around like the foot-falls of angry giants.
__
The boiler rooms echoed with the calls of runners, trained Pegasi and Griffons zipping back and forth, keeping the cadence of the stokers. Ponies of all shapes and breed, indistinguishable through layers of coal dust and sweat, chanted.
The coal was slack and full of slate
And that's what beat the four to eight.
The eight to twelve were all good stal’n
But they were beat by half past ten.
The twelve to four did their best
But they were beat like all the rest.
In Moscow streets the blood runs deep -
The 12 to 4 can't get no sleep!
Muscles rippled in the light of safety lamps and furnace fires, looking like demons from Tartarus.
Many dozens of meters behind, the enormous bronze screws churned the water, foaming at the edge as they propelled the iron juggernaut through the waves. Smoke belched from the funnels. At the bow, the water flared higher up the bow.
__
Standing atop the bow, Jack rose, wind ripping through his mane.
__
Captain Smith steped out onto the wing beside the bridge, standing upright with his fore-hooves balanced on the mist-slicked rail, a patriarch of the sea, watching his domain tear through the waves.
“Captain, Twenty-one knots, Sir.”
“She’s got a bone in her teeth now, eh Mr. Merdock,” the captain gently plucked a mug of hot coffee from a sea-foam green Pegasus, Fifth Officer Swing Lowe, contentedly watching the waves of white ocean water hurled out from the knife-edge bow cutting into the sea. The ultimate expression of his power as Captain. An invulnerable leviathan, towering above the sea.
__
Jack urged Honor to lean over the railing, watching as a pair of dolphins appeared, skipping and darting in the water ahead of the ship, riding its massive wake. It was beautiful, pushing themselves to their limits, just for the sheer fun of it. Jack’s face split open in a smile, and he launched himself into the air, flapping his wings as hard as he could, shooting ahead of the ship for a few moments before climbing and spreading his wings. A perfect glide brought him into a fore-hooves first landing on the deck, just behind Fierce Honor. “It’s magnificent isn’t it?”
Honor turned and looked back at Jack, “I can see the Statue of Liberty already,” a matching grin split his face, “Very small of course…” The two held their grins for as long as they could manage before dropping to the deck, curling up as laughter wracked their bodies.
__
“She is the largest moving object ever made by the hooves of ponies in all of recorded history,” a glance upward, “With the sole exception of Celestia’s heavenly bodies above,” Bright Island, managing director of the White Star Line of ships, spoke to an array of ponies, “and our master shipbuilder, Sir Tom Shipsmith here, designed her from the keel up. Shipsmith flinched away from the sudden attention, in part intending the attention to be directed towards one of the other ponies at the table. Kale, Truth, Rose, Mossy, or even back to Island. The sights even, as beautiful as they were from the palm-court, sitting in the sun shining through tall arched windows.
“Well, I may have knocked her together, but it was really Mr. Island’s idea. He envisioned a steamer so grand in scale and so luxurious in its appointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she is,” his hoof crashed to the table, far harder than any would have expected of the dignified Unicorn, “Willed into solid reality.”
Mossy Brown looked at him a bit strangely for a second before speaking her mind, “Why do you stallions always call ships ‘she’? Is it because you think half the mares around have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?” Everyone laughed roughly, “Just another example of stallions setting the rules their way.”
A waiter arrived to take their orders, and as they worked their way around the table, Rose slid a long cigarette holder out of her dress and set a small white tube in the end, lighting it carefully.
“You know I don’t like when you do that Rose,” Truth looked disapprovingly at the younger mare.
Kale rolled his eyes and grabbed the cigarette in a bubble of magic, “She knows,” the sphere slammed closed, crushing the cigarette out of existence. He turned to the waiter, who had made his way around the table, “We’ll both have the lamb. Rare, with a little mint sauce,” a glance at Rose after the waiter left, “You like lamb, don’t you, sweetpea?”
“You gonna cut her meat for her too there, Kale?” Mossy seemed disappointed for a reason Kale couldn’t fathom, at least not in the time before she started speaking again, “Hey, Island, who came up with the name Titanic, anyway? Was it you, Sir?”
“Yes, actually,” Island smiled, puffing himself up in his chair, “I wanted to convey sheer size. Size means stability, luxury, and Safety…”
Rose cut him off, “Do you know of a doctor Freud? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you Mr. Island.”
Shipsmith choked at that, jerking away from the table as he tried to clear his throat so he could laugh properly, without the piece of bread that had made residence in his air pipe.
“Sweet Celestia, Rose, What’s gotten into…”
Rose snapped up from her chair, setting the wine glass she had been levitating down a fair amount harder than she probably meant to, “Excuse me,” she stormed off.
“I do apologize,” Truth tried to cover up the entire incident.
Mossy was having none of that, “She’s a pistol Kale. You sure you can handle her?”
Feigning unconcern, Kale focused carefully on the words he was going to say, “Well, I may have to start minding what she reads from now on.”
Jack rolled back onto a bench on the deck, flipping his wingtip up over his face to shade his eyes. Inside his saddlebag was a tattered, leather-bound sketch-pad, his only truly valuable possession. He drew it out and leaned it against a raised knee, eyes panning across the deck. A charcoal pencil appeared in his other wingtip, and he set to work sketching, barely glancing at the page.
Against the rail, an older stallion, and Earth Pony, stood with his fore-hooves on the top rail, reining in his young daughter, who was standing up on the rail, her mane waving in the wind as she leaned back into him, watching seagulls. On the page, the image comes to life, Jack’s special talent showing itself in the delicate lines, rubbed smooth by his wingtip and hoof.
Honor, lying on his belly on the next deck-chair over, glanced at the drawing, then at the scene in it, nodding. He had known Jack to be an incredible artist when the two had met seven years ago, when his friend had been doing portraits of couples on the street for bread and water. Honor had been with his girl at the time, though the two were no-longer together. Honor had left her the portrait, as he no longer needed it after the mare had left.
Over on the deck, another Third class-passenger scowled as a porter walked past, tugging on three leashes attached to three of the most hideous dogs the peasant had ever seen, “Typical. First class dogs come down here to take a shit.”
Jack glanced away from the father and daughter for a moment, “That’s so we know where we rank in the grand scheme of things.”
“Like we could forget.”
Jack almost replied, but his eyes caught something at the aft end of the promenade. A beautiful golden mare, or filly, he couldn’t really tell from here, cherry colored mane bobbing in the wind underneath a broad hat that matched her brilliant yellow dress. His jaw slid open as his eyes locked on her. About twenty meters apart, the two were on opposite sides of the well deck. She stood on the promontory above, he lay on his lower one. She was staring down at the water.
He watched in rapt awe as she unpinned her huge hat from her head and removed it, the broad disk floating on a cloud of yellow magic. She glanced down at the frilly weight in her grasp, then flung it over the rail like an absurd Frisbee. It sailed away, out of sight of Jack, as it settled to the ocean below. The tiny spot of yellow in the vast ocean floated away. He was riveted to the scent carried on the wind, to the light carried over on rays of sunshine. She was like a figure in one of those romantic novels Fierce Honor always claimed to not have hidden under his pillow. Sad, Isolated. Alone.
Honor tapped the other passenger, and they both looked at Jack, snickering under their breath as he gazed with abandon at Rose. Devious grins crossed their faces, and they moved forward, only to be caught in the same spell as Jack when she turned. Hooves mere spans from Jack’s mop of hair froze as Rose’ blue eyes met Jack’s own. She realizes he is staring, but he doesn’t look away, neither does she. Not for a long moment. Their eyes met across the long deck, across a gulf between two worlds.
A stallion strutted up behind Rose, and grabbed her arm. She jerked away, and the two started arguing. Though Jack could not hear the words said, he recognized the postures. He had seen it too many times, most recently with Fierce Honor and his girl. It was one of the reasons the Earth pony kept those romance books, in the hopes that he would find love again, a girl not as easily swayed by money.
She stormed away from the stallion, and Jack raised a hoof, like he could possible interfere, save her, as the stallion pursued her out of sight. Up towards the A-deck promenade. He stared after her, hoof slowly falling to his side.
“Forget it boyo, you’re as likely to have Alicorns fly outta yer arse as get next to the likes of her,” the other passenger scoffed.
__
Rose sat, surrounded by ponies in animated, heated conversation. Across the table, Kale and Truth laughed about something, she didn’t care. Lady Duff near the end, was in a heated argument about the dining requirements of some sort of dog. All of it was inaudible to Rose as she sat, staring blankly at her plate. Occasionally the odd bit of babble got through, but she was quick to ignore it.
I saw my whole life as if I’d already lived it. An endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches. Always the same narrow ponies, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a precipice over a bottomless cavern. Nopony to pull me back. Nopony who cared. Nopony who even noticed.
Beneath the table, held firmly in her magic, the glow un-noticed amidst the glows of everypony else’s silverware holding magic, was a sharp salad fork, pressed to the back of her arm. Slowly, the fork drove itself deeper, pushing past her thin fur, into her skin. Harder and harder she pressed, until the tines started to draw blood. She glanced down at the droplets forming on the silver tines, then up at the others. A glare at the animated Kale, and she spoke, “I am not feeling well. I think I will retire to my cabin for the night.” Nopony responded, nor did they pause in their conversation as she stood and slipped out the door. She moved down the corridor, not-quite galloping, and only slowing for moments at a time to fool the stewards that she was alright. A nod here, a smile there. She was acting perfectly composed. Inside, she was in turmoil.
The door to her room hit the wall with a crash, and she flinched before realizing nopony would have heard that. They were all at dinner. She stared at herself in the mirror. Dignified, composed, beautiful. Everything except her blue eyes. She reached out with her magic, tearing a fine pearl necklace from her throat and scattering the tiny white spheres across the floor. She tore at her dress, her shoes, her hair. As she threw the fabric across the room, she felt a weight lifting. Finally, a hand-mirror slammed into the wall, cracking. Her rage spent, Rose ran out of the room.
She cried, hot tears pouring down her cheeks as she galloped down the B deck promenade. Her mane and tail were flying all over, tattered and out of order. Her rage had given way to distilled anger, hatred of everything she was being forced into. Of letting it get this bad. Of desperation. She barely noticed a couple strolling along the deck, though they noticed her, and were taken aback at the shocking display of emotion in public, and her tattered clothing.
__
Jack gazed up at the stars above, his wings stretched out across two extra deck-chairs, soaking up Luna’s glorious moon. He smiled up at the dark outline of the black Alicorn on the white surface, and smoked a cigarette. As he finished thanking the dark mare for the night, though he knew it was Celestia who raised the sun and moon now, it had been Luna who had created it, he found himself distracted from his cigarette by the mare from earlier galloping up the stairs. With the exception of Quartermaster Rote, whom Jack had had a nice conversation with earlier, the deck was deserted but for the two of them. The broad-winged Griffon didn’t even look as the mare ran past him, knowing there was no-where for her to run to, and whatever she was running from might still be coming. Tactical analysis told him to prepare for the arrival of a threat.
Rose charged across the fan-tail of the ship, breath catching with the occasional suppressed sob. Rose slammed into the base of the stern flagpole, wrapping herself around it and sobbing wildly as she tried to catch her breath. She stared out at the black water below.
Several moments passed, allowing Jack to get closer, in a somewhat misguided attempt to help, mostly out of desire to get closer to the angel he saw before.
She released the pole with one hoof and started slowly climbing up the rail, like she was using it as a ladder, at least, at first. Then she started climbing up it with her rear hooves, and Jack started forward, moving faster and kicking off his boots. They would only make it harder to grab her if she fell. Moving methodically, she crawled over the rail, dragging the tattered fabric over the steel rail, then her tail, still mostly in its stylized curl. Twenty meters below, the propellers churned up the ocean into white foam, leaving a ghostly wake trailing into the darkness. Jack could see much better than she could, and he knew just how far that trail of bubbles went. She stood there, hooves pressed to the wrong side of the railing, leaning out over the waves. Her dress, mane, and tail fluttered in time with the Equestrian flag, just above the massive letterhead proclaiming TITANIC.
She leaned out further, hypnotized by the pounding propellers below, the churning vortex trailing behind the ship. The only sound she heard was the whip-crack of the towering flag above her. Then Jack’s smooth voice broke the monotonous sound, “Don’t do it.”
Her head whipped around, giving her a mouthful of mane as the wind blasted it back. A few moments later, she managed to magic enough of it out of the way to get a good look at Jack, “Stay back. Don’t come any closer!” Tears ran down her muzzle, shining in the light of the moon and the ship’s lights.
“Take my hoof, I’ll pull you back in.”
“No! Stay where you are! I mean it! I’ll let go!”
“No you won’t.”
“What do you mean, no I won’t? Don’t you presume to tell me what I will or won’t do! You don’t know me. Nopony does!”
“You would have done it already. Now come on, take my hoof.”
Rose stared at him, brushing tears away with the back of her hoof, and almost losing her balance, “You’re distracting me. Go away!”
“I can’t,” he moved forward slightly more, wings loose at his sides, “I’m involved now. If you let go, I’ll have to jump in after you.”
“Don’t be absurd. You’ll be killed.”
He fluffed his broad leathery wings onto the deck, low for streamlining, “I’m a good swimmer.”
“The fall alone would kill you!” Too blinded by tears to see the dark surface of his wings in the poor lighting of the deck.
Now he raised them into the air, prepared to launch forward off the edge, “It would hurt. I’m not saying it wouldn’t. To be honest, I’m a lot more concerned about how cold the water is.”
She glanced down at the waves below and gulped, the reality of the situation sinking in, “How cold?”
“Freezing. Maybe a couple degrees over. And, I’d have to get there first anyway, make sure you don’t hit the propeller on the way in.” His saddlebags dropped to the deck behind him, whip-like tail snapping free of the harness, “Ever been to Wisconsin?”
Her eyebrow rose, “No? What?”
“Well they have some of the coldest winters around. I grew up there, near Chippewa Falls. Once when I was a foal, my father took me Ice-fishing on Lake Wissota…Ice-fishing’s where you go out and chop a hole in the…”
“I know what ice fishing is!” She pointedly turned away, back to the ocean below.
He smiled, “Sorry, you just looked like an indoor type of filly. Anyway, I went through thin ice. This was before my instincts were quite as good, so I dropped right in. I tell you, water that cold…like that down there…It hits you like a thousand knives all over your body. Chills you right to the bone. You can’t breathe, can’t think…’Cept about the pain,” his wings curled forward, ready to be slammed back in a charge, “Which is why I’m not looking forward to jumping in after you. But like I said, I really don’t have a choice. I guess I’m kinda hoping you’ll come back over the rail and let me off the hook here.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Everyone says that. All due respect, though, ma’am, I’m not the one hanging off the back of a ship,” his hooves scooted along the deck, moving closer to her, “Come on now, you don’t really want to do this. Give me your hoof.”
Rose stared at the tensed up Thestral as he presented his side of madness to her. His eyes were all she saw, filling her mind and her universe, briefly, “Alright,” she reached for his outstretched hoof, and his wings lowered to the deck, still alert, but not primed. He reaches out and grabs at her hoof, firmly gripping it.
“Ratchet Jack Darkson.”
“Pleasure to meet you Mr. Darkson,” her voice shook as she began to turn around. Now the height she had thought might not be enough, was suddenly terrifying. She glanced back, vertigo blurring her vision as she shifted her stance. One hoof caught on the tattered edge of her dress, and her hoof slipped back. She dropped away, her other two hooves unable to maintain a grip on the slick rail. She dropped, letting out a piercing shriek.
Jack felt himself losing his grip as she fell, and he slammed his powerful wings down, lunging over the railing. Her hoof just missed the lowest rung as his hooves wrapped around her armpits, upside down. Flying upside down wasn’t impossible, but it certainly wasn’t easy, and her horn was poking him in the belly, painfully, as her tail whipped his face. He tucked his arms tight to his chest, pinning her as close as he felt was possible, ignoring the itch of her glowing horn shoving into his gut as he flapped backwards, hoping to get back over the rail.
Quartermaster Rote heard the shriek and snapped away from staring through the dark for the girl’s pursuer. Darting up the deck, he took to the air, flapping his broad wings to carry himself towards the back of the ship.
__
“HELP HELP!”
“I’ve got you, I won’t let go! Quit stabbing me!” He felt his hoof touch the rail. Good, the wake of the ship had pulled him along. Another ear-splitting scream, and he flapped down roughly. He couldn’t see anything but tattered dress and yellow fur, “Quit Bucking Stabbing ME!”
__
Rose started slipping again, and he growled at her, ignoring her protests as he rolled underneath her and shoved her up into the air as hard as he could. For a split second, she floated in the air before crashing down on his chest, muzzle beside his ear. He felt her hot breath in his ear as he tried to flap back to the deck. He rolled again, awkwardly trying not to grab at anything inappropriate, while simultaneously trying to keep her attached securely to him as her magic impaired his vision, a blind groping with the field to try and find something to grab onto. Mostly, him.
He felt that she had never lifted anything heavier than a bowl of soup, but it was distracting enough that by the time he finally managed to get to the deck, his fur was standing on end. Finally, he managed to get them onto the deck in a rolling tumble, her head smacking him in the jaw and her horn grazing his forehead. They came to a stop, him balanced over her, dark wings billowing in the wind like a villainous cape. Blood started to pool on his eyebrow, and he raised a hoof to his jaw.
Rote arrived, landing in a run, after diving down a ladder like it was a fire-drill. He skidded to a stop on the fan-tail, “Here, what’s all this then?”
He ran over and pulled Jack off of Rose, throwing him aside and revealing her disheveled look. Between the tattered dress, the tear-stained face, and the fresh tears still running down her muzzle, it wasn’t hard to make an assumption. Torn to shreds, her dress barely maintained her modesty. He glanced at Jack, shaggy hair, open vest, rubbing his jaw from where Rose had hit him, then back to Rose, clearly in distress.
He knew this stallion though. Unless Jack had lied through his pointed eye-teeth, he was not at fault for her state. Two crew-stallions arrived, and Rote responded quickly, “Stay where you are. Don’t move an inch.”
He turned to the stallions, “Go fetch the Master-at-arms,” to one, to the other, “Fetch a pitcher of water and a glass.” As the two stallions raced off, the Griffon dropped to his haunches and brushed a claw across his left breast, “Jack?”
Jack gasped for air, the combination of frantic flapping and being thrown across the deck two times in rapid succession ripping into his chest, “Gah, Air…” He continued to gulp at the air like a fish out of water, one hoof pointing at the railing.
__
The Master-at-arms arrived, and calmly put cuffs around Jack’s fore-hooves, sitting the panting Thestral upright. Not exactly distressed, the stallion seemed to at least care if Jack was going to survive, at least to make it to trial.
Kale scowled angrily at Jack, having just rushed from dinner. He hadn’t even had a chance to grab his coat, nor had Lovejoy, who stood near Rose, holding the glass of water in his hoof. Kale reached out and grabbed Jack by the lapels of his vest, using his magic to push the Thestral’s long mane back out of the way, “What made you think you could put your hooves on my fiancée? Look at me you filth! What did you think you were doing!”
Rose interrupted with a cough, “Kale, stop! It was an accident.”
Kale turned an inquisitive eye back to her, “An accident?”
“It was stupid, really. I was leaning over the rail and I slipped,” a brief glance at Jack’s eyes, “I was leaning way over, to see the…Ah…The propellers. And I slipped and fell overboard…and Mr. Darkson here saved me. Dove right over the rail to grab me.”
“You wanted to see the propellers?” Kale seemed suspicious. Rightly so, but it was starting to grate on Jack’s nerves. To Rote, he muttered, “Women and machinery do not mix.”
The Master-at-arms looked down at the prisoner in his grasp, “Was that the way of it?” Rose’s eyes begged Jack to not tell the truth, this once. Mixed in was a serious amount of concern that Jack couldn’t bluff. He hadn’t been before.
“Yes sir. That was pretty much it,” He glanced at Rose, a moment of perfect understanding. Now a secret.
“Well then,” Rote smiled, his beak splitting down the middle, “The colt’s a hero. Good on you son, well done,” he turned to Kale, “So now it’s all well and good, and back to your brandy, Sir.”
The Master-at-arms slips Jack’s cuffs off. Kale helps Rose to her hooves and starts guiding her back to the smoking room, “Let’s get you inside. You’re freezing.” He starts off without glancing back at Jack.
“Perhaps, ah, something for the colt?” Rote looked Kale over.
Kale turned to Lovejoy, “Oh, right. Mr. Lovjoy, a twenty should do it.”
“Is that the going rate for saving the mare you love?”
Kale rolls his eyes, “Rose is displeased. Mmm. What to do,” he turns to Jack and appraises him condescendingly. A Steerage ruffian, unwashed and ill-mannered, and a Thestral, no less, “I know.” To jack he spoke, “Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow, to regale our group with your heroic tale?”
Jack looked straight at Rose, “Sure, count me in.”
“Good, it’s settled then,” he wrapped a hoof protectively around Rose and guided her back towards the interior, leaning towards Lovejoy, “This should be amusing.”
As Lovejoy passed Jack, the stallion held out a hoof, “Can I bum a cigarette?”
Lovejoy withdrew a shining silver case from his jacket and snapped it open. Jack quickly darted forward and took two, pressing one into the groove behind his ear for later. Lovejoy lit the cigarette, “You’re going to want to buckle that harness better,” Jack glanced down at his saddle-bag harness, still hanging loose under his belly, unsecured, “Interesting that the young lady slipped so all of a sudden, and yet you still had time to unbuckle your saddlebags and take off your shoes. Mmm.” Lovejoy’s expression was unreadable, as always, but his eyes are as cold as Jack’s return. Jack gives back just as little.
As the stallion strode away, Jack let his wings droop back to the deck, and sighed. Rote placed a talon across the Thestral’s shoulder, “Don’t let it get to you. He was raised by nobles. It’s all he knows.”
Jack looked up at the noble jaw above him, “Right. So, that just happened. Where am I going to find a suit by tomorrow night?”
Rote leaned back, “I know a lady who might be able to help you. Mossy Brown. She’s new money, a seamstress by training. Maybe she’ll be able to fix up that buckle so it doesn’t slip off so easily,” the Griffon winked at Jack. He hadn’t quite seen everything, but he had seen the unmistakable sight of a Thestral flying behind the ship in the moonlight. He knew that the story wasn’t entirely true, but not quite how much. Besides, he had seen the mare dart past him, already in distress. Whatever tore the dress, it wasn’t Jack.
“Lucky you were taking a little moon-flight up here.”
Jack rubbed his hoof on his shoulder, pinching the rugged fabric of his shirt, “Yeah. Lucky.”
__
Rose shimmied out of her dress, glad to have the help of her maid, Truly. As she shook her tail out, Truly brushed at her mane. Kale stepped into the doorway, and Truly prepared to go out through the wardrobe again. The stallion trotted up and leaned towards her, his horn glowing softly, “Rose, I know you’ve been feeling melancholy recently, and I won’t pretend to know why,” he pulled a small black box out from behind his back, held in his magic. The velvet shone in the glow as it passed between his blue aura and her yellow, “I intended to save this till the engagement gala net week. But I thought tonight,” he muttered something suspiciously like ‘that Thestral bastard’, “perhaps a reminder of my feelings for you.”
She opened the box carefully, looking at the brilliant gem inside, inset in a thin silver chain. The Heart of the ocean. The first time I ever set eyes on the stone. It was like looking at my own prison collar, and being asked to take it. “Sweet Celestia…Kale, is it a…”
“Diamond, yes. Yes it is. Fifty-six carats,” he lifted the necklace out of the case and moved behind her, to place the chain around her neck, “Once it was worn by Blueblood the fourteenth. They call it Le Coeur de la Mer, the…”
“The Heart of the Ocean. Kale, it’s… it’s overwhelming,” she looked at the image of herself and Kale, the diamond at the forefront, partially hidden by her still messy mane.
“It’s for royalty. And we are royalty,” his hooves stroked her neck gently. He seems to be disarmed by her elegance and beauty. For once, his emotions are unguarded. Something she had never seen before. “There is nothing I couldn’t give you. There is nothing I would deny you if you would ask it. Open your heart to me, Rose.”
Of course, his gift was only to reflect light back onto himself, to illuminate the greatness that was Kale Hockley. It was a cold stone…a heart of ice. It truly felt I had been imprisoned then.
“After all these years, I feel it still, closing around my throat like a dog collar. I can still feel its weight,” her eyes closed slowly, then opened again, “If you could have felt it, not just seen it…”
Rock Heart pressed his hoof gently onto a table, “That’s the general idea, dear.”
Steep Dive, ever the social outcast, laughed, “So, let me get this straight. You were going to kill yourself by jumping off the Titanic?” A loud guffaw split his face, “That’s great!”
Heart scowled at him, “Dive…”
Rose cracked up too, joining in, as he managed to stop long enough to speak again, “All you had to do was wait two days.”
Heart stepped out of Rose’s sightline and scowled at his watch. Hours have already passed. Its taking way, way too long, “Rose, tell us more about the diamond. What did Hockley do with it after that?”
“I’m afraid I’m feeling rather tired, Mr. Heart.” Fuzzy started pulling the wheelchair out the door.
“Wait! Wait! Can you give us something to go on here? Like who had access to the safe! What about this Lovejoy stallion. The valet? Did he have the combination?”
“That’s enough Mr. Heart. Let her rest,” Fuzzy pulled the chair out the door, the last sight of her being her hoof waving goodnight.
__
A massive hydraulic arm swung Mir Two out over the water. Beneath, Rock Heart and Filthy Rich strode along, “My company doesn’t like this. They’re pissed.”
“Filthy, Buy me some more time. I need time.”
“We’re pouring thirty-thousand bits a day into this venture, and we’re six days over. I’m telling you what they’re telling me. I might be the boss, but I still have to listen to them. And that’s what they’re telling me. The hoof is on the plug, and they’re starting to pull.”
Heart growled, “Tell the hoof I need another two days. Ty, Ty, Ty, we’re close. I can smell it. I can almost taste the diamond. She had it on her when…Now we just need to find out where it wound up. I just gotta work her a bit more. Okay?”
He turned away from Filthy Rich as the stallion withdrew his ever-present phone, and noticed Fuzzy standing on the deck. She heard most of what he said. Most of what Rich replied with. Calmly, he hustled her away from the action on the deck, “Fuzzy, I need to talk to you for a second.”
“Don’t you mean work me?”
“Look, I’m running out of time. I need your help.
“I’m not going to help you browbeat my hundred year old grandmother. I came down here to tell you to back off.”
Heart grunted, letting his desperation ooze into his words, “Fuzzy, you’ve gotta understand something. I’ve literally bet everything I have on finding the Heart of the Ocean. I’ve got all my dough tied up in this thing. My wife divorced me over this hunt. I need what’s locked in your grandmother’s memory.”
He rolled his hoof into the air, “You see this? Right here?” His hoof was empty, the frog flexing slightly as he clenched at air.
“What?”
“That’s the shape my hoof’s gonna be in when I hold that thing. You understand? I’m not leaving without it.”
“Look, Rock. She’s going to do this her way, in her own time. Don’t forget, she contacted you. She’s out here for her own reasons, Celestia knows what they are.”
“Maybe she wants to make peace with the past.”
“What past? She never once, not even once, ever said a word about being on the Titanic until two days ago.”
“Then we’re all meeting your gradmother for the first time.”
Fuzzy stared at him, trying to determine if he was bluffing, “You think she was really there?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he smiled, “I’m a believer. She was there.”
__
Dive started the recorder up again, Rose watching a video feed from the earlier dive, Snoopy moving along the starboard side of the hull, headed aft.
__
__
The next day, Saturday, I remember thinking how the sunlight felt.
Rose trotted down the promenade in the sun, brilliant sunlight illuminating her mane and tail over her crisp dress. She moved down the length of the ship with a purpose.
It was as if I hadn’t felt the sun in years. I was free, in a way.
She stopped at a gate, separating Steerage from second class. It had taken her long enough to slip away from her family. Colts and stallions stopped what they were doing to stare at the beauty in their midst.
__
In the social center, the General Room, everything was chaos. It was stark by comparison to the opulence of First Class, but has its own loud, boisterous nature. There were mothers with foals, colts and fillies running about yelling in several languages, and being scolded in several more. There are old mares yelling, stallions playing chess, fillies doing needlepoint and reading novels. Even an upright piano that one particular stallion in playing around on.
Three colts charged past, swinging shoes at a rat, trying to whomp it as it darted under benches. It caused general havoc, but Rose thought it was cute. Jack sat near the railing with the little filly he had been drawing the day before, sketching her funny faces in his book. Honor was struggling to communicate with a young female moose, sitting with her family on the other side of the room.
“No Italian? Some little Equish?”
“No, no, Norwegian only,” she is about to add more when Rose comes in, and her eyes track to the well-dressed mare. Honor turns his head and stares, instinctively kicking Jack, though his friend isn’t there to take it. Jack notices the gazes and turns away from the filly, looking where everyone else is, at Rose.
Everything goes silent in stages, as everyone notices her, and Rose freezes, suddenly very self-conscious. She doesn’t belong here, what was she thinking coming down here? Finally, she spotted Jack as he raised a hoof weakly into the air, and moved towards him.
The filly poked Jack, “Izzat the princess?”
Jack lowered his hoof and stood, smiling.
“Hello Jack.”
Jack’s friends stared in shock. Neither had believed his story, nor had they believed that he had actually been up close to his unreachable princess. It was like Cinderella’s glass slipper.
“Hello again.”
“Could I speak to you in private?”
Jack closed his sketch-pad and tucked it into his saddle-bag, “Yes, of course. After you,” he waved her out onto the promenade walkway. Jack glanced over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow at Honor, who was hoofing a bag of bits over to the filly. Never doubt the instincts of foals. He stepped after her quickly.
__
The two trotted side by side, a strange couple. The two passed ponies reading and talking in steamer chairs, some of whom glance curiously at the mismatched pair. Jack felt weird, walking down the aisle in his rough clothes, beside her finery. Both are awkward, for different reasons.
Jack broke the silence first, “So, I never did get your name last night.”
“Rose. Brilliant Rose Anwitt.”
“Quite a hoof-full there. I may hafta get you to write that one down,” another awkward pause.
“Mr. Darkson, I…”
“Jack. Call me Jack.”
“Jack…I feel like such an idiot. It took me all morning to get up the nerve to face you.”
“Well, here you are,” he gestured grandly, “Second Class.”
She smiled, “Here I am. I…I wanted to thank you for what you did. Not just for…For saving me. For pulling me back from the edge. But for your discretion.”
“You’re welcome. Rose.”
“Look, I know what you must be thinking. Poor little rich filly. What does she know about misery?”
Jack shook his head, “That’s not it at all. Not even close. What I was thinking was…What could have happened to hurt this filly so much that she thought there was no way out.”
“I…I don’t…It wasn’t just one thing. It was everything. It was them, it was there whole world. And I was trapped in it, like an insect in amber,” her voice sped up, “I just had to get away…Just run and run and run…And then I was at the back rail, and there was no more ship to run on. Even the Titanic wasn’t big enough. Not enough to get away from them. Before I even really thought about it, I was over the rail. I was so furious at everything. I’d show them. They’d be sorry!”
“Uh huh,” he looked her in the eye, “They certainly would be sorry. ‘Course, you’d’ve been dead. Just another piece of drifting debris in the ocean.”
“I…”Rose coughed into her hoof, “Oh Celestia, I’m such an utter fool!”
“That penguin, last night. Is he one of them?”
“Penguin?” Confusion wrote itself on her muzzle for a second, “Oh, Kale! He is them.”
“Boyfriend?” Jack’s heart sank slightly, though he felt he could still do something.
She sighed, and pushed her mane back, revealing a horn-ring with a giant diamond in it, though smaller than the one she had received the night before, no less impressive, “Worse, I’m afraid.”
Jack moved his head in close to look at the stone, “Luna, that thing’s huge. You’da gone straight to the bottom,” he moved his gaze to her slender neck, “How in Tartarus do you keep your head up? Is there like a rope or something hidden in that poufy mane of yours?” He stuck his muzzle in her mane, between his hooves, looking for a rope that wasn’t there. She laughed, only laughing harder as a steward passed by giving a glare at Jack, who clearly wasn’t on the right deck. Jack smirked through the mane at the steward, and Rose glared back, sending the stallion on his way.
“So, you feel like you’re stuck on a train you can’t get off, ‘cause you’re marryin’ this fella.”
“Yes, exactly!” she pushed a hoof up to get Jack out of her mane, almost whacking him on the muzzle as he pulled back of his own accord, “So don’t marry him.”
“I wish it were that simple.”
“It is that simple.”
“Oh, Jack…Don’t…Please don’t judge me until you’ve seen my world.”
“Well, I will tonight,” he looked stunned by the way she ended the conversation so abruptly.
So surprised that he didn’t even notice her snatching his sketch-book until it was already moving away from him, “What’s this?”
“Just some sketches.”
“May I?” It was rhetorical, since the book was already opening in her magic. She rolled onto a deck-chair, laying the book on the raised head, between her hooves. Inside, she found many, many portraits. An old mare’s hooves, holding a scarf. A sleeping stallion. A father and daughter at the rail. Specifically, she recognized the filly as the one Jack had been sitting beside when she had found him, “These are really quite good, Jack. Really, they are.” His face was skeptical. His opinion of his own art, as with many artists, was self-critical.
“They didn’t think too much of them in Prance,” a couple of sketches slipped out, and Jack darted after them, though Rose caught them with her magic, all but two that he managed to grip with his wingtip. He snapped his wingtip in a flourish, “I just seem to spew them out. Besides, they’re not worth a damn anyway,” to emphasize his point, the flung the two he had caught over the edge. Rose snagged them out of the air and slid them back into the ratty book.
“You’re deranged!” She laughed and continued turning the pages. After flipping a couple more out of the way, she stopped, “Well, well…”
Nudes filled the next few pages. A series, many of them the same few mares. His work is amazing here, a sort of languid beauty, relaxed and calm. So real they seem almost alive. Soulful and strong, with expressive tails and manes positioned just so…Barely on the wrong edge of decent. They felt more like portraits than studies of the human form. Uncomfortably intimate to her. Her face began to heat up as she moved to conceal the book from other passengers. “And these ones,” her voice cracked, trying to be adult about it, “they were drawn from life?”
“Yup, one of the great things about Paris. Lots of fillies willing to take their clothes off,”
a momentary pause as he realized what he said, “Er, Mares.”
She stopped on one in particular, a unicorn with a lovely rendition of a…something Rose couldn’t quite identify…as her cutie mark. One hoof pressed to the mare’s chin, and the other lying casually at her flank, partially covering her tail, which was curled up making the picture more suggestive than analytical, “You liked this mare. You used her in several images.”
“She had nice hooves.”
Rose smiled, “I think you had a love affair with her…”
“No,” at Rose’s face, he raised both fore-hooves, “No! Just her hooves!”
Rose looked into his eyes, “You have a gift, Jack. You really do. You see ponies, the way they really are.”
“I see you. There it is, that piercing gaze again.”
“And?”
“You wouldn’ta jumped.”
Truth looked at the mare across the table from her, a glance that spoke many words. They had just been having a very private, not-so-nice conversation about Rose’s behavior over the past day. The Countess, wed to one of the Sons-of-Celestia, was a noble Blue-blood, much like Truth herself, before her husband had perished. This glance though, spoke none of that, “Oh dear. That vulgar Brown mare is coming this way. Get up, quickly, before she sits with us.”
Mossy Brown trotted up to the table, and cheerfully greeted them, “Hello ladies. I was hoping I would catch you at tea,” her muzzle dipped slightly as she noticed the nearly empty tea cups on the table.
“We’re awfully sorry you missed it. The Countess and I are just off to take in the air on the boat deck.”
“Why, that sounds wonderful. Let’s go. I need to catch up on my gossip,” Mossy was either being completely oblivious to the intention, or understood completely, and was intentionally kicking social understanding under the table. Truth ground her teeth as the three headed over to the towering Grand Staircase to go up to the boat deck.
__
Captain Smith sat with Bright Island and Tom Shipsmith at another table, only half-noticing the gossiping mares around them. While the ladies were enjoying their tea-time, these three were quite busy, in discussion, leaned over the blueprints of the ship, as well as a chart of various numbers that Island would never have understood without the designer there to help.
“So,” Island tapped the aft end of the blueprints, “You’ve not had them light the last four boilers?”
“No, but we are making excellent time, no less,” the captain smiled broadly, fluffing his wings.
Shipsmith nodded, “Besides, lighting those last four would be a waste of coal, and would require several crews to be taken off other boilers. It could be done, but would be impractical at the current time.”
“Captain, Mr. Shipsmith,” he looked at the other two, then spread his hooves across the paper, “the press knows of the size of Titanic. Let them marvel at her speed too. We must give them something new to print. And the maiden voyage of Titanic must make headlines!”
Shipsmith sighed, grateful to the captain for taking the conversation, “I prefer to not push the engines until they’ve been properly run in.” The Unicorn designer nodded approvingly at the captain’s deft words, but was stalled at the other Unicorn’s next comment.
“Of course, I leave it to your good offices to decide what’s best, but what a glorious end to your final crossing if we get into New Yoke on Tuesday night, rather than Wednesday, and surprise them all,” his hoof hit the table, “Retire with a bang, eh, Wind?”
The captain nodded stiffly, then waved Island away. As the rich noble left the table, Captain Smith looked to his friend, “Can we do it?”
“Theoretically, the hull can handle it. Shall I inform Chief Bell to light the rest?”
“Tom, if your calculations are correct,” he let the unspoken ‘and they will be’ float for a moment, “We will not need all four extra boilers to achieve Tuesday night,” the captain tapped on a row of numbers listing the maximum pressures necessary for given speeds. As it was, the ship was making very good time, not a doubt in their minds of an early arrival, “Have him light up twenty seven and twenty six,” his hooves brushed across two boilers near the stern.”
“I will give you word when they are lit. Expect it by breakfast,” Shipsmith stood and began the trek down to the boiler-rooms to inform the Chief Engineer.
__
Rose and Jack trotted down the length of the aft deck, past ponies lounging on deck chairs in the late-afternoon light. Stewards scrambled back and forth serving tea and hot cocoa.
Rose had a smile wider than Jack had ever seen, “You know, my dream has always been to just chuck it all and become an artist…Living in a garret, poor but free!” She glanced back at her blank flank, hidden beneath layers of fabric.
“You wouldn’t last two days. There’s no hot water, and hardly ever any caviar,” he laughed, and mimed the act of eating caviar beside one of the trash-cans lining the deck, “I say, this is some fine garbage tonight…”
“Listen Buster…” she snickered, but managed to keep an angry façade up, “I hate caviar! And I’m tired of ponies dismissing my dreams with a chuckle and a pat on the head.”
Jack stopped laughing at her sudden seriousness, then held out a hoof, “I’m sorry. Really, I am. Garbage Caviar?”
She giggled, “Well, alright,” took the offered imaginary Caviar, “There’s something in me, Jack. I feel it. I don’t know what it is, whether I should be an artist, or, I don’t know…A dancer maybe?” Jack’s eyes panned over her figure, “Like Isadora Belle…A wild spirit.” She leapt forward and whirled on one hoof, dress floating into the air as she twirled back onto her hind hooves and fell into Jack’s waiting fore-hooves. Before she finished catching her breath, something else caught her eye, “Or I could be a moving picture actress!” Her face lit up as she dragged him towards the stallion with a camera, the one she had seen earlier, before boarding the ship. His mare was still making the wooden poses from before, though this time on the rail.
The stallion was saying something, “You’re sad. Sad, sad, sad. You’ve left your lover on the shore. You may never see him again. Try to be sadder, darling.”
Rose shot into the camera’s view and struck a theatrical, wholly inappropriate for the situation, pose at the rail. The mare burst out laughing. Rose dragged Jack into the picture and pushes him into a pose quickly as the stallion rants and gestures, “CUT CUT CUT! GET OUT OF MY SHOT!”
Rose posed tragically, hoof to her brow. Jack propped himself up on a deck chair, the two mares fanning him with his own wings, like his own personal slave girls. Jack, on his knees, pleading with hooves clasped, while Rose stood, back to him, head tilted in bored disdain. Rose cranking the camera as the two stallions made like cow-ponies, twirling imaginary guns, and pretending to shoot each-other. The other stallion dropped dramatically to the deck, pantomiming his terror, then his death. Jack twirled an air-moustache for the camera, mouthing, “I hath defeated thou for ever and for always, and shall lay claim now to all what is mine,” he grabbed Rose from behind the camera and swept her over in a deep bow, her dress hiding that he was holding them up with his wing on the rail. His lips brushed hers, “But no more of this, for the board might complain.” The two fell to the deck, rolling in laughter, joined by the camera-stallion and his mare.
__
Jack and Rose leaned against the A-deck rail, the same one Rose had gone over earlier. In fact, Jack could see the scratches on the lowest beam where her hoof had failed to grip the surface. The two were illuminated only by the deck lights, as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder. If any other ponies had been on the deck, they would have sensed a sort of magic not restricted to Unicorns floating in the air. As it was, Quartermaster Rote paused in his rounds, to leave the two alone, instead routing up over the top-deck, just behind the aft-most funnel.
“So what then, Mr. Wandering Jack?”
“Well, then logging got to be too much like work,” his wings fluttered in remembrance of long nights spent plucking splinters with his teeth,” so I went down to Los Alicorns, to the pier in Santa Monica. That’s a swell place. They even have a roller-coaster. I sketched portraits there for two bits apiece.”
“A whole two bits?” Rose was stunned. That was pocket change to her. Literally, she had more than that in her purse, tucked into her dress right now.
Jack didn’t catch that, of course, “Yeah, it was great money…I could make a couple tenners a day, sometimes. But only in summer. When it got cold, I decided to go to Paris and see what the real artists were doing.”
Rose looked up at the sky, a slight wetness at the corners of her eyes, “Why can’t I be like you Jack? Just head for the horizon whenever I feel like it?” She turned to him, “Say we’ll go there, sometime. To that pier. Even with we only ever just talk about it.”
“Alright, we’re going. We’ll drink cheap beer, and go on the roller-coaster until we throw up. Gallop down the beach, right in the surf, and you can ride my back like one of those rodeo ponies. But you have to ride like a cow-pony. None of that side-saddle stuff.”
“You mean one leg on each side? Scandalous,” her smile widened, “Can you show me?”
“Sure, if you’d like,” he bowed down off the railing, “Milady?”
She laughed and poked his muzzle with her hoof, “Not now, Jack. Someone might see. Later.”
She glanced out at the horizon as Jack rose to his hooves again, “And teach me to spit. Like a stallion. Why should only stallions be allowed to spit. It’s unfair,” she glanced back at Jack, his gray fur glowing in the setting sun.
“They didn’t teach you that in finishing school?” his face was incredulous, “Here. It’s real easy. Watch closely.”
He bent his head back and spat out over the water, watching as it arced over the water and vanished, “Your turn.”
She twisted her lips up and spat. A pathetic little bit of foamy spittle ran down her chin and dribbled onto the rail. Jack wiped it off with his shirt-sleeve, “Nope. That was pitiful,” her face fell, “Here, it’s like this… You hock it down,” he made a horrible retching sound as he continued miming the motions, “Then you roll it on your tongue, up to the front,” the gob rolled down onto his protruding tongue, looking like a raw oyster, “Ligth thith,” He pulled his tongue back in, “Then a big breath, and,” he spat the gob into the air, “You see the range on that thing?”
She follows the steps, him miming the steps as he followed them himself. She lets the gob fly, and he joins in, watching as two little comets of saliva and phlegm soared out over the sea, “Mine went further.”
She hit his shoulder, “You’ve had more practice,” a slight blush colored her cheeks, “Besides, I don’t need range to get the same effect, I’m a lady. And ladies don’t spit.” She laughed, “It’ll throw them for sure.”
Rose turned to him, and suddenly went white. He felt a tingle down his wings and tensed up as he turned. Truth, the Countess, and Mossy Brown are standing there, two shocked, one bemused.
“Mother, may I introduce Ratchet Jack Darkson.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Truth scoffed slightly, disappointed in the scoundrel with spittle running down his chin.
The others were gracious and curious about the stallion who had saved my life. But my mother looked at him like an insect. A dangerous insect which must be squashed quickly.
Well, Jack, it sounds as though you’re a good stallion to have around in a sticky situate…,” Mossy spoke directly to the Thestral, only to be interrupted by a bugler sounding the meal call, “Why must they insist on announcing dinner like some damn cavalry charge?”
Rose gripped her mother’s shoulder, “Shall we go dress, Mother?” A glance over her shoulder at Jack, “See you at dinner Jack.”
Truth scowled at the deck, “Rose, look at you…Out in the sun with no hat. Honestly. You’ll burn your ears.”
The Countess followed the two away, with Mossy Brown remaining behind, hoof on Jack’s shoulder, “Son, do you have the slightest comprehension of what you’re doing?”
With a smile, Jack replied, “Nope. Not a clue.”
Mossy sighed, “Well, you’re about to go into a snakepit. I hope you’re ready. What were you planning to wear?”
Jack looked at his ratty clothes, “Oh…Uh…Quartermaster Rote said there was a mare named Mossy Brown who could set me up with a suit for the night. I should probably…”
“I’m Mossy Brown. Pleasure to meet you. The Quartermaster already left me a message to look out for you.”
Jack grinned.
Mossy Brown looked at Jack. He stood, wings outstretched in the middle of her suite, wearing fine suit pants and a white shirt with freshly hemmed wing-slits in the back. She carefully finished hemming the wing-slits in the back of a suit jacket, pulling the thread tight and tying it off with her teeth before swinging it over him. The Thestral shimmied his wings through the slits and slid his hooves into the sleeves, waiting for Mossy to finish getting him dressed.
She pulled a bow-tie out of a trunk and secured it around his neck before diving back in to root around for something else, “Since you don’t have feathers, I can’t really use these decorative gold feathers, but maybe…” she muttered through a mouthful of something and pulled her head back out of the trunk, smiling around a mouthful of ink-pot and quill. Setting the two down, she carefully uncapped the bottle and drew the quill from its protective case with a flourish, “Spread out your wings. And hold still. Fur dye is expensive.” She began carefully stroking the quill down his wings, tracing a pattern from memory, one she had seen years before, on a fire-dancer Thestral somewhere in Roam.
As she wrapped up the inking, Jack resisted the urge to shake his wings out, knowing that he had to wait for the dye to dry. “Hold still,” she gently touched one of the marks, checking that it was drying, before starting to clean up.
“Where did the wife of a rich pony get such good sewing skills from?”
“My husband. I’ve gotta constantly adjust his clothes, ‘cause I never know how much he’s been eating while I’m away. His clothes never fit just right.”
“Are you going to have to take these stitches back out and patch the shirt and jacket?”
“Oh, deary, that won’t be a problem. I learned a spell to re-knit fabric, so I wouldn’t be always buying more,” she indicated the needle and thread on her flank, “Besides, it’s my talent. It’s not difficult.”
She finished packing and turned back to him, making a final check on the dye, “Alright. It’s dry now. You can fold your wings up and look.”
His wings had almost Zebrican striping on them when folded, but as he stretched them wider, he saw the intricate patterns that looked almost like flames dancing along his wing surfaces. It was magnificent, and truly a shame only part of it would be visible, “How long will I have to show this off?”
“It’ll wash out in two or three days. More if you don’t wash it,” her face curled up in a wry grin. Almost like she knew how long it had been since his last shower. About an hour since she had scrubbed him so clean his fur had gleamed.
__
She sky was lovely, just barely after sunset, and the rise of the moon. He glanced up at the figure painted on the surface, “Luna, watch over this night. Break your bonds just for this eve.”
He felt a caress through his mane that he swore wasn’t just the wind. In his magnificent garb, he strode up to the First-Class Dining hall, arm in arm with Mossy Brown, in a dramatic green and brown dress that blended with her fur and concealed a fair amount of her broad build.
A steward looked at the two as they arrived at the door, and nodded as he opened the doorway for them, “Good evening, Sir.”
Jack followed the lead of the other nobles he had seen, tilting his head in a subtle nod, with just the right amount of disdain to show his perceived status. His perceived dignity was suddenly lost as he entered the enormous Grand Staircase. Overhead, showing off the moon and stars in all their glory was a glass dome that Jack couldn’t have touched both sides of if he spread his wings all the way and stretched. Down below, the stairs curled six floors, the epitome of opulence in architecture.
Then there were the ponies. Mares in floor-length dresses, elaborate mane-styles, abundant jewelry. He saw several Pegasi who wouldn’t have been able to fly if they had tried, their wings and bodies adorned with so much finery that they probably couldn’t even make a proper stroke with them, let alone lift the weight. Gentle-stallions in suits like his own, one hoof tucked back in a ready, yet dignified position, talking amongst themselves.
As Jack moved down the stairs, careful not to extend his wings too far, several stallions nodded to him. He nodded back, a simple greeting, without any real interaction. He felt like a spy in their midst, like one of those bit-store novel heroes. Which made him have to suppress a grin.
Kale strode down the stairs as Jack reached the bottom, arm in arm with Truth, who wore enough jewelry to keep Jack in food and sketch-pads for life. He said nothing as the two passed, only nodding in response to the unwitting Kale’s nod of greeting. Neither noble knew it was him. And as Mossy was otherwise distracted by the crowds, he had been settled on his own in the midst of the rich and powerful. Decade old instincts told him to start carefully pocketing watches and wallets, then make his way out of there, but he forced them down.
He managed, just in time to see Rose, adorned in red and black, her low-cut dress showing off her neck and shoulders, her arms sheathed in white stockings that went up nearly to her chest, and terminated in a pair of silver clad shoes. Beneath the trailing edge of the dress, he spotted glimpses of matching rear shoes. He felt himself being sucked in by her beauty, and his hoof rising of its own accord to settle behind his back. Imitating the pose of several Pegasi stallions from films he had seen, he flared his wings as he bent low and took her hoof, gently pressing his lips just above the shoe. Rose flushed, but her smile grew as her eyes attached themselves to Jack’s body, and his intricately patterned wings, “Saw that in a nickelodeon once, and I always wanted to try it.”
“Kale, surely you remember Mr. Darkson?”
Kale snapped his head around to the gentle-stallion he had just greeted, shock evident on his face, “Darkson! I didn’t even recognize you,” he studies the patterning and the clothing for a moment, “Why, you could just about pass for a gentle-stallion.”
Jack just grinned, pulling his wings in just enough that they would be out of the way, while still displaying the pattern.
__
As they reached the dining hall, Mossy Brown sidled up to Jack and nudged him, whispering, “Ain’t nothin’ to it, is there Jack?”
“Yeah. You just dress like a pall-bearer and keep your muzzle up,” he raised his muzzle mockingly high in the air before lowering it back to acceptable.
Mossy suppressed a giggle, “Remember, the only thing they respect is money, so act like you’ve got lots of it, and you’re in the club.”
He responded with a broad smile, raising a hoof clasped around several high denomination bills, “Why act?” At her shocked expression, he tapped Kale on the side gently, “Sir, I believe you dropped this.”
Kale looked at the loose bills, and patted his breast pocket before taking the money and returning it to his pocket. Mossy laughed silently, lips struggling to stay together, to hold it in, “I didn’t even see you take that…”
Jack indicated Rose with his wingtip, “An accomplice is always welcome.”
Rose overspoke him, leaning in and whispering as she pointed, “There’s the Countess Rothes. And Shorn Acorns, the richest man on the ship. His little wifey, Madeline, is my age and in a delicate condition. See how she’s trying to hide it. Quite the scandal…”
“So, should I return that bottle of pills then?”
She looked at him, eyebrow questioning him about when he would have done that.
“Kidding. You can see the bottle, tucked right there in her right fore-hoof.”
She contined showing him the audience, “Sir Cosmo and Loosy. Lady Muff-Gordon, she designs lingerie, amongst her many talents. Very popular with the royals.”
“I see,” Jack poorly concealed his sarcastic cough, “Actually, come to think of it, I know some of her designs. A few made it into my sketch-pad.”
Rose redirects him away as Kale and Truth become engrossed in their own conversations, “And over there is Been Guggenheim and his mistress. Mrs. Guggenheim is at home with the foals, of course.” Another poorly concealed cough, with a hint of choked laughter.
Kale, in with his crowd, busily accepted the praise of his friends, who are looking at Rose like a winning show-pony, which she could be, if she wanted to.
“Hockley, she is splendid.”
“Thank you, Cosmo.”
“Kale’s a lucky stallion, I know him well, and it could only be luck,” Lovejoy spoke, his voice still carrying the measured tone of an unrepentant gambler, but with a hint of respect.
Rose stepped back over at that, tugging Jack along, “How can you say that Spicer? Kale Hockley is a great catch,” her tone was both joking and theatrical at the same time, and Jack almost lost his composure.
“Shorn, Madeline, I’d like to introduce to you Ratchet Jack Darkson.”
The stallion nodded, “Good to meet you Ratchet. Are you of the Boston Darksons?”
Jack shook his head, “Just Jack, please, and No. Chippewa falls Darksons, actually.”
A nod, like the stallion had any idea who those were, then a puzzled look crept across his face. Madeline leaned in to Rose and whispered in her ear, “It’s a pity we’re both spoken for, is it not?” Rose snickered.
__
Like a ballroom at a palace, the grand Saloon lit up with a constellation of chandeliers, none that could match Luna’s night, full of elegance and lovely orchestral music. Rose and Jack moved across to the table, Truth and Kale right behind them.
He must have been nervous, but he never faltered. ‘cept for that little trick with Kale’s wallet. They assumed he was one of them…A young captain of industry perhaps…new money obviously, but still a member of the club. Mother of course, could always be counted upon…
“So, Mr. Darkson, tell us of the accommodations in steerage. I hear they’re quite good on this ship.”
Jack, without losing a moment, responded in kind, “The best I’ve seen Ma’am. Only seen one rat since I got on board,” he didn’t mention it had been on a griffon’s plate.
Rose tugged Jack’s napkin off his plate, and dropped it on his lap.
“Mr. Darkson is joining us tonight from Third Class. He was of some assistance to my fiancée last night,” turning to Jack, Kale spoke as if to a foal, “This is foie gras. It’s goose liver.”
Whispers spread around the table. Jack became the center of attention, subject of furtive glances. Now everypony felt terribly liberal and dangerous.
Guggenheim looked to his mistress, “What is Hockley trying to prove, bringing this…Bohemian…Up here?”
A waiter walked up, “How will you take your caviar, sir?”
Kale answered for Jack, “Just a soupcon of lemon…” turning to Jack he added, “It improves the flavor with champagne.”
Jack turned to the waiter, “Sorry, no caviar for me, thank you.” He indicated a plain salad, “Could I get a little extra dressing on this salad?”
At a nod, he turned back to the Kale, “Never did like that fish-bait very much.” Hook out, he gave Rose his brightest, most deceptive poker face. She smiled back.
Truth was the net to question the Thestral, “And where exactly do you live, Mr. Darkson?”
Jack pondered for a moment, “Well, right now, my address is HMS Titanic. After that, I’m in Celestia’s fine hooves, and good humor.” His voice carried just a hint of anger. After all, he was a Thestral. The moon was practically a part of him, and having Luna trapped up there…He could still feel the lunar Alicorn’s presence, brushing against his mind, encouraging him.
The salad arrived, and Jack looked at it for a long moment, then glanced around at the Unicorns, who were using their magic to precisely portion dressing onto their piles of lettuce and carrots. No meat anywhere, save the chicken on top of the Griffon, Guggenheim’s plate, and on Jack’s own. The waiter had looked slightly ill at Jack’s request for the chicken salad, but had fulfilled it at least.
The pegasi were using their delicate feather-tips to pour the dressing, from what he saw around the room, so that was what he did, pinching the handle between his wing-talons and pouring almost the entire bottle in a thick layer across the plate. Frowns met him, then, he reached for the middle fork on the side of his plate. A gentle pressure of magic guided his hoof instead to the salad fork, just above the plate.
“So, you find that sort of rootless existence appealing, do you?”
“Well,” Jack poked the fork into the salad, using his hoof to twirl it around, “It’s a big world, and I want to see it all before I go. My father was always talking about going to see the ocean. He died in the town he was born it, and never did see it. You can’t wait around, because you never know what hand you’ll get dealt next. See, my folks died in a fire when I was fifteen, and I’ve been on the road since. Something like that teaches you to take life as it comes at you. To make each day count.”
Mossy Brown raised her glass and held it forward in a salute, “Well said Jack.”
The griffon raised his glass as well, “Hear, Hear.”
Rose joined in, her wine-glass floating delicately into the air, “To making it count.”
Truth scowled, annoyed at his triumph, though brief, and pressed further, “How is it that you have the means to travel, Mr. Darkson?”
“I work my way from place to place. Tramp steamers and such. If I get really desperate, I’ll grab a cloud and just ride the wind. I won my ticket to Titanic here, in a lucky hand at poker,” a glance at Rose, “A very lucky hand.”
“Isn’t all life a game of luck?” The griffon smiled.
Kale scowled, “A real stallion makes his own luck.”
Jack paused his salad halfway to his mouth, “And a smart one take what he’s given. Luna watches over her children still.”
Kale sputtered, “That villain hasn’t done anyone any good since before Celestia banished her to the moon.”
Jack felt a hoof on his chest, holding him in his seat. Mossy Brown may have been rich now, but she was still a very broad Earth Pony, he couldn’t get up if he wanted to. No matter how his anger wanted him to bash Kale’s face into the table until it stopped bleeding.
__
Rose was distracted from the altercation by Shipsmith working on something in his ever-present little notebook, completely ignoring the conversation, “Mr. Shipsmith, what are you doing? I see you everywhere writing in that little book,” a quick hoof, and she began to read the book aloud, “Increase number of screws in hat hooks from two to three…Mr. Shipsmith, you build the largest ship in the world, and this preoccupies you?” He smiled sheepishly before holding his hoof out for the book.
Bright Island patted his friend on the shoulder, “He knows every rivet in her, don’t you Tom?”
“All three million of them,” his voice filled with fatherly pride as he said those words. This ship was truly his child.
“His blood and soul are in this ship. She may be mine on paper, but in the eyes of Celestia, she belongs to Tom Shipsmith.”
“This ship truly is a wonder, Mr. Shipsmith. Truly.”
“Thank you, Rose.” He joined the growing number of stallions completely enthralled with Rose.
__
Dessert arrived. Iced cream, and cigars. Unicorn stallions began floating cigars, while the griffon pinched one out of the humidor.
“Next it’ll be brandy in the Smoking room,” Rose nudged Jack.
The griffon waved at Jack, Well, join me for Brandy gentle-stallions?”
“Now they retreat into a cloud of smoke and congratulate each-other on being masters of the universe.”
“Joining us Darkson? You don’t want to stay out here with the mares, do you?”
He did. He really, really did, but… “No thank you. I must be getting back, before my bunk-mate starts wondering where I am.”
“Probably best. It’ll just be all business and politics, that sort of thing. Wouldn’t interest you. Good of you to join us tonight though,” Kale followed the other stallions out of the room.
“Jack, must you leave?” Rose held a hoof to his back, right beside his wing-root.
He looked back sadly, and took her hoof in his, “I am sorry, milady. It’s time for my coach to turn back into a pumpkin.” He tucked a tiny slip of paper into her hoof and released her with a flourish, “Madame Brown, I appreciate the help tonight, and will have your husband’s suit returned by breakfast on the morrow.”
Rose peeked at the note, unfolding it with her magic and reading quickly, ‘Make it count. Meet me at the clock.’ “Mother, I have to go to the ladies room, may I be excused for a moment?”
Truth nodded, engrossed in her conversation as the young mare hurried out of the room.
__
Rose moved quickly across the foyer, looking for the broad winged Thestral. A quick pan around the room showed nothing, until she heard a soft flapping sound and looked up. Hovering overhead, an expression of delight on his face, was Jack, broad wings showing their dyed markings as he stroked them through the air. She smiled up at him.
“Want to go to a real party?”
__
A Griffon strummed loudly on a guitar, surrounded by laughter and shouting. He was the leader of an ad hoc band consisting of two Pegasi, an Earth pony mare hammering on a pair of trash-can drums, and two Unicorns strumming improvised harps held upright by a Minotaur.
Fiddles, accordions, tambourines, harps, and drums thudded out music that would not have been out of place in the streets of Equestria. Ponies of all ages and shapes danced, drank, smoked, and laughed. A few were even drunkenly brawling.
A stallion handed Rose a pint of something yellow, and she looked at it for a moment before downing the entire thing in a gulp and watching Jack dance around with the little filly from before, her father watching approvingly as the artist danced, the filly hanging off his fore-hooves, hind hooves barely touching his knees.
Rose cut in sweetly, “May I have this dance, miss?”
The filly nodded and scampered off. Jack smiled at the filly, and called after her, “You’re still my best filly, Cora!”
As the filly hurried over to her father, Rose raised a hoof, pressing it to Jack’s own upraised hoof. His wing curled around her back gently, and pulled her up so they were almost touching. “I don’t know the steps.”
Jack’s smile held her up, “Just move with me. Don’t think,” it was a little awkward at first, her not knowing what to do, and him knowing exactly what moves to make. She started to move faster as she began to get the moves, and slipped into the rhythm of the piece.
A minute in, she stopped him, “Jack, hold on a moment,” He look at her as she kicked out of her dress shoes and flung them to Jack’s friend, who caught them deftly in his hooves. Quickly, she grabbed Jack and shoved him back into the dance, moving faster and faster as the music began to speed up.
__
The room was chaos, rowdy and messy. A table lay broken on the floor, a drunk griffon lounging across it, face down, where he had landed when he tripped in his drunken stagger. Still in center stage, Jack and Rose whirled around, stockings scraping against the wooden deck, and caressing Jack’s back as they spun. They moved rapidly, panting with exertion. There was a circle of empty space spreading around them, ponies sitting back and clapping. The band played faster, ignoring that they would sometimes miss a beat in the heat of the moment. Nopony else noticed either.
Fierce Honor had joined in, dancing with the Moose girl, realizing just how much stronger she was than him, as his spinning her around, ended with her spinning him around. His eyes went wide, but he didn’t actually stop dancing.
The band sped up to an almost unfollowable pace, before cutting off abruptly, leaving Jack and Rose panting in the center of the circle. As they recovered, Jack took two steps back, and swept his wings out in a broad bow, allowing Rose to take center-stage with a ballet move he had seen on stage, at some point. She pulled it off perfectly. Laughter rose from the crowd, every-pony applauding the lady who chose to party with them. They slid down into a table, where Honor and his Moose-friend were already seated. Rose grabbed the stallion’s cigarette and sucked on it, coughing slightly at the acrid taste of the inexpensive smokes. Her face didn’t give away her dislike of the cigarette though, as she shoved it back into the Earth pony’s mouth, almost knocking him over. The Moose-filly held him up, and he smiled.
“How you two doin’?” Jack waved his hooves at the two of them.
Honor nodded to her, “I don’ know what she’s sayin’. She don’ know what I’s sayin’. So we get along just fine.”
The stallion who had caught Rose’s shoes walked up to the table, first depositing the shoes at Rose’s hooves, then sliding a quartet of pints onto the table. Rose grabbed one in her magic and downed it in a fast gulp. Showing off, “What, you think a First Class mare can’t drink?”
Jack laughs and gulps his down as well, as more ponies get up and start dancing, or staggering, depending on just how sloshed they were. A moose, one of Jack’s room-mates, the elder Gundersen, crashed into Jack’s friend, splashing his drink all over Rose. She giggled, too inebriated to care at this point, but the stallion jerked back and spun around. He grabbed the significantly taller Moose by the shoulder and spun him around, “You stupid bastard!”
The Moose wheeled, hooves rising for a fight, but Jack leapt into the middle, pressing a wingtip against each, and forcing them apart, sharp wing-talons encouraging them to not press the issue, “Colts, colts! Did I ever tell you the one about the Swede and the Irish-stallion goin’ to the whorehouse?”
The stallion huffed, and tried to puff out his chest for a moment, wing-talon discouraging it, before moving around and clapping the moose on the shoulder.
Oh, you think you’re such tough stallions? Let’s see you do,” Rose stood on her hind hooves, then pushed herself up, standing on the very tips of her hooves, smile on her face, “THIS!” Every-pony cheered at her incredible control. She lowered herself back to full-hoof, then dropped and stumbled into Jack’s hooves. Gasping, she leaned into the Thestral’s waiting arms, “Oww. I haven’t done that in years!” Everyone cracked up.
The door opened slightly, and Lovejoy peered through it. Kale had sent him to follow the young mare around, make sure she didn’t get in too much trouble. Through the gap, he saw Jack holding on to Rose, laughing. He very much wasn’t. He closed the door and stalked away.
Overhead, the stars and moon shone brightly. Rose and Jack half-danced down the length of the lifeboat deck, Jack posing triumphantly across the edge of several with a laugh and a few flaps of his wings. Together they sang, “Come Josephine, in my flying machine,” Jack leapt high into the air, arching backwards over Rose’s head and landing fore-hooves first on the other side, “And it’s up she goes! Up she goes!”
Rose laughed and called back, “In the air she goes. Where? There she goes!”
The two fumbled the lyrics and broke down laughing on the deck. Just ahead is the entrance to the First Class area, the point of no return, and the end of the night. They can’t go in just yet, neither wanting to let the night end. Jack smiles up at the moon, “Thank you Luna, for this lovely night. That it would never end…” He leaned on one of the lifeboat davits and stared into the sky. The words leaving his mouth were technically heretical, against the laws set down by Celestia over nine hundred years ago, but no true son of Luna could reject her outright, and almost every one treated her like she was still there.
“Isn’t it magnificent? So grand and endless?”
She joined him on the davit, daintily waving her horn in the air, “They’re such small ponies, Jack…My crowd. They think they’re giants on Equestria, but they’re not even dust in Celestia’s eye. They live inside this tiny little champagne bubble…and someday, that bubble’s going to burst.”
“You’re not one of them. There’s been a mistake,” his face was still turned to the sky, so she couldn’t see the twinkle in his eyes.
She turned to him, confused, “A mistake?”
“Uh huh,” he tilted his head down to look her in the eye, “You got mailed to the wrong address.”
She laughed, “I did, didn’t I?” She pointed into the sky, “Look! A shooting star!”
Jack followed it, tracking Luna’s hoof, to see where it would land, “That was a long one. My father used to say whenever you saw one, it was Luna taking a soul up to heaven.”
“I like that. Aren’t we supposed to wish on it?”
He shrugged, “Never did before,” lowering his head further, he noticed how close her muzzle was to his, how very easy it would be to kiss her. Rose thought the same thing. A slight tilt forward, and the two would be touching. Her hooves seemed to be moving of their own accord, “What would you wish for?”
She froze, lips mere millimeters from his, and pulled back, rocking onto the deck and sitting down with a thump, “Something I can never have, Jack,” a sad smile crossed her face, “Goodnight, Jack. And thank you.”
She hurried off, running back through the entrance. Jack tried to call after her, but stopped as the door closed, separating the two worlds once again. Turning back to the sky, he scowled, “Really, Luna? Interfering with one little colt’s life. Could’ve given me that star.”
__
Sun shined across the promenade deck,
illuminating Rose and Kale as they sat, silently munching on a breakfast of hash-browns and eggs. Truly Marvelous carefully poured coffee for both, then moved back inside as quickly as was dignified to do.
“I had hoped you would come to me last night,” Kale’s voice was filled with displeasure and the grinding roots of rage.
She looked up at him, eyes dark, over her coffee cup, “I was tired.”
“Yes, no doubt your exertions below deck were exhausting,” his scowl grew, even as he attempted to sip the dark beverage.
She tensed, “I see you had that undertaker of a servant follow me.”
“You will never behave like that again!” he was getting right up to the edge of hostile now, “Do you understand?”
She dropped her cup on the table, somewhat harder than intended, “I’m not some fore-stallion in your mills that you can command! I am your fiancée!”
Kale exploded, mane flying up in the backlash of his magical effort, sweeping the table out of the way as he moved forward. Frazzled and angry, he positioned himself so that it was impossible for her to slip out of the chair as he towered over her, “Yes! You ARE! And my wife…in practice, if not yet by law. So you will honor me, as a wife is required to honor her husband! I will not be made out as a fool! Is this in any way unclear?” He stormed away from Rose as she shrank into the chair, horn starting to glow as she prepared to throw up a shield.
Truly froze in the doorway, letting Kale pass angrily, steam hissing off his horn as his rage manifested in raw heat. Rose tried to salvage it, “I’m sorry, Truly. We had a little accident.”
__
Rose sat on the desk in her mother’s room, already dressed up for a day of wandering the decks in noble fashion, trying to ignore the anger emanating from her mother. Truth was practically glowing, even more than the glow from her horn tightening her corset would account for.
“You,” a glare at Rose, “are not to see that colt again, do you understand me Rose? I forbid it!”
Rose just rolled her eyes, hidden behind her broad hat as she tried not to make any sudden movements. It was like playing dead, except if she made the wrong move, she would get yelled at even more. Still, a smile worked its way across her lips, “Oh, come off your high pedestal mother. You’ll get a nosebleed up there!”
Truth huffed, and a tendril of magic reached out, locking the door with a loud clack, “Rose, this is not a game! Our situation is precarious! You know all the money from your father is gone!”
Rose felt her mood turning sour once more, “Of course I know! Maybe if you didn’t remind me every day!”
“Your father left us nothing but gambling debts and his name! That name is the last card we have left to play!” Rose huffed, and her own magic reached out to the corset strings, yanking on them as her mother sucked in her already rather slim waist. “I don’t understand Rose, it is a fine match with Hockley, and will ensure our survival!” She coughed, a polite sound, though filled with disappointment, “How can you put this on my shoulders?” Rose raised her head, looking into Truth’s eyes, filled with hurt, and as lost as Rose had been before she met Jack. “Do you want to see me as a seamstress? Is that what you want? Do you want to see our fine things sold at auction! Our memories scattered to the winds? Faust, how can you be so selfish?”
Rose stopped for a moment, tears welling up in her eyes, “I don’t want to be a part of his herd! All those other mares I know he’ll add later. It’s so unfair!”
“Of course it’s unfair, Rose. We’re mares. Our choices are never easy.” She whispered as Rose pulled the corset even tighter.
__
The dining hall was brightly illuminated, with all the chairs rotated to face the bow of the ship, where a grand stained glass window with a portrait of Celestia on it shone brightly in the morning sun. Ponies of all ages were standing and singing hymns to the Solar princess.
Standing near the back, Lovejoy was the only silent mouth in the entire room, lips firmly shut as his eyes panned across the room, back and forth. They stopped at the door when he noticed a small commotion, and quickly started moving towards it.
Jack stood at the door, hat pinned under his wing, back in his grubby brown and tan clothes. Entirely out of place, as the Steward happily pointed out through a tooth-grinding scowl, “Look, you aren’t supposed to be in here, sir.”
“I was just in here last night…Don’t you remember? I spoke right to you,” Jack noticed Lovejoy making his way over, “He’ll tell you.”
Lovejoy’s expression maintained a neutrality that presented nothing to the Thestral as he pulled a small cluster of bits out of his pocket, “Mr. Hockley and Miss Rose continue to be most appreciative of your assistance. They requested that I give you this in gratitude…”
Jack snorted and pushed the bits back at the servant, “I don’t want money. I just…”
“…And to remind you that you hold a third-class ticket, and your presence here is no longer appropriate, or…”
“I just need to talk to Rose for a…”
“…Permitted by naval ordinances. Please leave. Gentlestallions, please ensure that Mr. Darkson finds his way back to where he belongs,” he handed the bits instead to the stewards, “and that he stays there.”
“Yes sir!” The stewards grabbed Jack’s wings in their magic and started walking away, “Come along you.”
Rose never saw him, nor heard him. Lovejoy made sure of it. It was his job after all. He knew the colt would try again, of course. No amount of bribing could stop him. Unfortunately for the Thestral, Lovejoy held the winning hand, and had just called Jack’s bluff.
__
The gymnasium smelled funny to Rose. Plus it looked quite ridiculous. There was a mare in a long dress on a stationary bicycle, who looked rather bizarre. Kale sat on a rowing machine, pulling on the oars with his forehooves in a practiced stroke, reminiscing about his days at Harvard.
The gymnasium director bounced around excitedly, eager to show off his modern exercise equipment. With the touch of a switch, one machine started moving. It was shaped like a saddle, and it began to move up and down. Rose placed a hoof on the saddle, curious about it, “What is this contraption?”
“That is an electric horse. It is quite popular,” he pushed a pair of glasses up on his face, “It is for rodeo ponies to keep in practice.”
She smiled, and moved closer, like she intended to climb on the saddle.
To Truth, the stallion pointed at the rowing machine next to the one Kale was sitting in, “Should you like to try your hand at rowing, Ma’am?”
“Don’t be absurd,” her muzzle rose haughtily into the air, “I can’t think of a skill I would likely need less.”
She walked out of the room, dragging Rose along, and leaving Kale to finish his daily exercises.
__
Jack trotted along the deck, a determined expression on his face, eyes bright. Behind him, Fierce Honor and his other new friend barely managed to keep up. Partially because the Thestral was half-ignoring that he was being followed by two Earth ponies, partially because he was in a hurry.
“She’s a goddess amongst us mortals, there’s no denyin’,” the other hollered at Jack, “But she’s in a whole ‘nother world, Jackie. Forget her, She’s closed the door.”
Jack paused, letting his two tails catch up as he looked around the deck, checking to see if anypony was watching, “It wasn’t her. It was them.” The venom in his voice made it very clear who ‘them’ was, “Watch for me, will you?”
The two Earth ponies shrugged and turned, backs to Jack, “Don’t do anything stupid, Jack. Think,” Honor hoped his winged friend was actually listening, not thinking with his smaller head.
“Later,” A gust of wind slammed into the two watching ponies as Jack flapped once, launching himself up in a near flawless reverse swan dive onto the First Class deck.
“He’s not being logical, I tell ya.”
“Amore is’a no logical,” Honor sighed. He knew he couldn’t stop Jack, even if he really wanted to. The Thestral was a headstrong as a mule with all four hooves in concrete shoes.
Impossible Barriers Part 1
Jack rolled silently across the deck, stopping out of sight behind one of the First Class deck cranes. A quick glance around, and a silent prayer to Luna to watch him, even during the day, and he darted across the deck. His hooves touched down for a split second as he reached a bench with a bowler hat and coat on it. Ducking into the coat, he grabbed the hat in his teeth and zipped back out of sight. The Thestral propped the hat atop his head at a slight angle, just enough to make his long mane appear shorter, more noble in cut. From a distance, anyway. A glance at the sky, and he nodded to the unseen queen of the night, “Danke.”
__
Harried Sparks, a young stallion, and the Junior Wireless Operator on watch, rushed into the bridge, holding a wad of paper in his mouth. Curving around the tour group being led by Mr. Shipsmith, he stopped in front of the captain. Captain Smith reached out a wing and grabbed the piece of paper, very precisely unfolding it with his wing-tips, and staring at it.
“Another ice warning. This one from the ‘Balto’.”
Smith nodded, and placed the sheet atop the nearest desk surface, “Thank you, Sparks,” his eyes moved back to the tour group as the young stallion darted back out of the bridge. “Not to worry, it is quite normal for this time of the year,” he spoke with years of experience, “In fact, we are speeding up now. I’ve just ordered the last boilers lit.” Shipsmith scowled before motioning the group towards the door. As they exited, one-by-one, Rose glanced at the note. She couldn’t really understand the list of numbers and dashes on it, but to a trained navigator, it was as good as a map of where the icebergs were expected to be. One of those numbered pairs was right in the path, though the time estimate said it should be clear with a small course correction.
As soon as she was gone, Second officer Light-foot trotted in from the chart-room, “Officer Merdock, did we ever find those binoculars for the look-outs?”
The other Unicorn shrugged, “Sorry. Haven’t seen them since Southampton. We’ve got Pegasi up there though, right now. We shouldn’t have a problem.”
__
As the group continued along the deck, Rose moved forward, up to Shipsmith’s side, “Mr. Shipsmith, I did the math in my head, and with the number of life-boats, and the capacities you mentioned…” she glanced up at the row of boats hanging from the davits beside them, “Forgive, me, but it seems there are not enough for everyone on board.”
“About half, actually, Rose,” he nodded, “You miss nothing, do you? In fact, I put in these new type davits, which can take an extra row of boats, here,” he gestured to the stretch of empty deck, “But it was thought…by some…” he glared at Island for a moment, unnoticed by most, “that it made the deck look too cluttered. So I was overruled.”
Kale slapped the side of one of the boats, “Waste of deck space as it is,” he looked at Island, “On an unsinkable ship!”
Nodding, Shipsmith looked at Rose again, “Sleep soundly, Brilliant Rose. I have built you a good ship, strong and true. She’s all the lifeboat you’ll need.” As he turned his attention back to the rest of the group, a stallion came up behind Rose and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned abruptly, and realized exactly who the dignified stallion was, Jack. His wings completely hidden under the coat, and unkempt mane tucked beneath the borrowed hat. With a gesture, he indicated a nearby door that his wing snaked out and pushed open. The two ducked through the doorway, and Jack closed the door silently behind him. His borrowed hat slid off, and he ran a hoof through his mane.
“Jack, this is impossible. I can’t see you.”
He placed his wingtips on her shoulders, “Rose, you’re no picnic…You’re a spoiled little brat even, but underneath all that, you’re a strong pure heart, and,” he smiled, “You’re the most amazingly astounding filly I’ve ever had the pleasure of know…”
“Jack, I…”
“No, wait. Let me try to get this out. You’re amazing…and I know I have nothing to offer you, Rose. I know that. But I’m involved now. You jump, I jump, remember?” his hoof traced down her upper arm, “I can’t turn away without knowin’ that you’re gonna be alright. I can’t.”
Tears formed in Rose’s eyes, matching the wetness in Jack’s. He was more open than anyone she knew, more real, “Quit making this so hard. I’ll be fine, really.”
“I don’t think so, Rose. They’ve got you in a glass jar, like some butterfly, and you’re gonna die if you don’t break out. Maybe not right away, ‘cause you’re strong. But sooner or later,” he sighed, “That fire in you, it’s gonna go out.”
“It’s not up to you to save me Jack,” she let a little disappointment creep into her voice. He was starting to act like Kale, like she needed a stallion to do everything for her.
Jack seemed to understand though, “You’re right. Only you can do that.”
“I have to get back, they’ll miss me. Please, Jack, for both of our sakes, leave me alone,” she punctuated her statement by darting out the door and galloping to catch up to the group.
Prompted for an explanation, and with her mother’s disapproval weighing on her, as ‘a lady does not gallop’, she explained that she had slipped out to use the facilities.
__
Rose lounged on a couch, surrounded by other noble mares, all enjoying tea in the dining hall. Despite the animated movements and speech of her companions; Companions, never friends; she didn’t move. As silent and still as the porcelain doll she saw sitting on a nearby table, she let the conversation wash over her.
“Of course, the invitations had to be sent back to the printers twice. And the bridesmare’s dresses! Let me tell you what an odyssey that has been…”
Rose tuned her mother out, and let her eyes wander, skipping right past the table in front of her. Her gaze brushed over a white Unicorn filly struggling to levitate a cup of tea, while her mother gently corrected her posture. The filly was trying so hard to please her mother, her expression entirely serious, and Rose saw herself there. Relentless conditioning, the struggles, the pain to become a noble Unicorn, one worthy of her mother’s status. No joy though. Only the filly had a smile. A real one. Not one other smile in the room was genuine. Her ears picked up gossip, slander, everything she had been trained to listen for, but all she heard was her mother’s voice. Repetitive, dull, constantly berating her for poor manners. She closed her eyes, and calmly tipped her tea-cup into her fore-legs, staining the white sleeves of her dress a bright green.
“Oh dear. Look what I’ve done.”
Not even a glance from the other ladies, though Rose suspected that it was more out of her mother not wanting to discuss Rose’s recent actions than out of lack of concern. The tea was, after all, still quite hot, and Rose hurried out, magicking the heat from the stained sleeves as she moved away from the gossip. How long would it take for them to realize she had left? Minutes, hours, Days maybe?
She galloped towards the bow, jumping over a few railing on the way there, as the fore-most part of the deck was generally closed to First Class.
__
Jack half-stood, eyes closed, with both rear hooves on the deck, both fore-hooves in the air, and his wings outstretched, curling slightly in the onrushing breeze. It was an amazing feeling, one he wished he could show Fierce Honor, since, the Earth pony had no idea why Jack loved flying fast. His silent reverie was interrupted by a voice breaking through the wind rushing around his ears, “Hello, Jack.”
He snapped his hooves down to the deck and collapsed his wings quickly, “Rose?”
“I changed my mind,” she smiled at him, and he smiled back, admiring the way her mane whipped in the wind, how the cool Atlantic air made her cheeks just slightly rosy. How her ears folded back out of the onslaught of the wind, “Honor said you might be up…
He interrupted her with a hoof, pressed gently to her lips, “Shh. C’mere.” He placed his other fore-hoof on her side, and the two stood, faces so close they were almost touching muzzles, “Close your eyes.”
She blinked at him, then obediently closed her eyes. He turned her to face into the wind, and pressed her gently against the rail, holding her upright. His hooves slid down the length of her arms, raising them into the air. His hooves lowered again, leaving hers upraised, like wings…
Gently, he wrapped his fore-hooves around her waist, and lifted her so her hooves weren’t quite touching the deck. Rose giggled as the wind abruptly sped up, “Ok, Rose, open them.” Her eyes opened, and she looked forward. There was nothing to see but water. No ship, and she couldn’t feel it beneath her hooves. Just the two of them, and the ocean, twenty meters below, painted copper by the setting sun, “Now look down!” She wanted to joke that it would ruin the illusion to see the ship, but her words caught in her throat when she saw, below her, nothing. Nothing but the ocean.
“I…I’m flying…”
Jack rolled, his powerful wings flipping smoothly from a full stroke to a back-stroke that settled Rose on his barrel, “Come Josephine in my flying machine…”
Rose closed her eyes, feeling her own weight pushing down on Jack, and floating alternately as his wings beat out a steady cadence. Her face turned up towards the sun, and she settled into him. He released her waist and slid his hooves back out along her arms, gently wrapping his hooves around hers. His head leaned forward, nuzzling her neck through her blowing hair, then further up, lips brushing past her ear. His hot breath stayed smooth, like he wasn’t even trying. His cheek brushed hers, and she turned to look, then rolled over on his chest, arms entwined with his, legs around his belly. She leaned in and took his mouth in hers.
The power that washed through her was incredible, and she hardly noticed the wind stopping. The constant rushing of the ship tearing through the wind, then of Jack tearing through it faster, gave way to complete silence. Neither noticed, floating high on their emotions.
Up above the two, sitting in the crow’s nest, two Pegasi stared, “Hey, Reggie, I wish we had those bleedin’ binoculars.”
The other nodded and nudged his buddy, “Think we should go down there and tell them they’re getting too low?”
“Nah. They’ll figure it out.”
Rose lifted her muzzle from Jack’s after a long minute, to find that the smokestack guy-lines were passing them, “Jack?”
Jack opened his eyes, looked up, and flapped his wings once, flipping them around and coming to a perfect three-point landing on the deck, fore-hooves wrapped around Rose, holding her to his barrel as one rear hoof supported her legs and tail. The other pushed down on the deck, forming the third point of the triangle his wings outlined on the deck.
Impossible Barriers Part 2
Rose blinked, and looked at the crew of stallions sadly, remembering how the ship looked, and seeing it overlaid on the screens that showed the rotting wreck, the sad ghost of a powerful vessel, “That was the last time Titanic ever saw daylight.”
Rock Heart pushed a new tape into the recorder, “So, we’re up to the night of the sinking. Six hours to go.”
Dive pressed his fore-hooves to his forehead, “Don’t you love it? There’s Captain Smith, he’s standing there with the iceberg warning in his bucking hoof…” he glanced at Rose, “Excuse me…in his hoof, and he’s ordering more speed.”
“Twenty-six year of experience working against him. He figures anything big enough to sink the ship, they’ll see in time to turn. But the ship is too big, with too small of a rudder…It can’t corner for shit. Everything he knows is wrong.
Rose barely heard them, instead staring at the mane-comb in her hoof. It was still a lovely artifact, despite the years of age it had suffered beneath the sea.
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Rose’s suite was clean and large, bigger than any room Jack had ever been able to afford, though not as big as the room he slept in almost every night of his life. He half-subconsciously set his sketchpad and pencils on the marble table in the middle.
“Will this do? The light, I mean? Don’t artists need good light?”
Jack smiled, turning on a very, very poor Prench accent, “Zat is true, I am not accuztomed to working in zuch ‘oribble conditions,” his eyes wandered across one of the paintings on the wall, “Oh, Monet.” Leaning in, he started hoofing through the stack of paintings leaned up against the surface, “Isn’t he great…The use of color? I saw him once…Through a hole in this garden fence in Giverny.” It wasn’t entirely untrue. Though the artist had died years before, Jack had, through sheer luck, managed to be standing outside the cemetery when the great artist was buried.
Out of the edge of his sight, he noticed her going into the wardrobe, then to the bulky safe lying on the floor panel. In the back of his mind, the survivor mindset, he knew, he was trying to pick out the combination by the way her magic rotated the dial.
“Kale insists on hauling this thing everywhere.”
“Should we be expecting him any time soon?”
Rose laughed, “Not as long as the cigars and brandy hold out,” the safe opened with a loud clunk, and Rose glanced up at the mirror, meeting Jack’s eyes in the reflection. She calmly reached in and grabbed the chain of the necklace in her magic, lifting it out without the yellow field covering the blue gemstone. Jack grabbed the chain with his wingtip, gently trying not to scratch or drop it, “What is it? A sapphire?”
“Diamond actually. A very rare diamond, called the heart of the ocean.”
Jack stared at the expensive stone, wealth beyond his comprehension, “Huh. Still looks like sapphire to me,” he pushed the end of the stone into his mouth and gently bit down on it. A quick lick, and he pulled the stone away, “Too stiff to be sapphire though…”
Rose plucked the stone away from him, “I want you to draw me wearing this Jack.”
He followed the stone up with his eyes, “Draw you?”
“Like that prench mare in your sketchbook. Wearing this,” her muzzle split in a wide smile, “Wearing only this.”
His eyes went wide, and he swung both arms up behind his wings, pinning the appendages to his sides as they tried to snap out.
__
Jack carefully set out his tools, an array of pencils, erasers, and chalk blocks like they were surgical tools, readied for an operation. Beside them, his sketchbook sat on the desk, open to a crisp, clean page. He looked at the page intently, searching for any defects that he could use. Flawless. He sighed.
His attention was drawn away from the page by a cough, and he looked up to see Rose in a black kimono that accented her golden fur and red mane. His heart pounded in his throat as he tried to speak, but she interrupted that thought, “The last thing I need is another portrait of me looking like a china doll. As a paying customer, I expect to get what I want,” a small pile of bits floated onto the desk, and Jack glanced at them, counting in his head. Ten whole bits. He owed somepony big for this catch.
Without further thought, Rose stood to her full height, and dropped the kimono, revealing the stone, hanging against her barrel, perfectly centralized and accented by the small tuft of fur at the base of her neck, where her cream colored belly-fur started. Jack’s jaw followed the kimono as his eyes struggled to maintain their higher position. Not that he had never seen a mare naked, or openly revealing herself to him, but never one so noble, so dignified looking. Plus, as his heart was so proudly reminding him, he really, really, really liked this one.
“Tell me when it looks right to you,” Rose settled onto the divan, kicking her legs in the air as she slid into position, fore-hooves up on either side of the stone, the golden fur blending into her creamy chest, making the stone stand out more.
“Uh. Lift your left leg a little…Lower your head a bit. Eyes to me. More smile.”
He selected a dark grey pencil and touched it to the paper. A couple of lines, and the pencil fell to the floor as his wing snapped out, tip brushing the wall. Rose moved a hoof to stifle her giggles, “Why, Mr. Big Artiste, I believe you are blushing. I can’t imagine Monsieur Monet blushing.”
Jack glared at his stiff wing, “He does landscapes,” his teeth closed on another pencil, and he began to sketch again, working the thin wooden tool with his tongue and lips, eyes glancing from the paper to Rose, then back.
Despite his pounding heart, the pencil moved with sure strokes, precise lines and tracing. What emerged was his best work, in his own opinion. Perfect pose, casual, but arousing. Her hooves positioned perfectly in mid-giggle. Eyes that radiated her energy. Perfectly toned thighs, curving around out of sight, with her tail splayed across the upper leg, then tucking between her knees, just barely managing to not actually cover anything with the fan of crimson. Her bare flanks gave away nothing, no cutie-mark coloring in the flawless gold. Hooves softened by being constantly covered by shoes brought together a picture of complete innocence, one countered by the playful look in her smile, the way she had her elbow positioned against her side just so, so it gave a more distinct curve to her side. The way her creamy belly contoured along the edge of the gold fur, pink nipples barely peeking out of the soft fur. Then the cream color moved down, terminating out of sight at the base of her tail. She was gorgeous.
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“My heart was pounding the entire time. I think his was too. It was the most erotic moment of my life…Up till then at least.”
Steep Dive leaned back, trying unsuccessfully to hide his own erect wings, “Uh…What happened next?”
“You mean, did we ‘do it’?”
Rock Heart choked on the juice-box he had been sipping during the story.
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Rose admired her sketch over Jack’s shoulder, back in the kimono. Deft hooves and the tip of his muzzle blended together pencil, chalk, and saliva, forming a smooth picture that she would have been proud to say she was the model for.
Sorry to disappoint you Mr. Dive.
“Date it Jack. I want to always remember this night.”
He did, with a wingtip dipped in ink, he flicked the date, 4/14/912, onto the bottom corner, along with his initials, HJD. Rose, meanwhile, scribbled something onto a piece of paper off the desk.
“Rose, Beautiful Rose, unto you, I gift this wonderful masterpiece, for a pittance wage, I have given you your heart.” She took the paper carefully in her magic, and with a gesture, sent it into the safe, where it settled smoothly against the side. The diamond joined in, as well as the note she had scribbled. The safe closed with a loud clunk.
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Lovejoy slipped up like a shadow behind Kale and taped him lightly on his shoulder, interrupting the stallion from his drink and talk with the other nobles around the fire in the middle of the dining hall, in a magnificent marble alcove.
“None of the stewards have seen her.”
“This is ridiculous, Lovejoy. Find her,” Kale almost hissed. He was mad, more at his own failure to control Rose, than her not wanting to be controlled. That was an easy to fix problem.
__
The great vessel sped across an unnatural sea, black as oil, and so calm a Pegasus could use it as a mirror, if the passengers weren’t supposed to be sleeping. Above, Luna’s sky shone with millions of stars, and a couple odd meteors.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a flat calm, in my twenty-four years at sea,” Officer Light-foot gazed out of the flying bridge, talking calmly into a speaker-tube leading to the bridge proper.
On the bridge, standing with one wing wrapped around the wheel, Captain Smith nodded, and replied in kind, “Yes, like a mill pond. Not a breath of wind.” It was uncommon, but it happened.
“It’ll make the ‘bergs harder to see, with no breaking water at the base.”
“Mmm. Tell the Nest to use those flood-lights we got them. Worked for me.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Well, then. I’m off. Maintain speed and heading, Mr. Light-foot.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And wake me, of course, if anything becomes in the slightest degree doubtful.”
Out of the corner of his eye, the captain saw his Second Officer nod, and magic up a spotlight of his own.
Light-foot smiled at the darkness. As a Unicorn, one of the first spells he had learned was a basic lamp. Though that was not what he was using now. As his Cutie mark of a spotlight stated, his talent lay in creating a brilliant beam of light. Before this job, he had used it as a stage-hand. Now, though, the beam tore into the darkness, illuminating the ocean before him as he ran a hoof absently over the small wheel set on the flying deck. It could steer the whole ship, if he wanted it to, but for now, the course was accurate, and the sea was clear.
__
At the sound of a click, Rose froze, halfway into her dress. Jack tensed as well, and looked at Rose. There was somepony with a key at the door. She shimmied the rest of the way into her dress and grabbed Jack by the tail in one smooth move, pulling him into the bedroom and closing the door softly behind him.
Lovejoy moved into the sitting room, eyes panning across everything. The still open ink-pot, the chalk-dust he was certain wasn’t there before, and some graphite dust on the desk itself. Precisely controlling his tone, he spoke, “Miss Rose?” At the sound of a door opening, he darted into the bedroom, almost damaging the door in his haste.
Inside, he spotted the door to the servant’s tunnels swinging closed, and darted through. Obviously they went that way. The door didn’t open fully, so he figured they had gone down the hall. He followed, eyes sweeping back and forth, after a quick glance behind the door, in-case Rose was clever enough to hide there. He smiled grimly. Rose had one of the best trackers in Equestria on her tail. It wouldn’t be long before he found her.
Impossible Barriers Part 3
Jack pushed the wardrobe door open and checked quickly before ducking out, and turning, “Milady, shall we make our exit?”
The two moved out into the main corridor, and started casually trotting towards the foyer. Slightly more than halfway down, Jack heard a door slam open, and glanced over his shoulder. There was Lovejoy, again. He must have figured out their trick. “Rose, C’mon!” Jack laughed as he started galloping away. Rose joined in, kicking up her dress as they sped past a few lounging nobles. At the stairs, Rose turned to make for the elevator, realizing it was faster than her running down those stairs, especially in a dress. Jack stopped abruptly, grabbing Rose’s arm with his own, “Hey Rose. Wanna take another flight instead?”
Lovejoy was almost there, and Rose was still high on adrenaline, so she nodded. Jack hopped onto her back, wrapping his hooves around her as his made a powerful flap. As Lovejoy scowled at the flapping Thestral, Rose shot him a hoof gesture that was unmistakably crude, “Take me down, milord.” Jack closed his wings, dropping the two between the rails of the stairs, four decks down to the bottom of the well. Above, Lovejoy was howling as he tried to run down the stairs, wordlessly. Jack had raised the stakes once more, and was gambling with almost everything he had.
__
Jack sighed, leaning against a machine with his wings out, pressed against the machine, and around Rose. If anyone looked, the grey wings, still inked in black, would blend into the machinery well enough on a glance. He hoped, anyway, “That stallion’s pretty tough for a valet.”
“Used to be a tracker in Princess Celestia’s Royal court. Kale’s sire hired him to keep Kale out of trouble, and to make sure he always got back to the hotel with his wallet and watch, after some crawl through the less reputable parts of town…”
Jack pressed his muzzle to her forehead, “Kinda like we’re doing right now?”
“Ye..Oh no…”
The tracker was getting closer, and could see them again. Rose slid down, trying to hide her conspicuous mane color. “Jack, time to go.” Jack rolled his wings against his sides and galloped around the nearest corner, into a blind alley. One door, labeled Crew-only. Jack smirked and darted through it, dragging Rose with him. The thundering machinery on the other side made speech impossible, and the only other exit was a ladder going down. Jack kicked the deadbolt shut and pointed at the ladder. Rose smiled, and gave Lovejoy a second dose of profane hoof gestures and laughter as he tried to force the dead-bolted door open.
“After you, milady,” he gave Rose a gentle push onto the ladder, and looked back at the stallion still trying to force the door open. With a mocking grin, he saluted the Ex-tracker, and back-stepped off the ladder, dropping the five meters to the lower deck, the boiler-room.
Rose joined him, and Jack pointed, shouting over the roaring fires, “Beautiful, I’n’it.”
The visual of Tartarus itself burned into Rose’s eyes as she watched the blackened figures moving around in the smoke and glow of the fires for a few moments before they started towards the far end of the chamber. “Carry on! Don’t mind us!” Jack shouted to the workers, receiving several odd looks from a number of stallions and colts.
Through a door, they darted into the next boiler room, and squeezed between two boilers. Behind the blazing hot furnaces, there was a dark alcove, both out of sight of the stokers, and out of sight to anyone actually looking for them. Even from inside the gap, only an occasional glimpse of a crew-stallion galloping past with a cart of coal or a shovel broke the miniscule light reflected from the furnace fires.
The fire roared all around, but Jack and Rose heard none of it. They saw nothing but each-other. Heard only each-other. Not the clatter of coal being loaded into the furnaces, not the shouts of the crew over the roar, not even the constant, unrelenting pounding of the engines echoing back through the steam conduits.
Jack took Rose’s muzzle in his hooves and pressed her lips to his, listening to her moan as she leaned into his touch. Nothing separated them, not even the air they both struggled to breathe, between kisses.
__
Kale scowled at his hoof-full of cards. It was a winning hoof, but he felt he had lost a more important game by letting Rose run rampant.
The Griffon across from him smiled, “We’re going like Tartarus, I tell you. I have fifty dollars that say we make it into New Yoke Tuesday night!” Kale simply glared at his cards. Above him, the clock, ticking away the time Lovejoy had been searching, was moving far into the night. It was nearing midnight, now, and Rose had been missing for upwards of four hours.
__
Rose tailed Jack into the cargo hold, darting back and forth between crates for a few moments before grabbing one of Jack’s wings in her teeth and wrapping herself in it, to ward of the sudden cold, after the heat of the boiler room. Jack tugged his wing-tip loose of her teeth, and she moved to nuzzle his neck as he looked around, “Hey, Rose. Look!” The brand new carriage sitting on a pallet looked like a royal coach from some fairy-tale, brass trim and lamp-hooks nicely contrasted the deep burgundy color. Jack guided her over, and mockingly slipped into the driver’s seat. This one was a horse-less carriage, one powered by the new ‘internal combustion engine’, that meant one single pony could drive the heavy carriage without help.
Rose slid into the plush back-seat, acting every bit the noble she was expected to be, sitting upright, hooves in her lap, muzzle upturned so her neck was fully exposed. The illusion was almost enough to overcome the settled grime from the boiler-room, and Jack had to stifle a laugh as he looked in, “Where to, miss?”
“To the stars, Driver!” She reached forward and grabbed his neck, tugging him up over the back of the seat and into the carriage. He landed on top of her, lips mere inches from hers, legs on either side of hers, wings piled to the sides. It was the moment of truth for both of them, in the silent hold, in the car.
“Are you nervous?” He smiled down at her as he spoke, and she smiled shyly back.
“Au contraire, mon cher.” His hooves stroked her face, leaving streaks of coal dust in her golden fur. She kissed his hooves, then spat on the seat, “You’ve got coal on your hooves.” Her eyes were still smiling as she wiped her lips on the back of her arm, “Put your hooves on me Jack.”
He captured her lips in his own, and the two dipped into the seat.
__
Senior radio operator Jack Frequency flapped his wings angrily, as his hooves pounded at the keys of a Mark-One Eye Wireless communication terminal. Beside him, Harried Bridle scowled at the huge stack of outgoing messages, “Look at this one here, he wants his private train to meet him. La dee da,” he slapped the file down, “We’ll be up all bloody night.”
As he moved to continue sending messages, another ship started sending, overriding the signal with painfully loud beeps, “Celestia! It’s that idiot on the Californian!”
He furiously hammered out a string of profanity at the Californian, finishing off with a message, “No seasickness. Poker business good. Jack.”
“Bastard interrupts me to say there’s ice. No shit there’s ice, it’s an ice field. That’s what the tower’s for.”
__
Rose slapped her hoof against the foggy rear window, leaving a curved indent, and a crack in the glass. Jack’s wings lay across the seat, over both of them, and his borrowed coat lay over both wings like a blanket over sheets. She glances over Jack’s shoulder at the cracked window, then at Jack, face flushed as red as her mane. A fore-hoof pressed against his muzzle, making sure he was real, and this wasn’t just some fantasy that she was going to wake up from.
He smiled, “You’re trembling.” A statement, nothing more. He wrapped his hoof around her back, and pulled her close, “I can feel your heart beating.”
She pulled him closer, squeezing him tightly, never wanting this night to end.
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“Well, I wasn’t the first young mare to get seduced in the backseat of a carriage, and I certainly wouldn’t be the last. Not by several million,” Rose nodded her head to the orange Pegasus filly holding onto the back of one of the computer chairs, attention completely torn away from going over the video of the actual ship in favor of the tale being told.
A snicker from the camera-colt got him a kick in the ribs from the filly, and Rose continued before a fight could break out, “He had such fine hooves, artist’s hooves, but strong too. Roughened by the ground. He never, to my knowledge, wore more than rough boots. I remember their touch even now.
__
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The crow’s nest was cold, even with the extra hay the two look-outs had stuffed in it for insulation, and the extra clouds they had borrowed and packed around the tower as extra space to stand. Regimental Fleet, breathed into his hooves, trying to keep warm, and cursing the chill of the night, and the geniuses that figured a thin coat was enough for a Pegasus to stay warm, “You can smell ice, you know, when its near.”
His companion in misery, Leeward Spot, shook his mane to loosen some ice crystals from the long hair, “Bollocks.”
“Well, I can.”
__
In the roar of the boiler-room, a pair of stewards, holding cloth over their mouths, followed Lovejoy, who was, in short, terse words, collecting information from stokers and messengers about the direction of his charge. They quickly gave up the information, shouting over the roaring furnaces, and Lovejoy started towards the forward hold.
__
Kale stared at his open safe, then at the two pieces of paper he had pulled out, one the drawing, and source of the rage twisting his features. The other a note saying ‘Darling, now you can keep us both locked in your safe, Rose.”
His magic encased the drawing fully, and he tensed, prepared to tear it apart. With a sigh, he stopped, a better idea developing in his head. The picture slid back into the safe, and the diamond slid out, into his coat pocket.
__
Lovejoy and the stewards reached the hold, and began looking around, the two stewards using magical lamps, him using a mouth-light. He spotted the carriage with fogged up windows, and the crack in the middle of a hoof-print. Gesturing silently to the stewards he moved around the vehicle, and flicked a hoof in a sign pointing to opening the door. The stewards grabbed the doors, and prepared to yank them open. The Earth pony tracker darted up as the doors opened, “Got yo…”
He stopped, his bluff being called, “Dammit.”
__
Rose followed Jack out onto the fore-deck, laughing and giggling in each-other’s arms. Up above, Fleet looks down at them from the tower, smiling. Jack pulled back from their kiss with a gasp, and she spoke, breath misting in the chilly air.
“When this ship docks, I’m getting off with you.”
“This is crazy.”
“I know, it doesn’t make any sort of sense. That’s why I trust it,” she smiled, and found herself in Jack’s embrace once more.
“Eh, Lee…Lookit that would’ja.”
“They’re a bloody sight warmer than we are, pal.”
“Well, if that’s what it takes for us two to get warm, I’d rather not, if that’s alright with you.”
Both look-outs laugh at each-other and lean back into the cloud pile in the nest. The laughter slowly settled, then cut off abruptly as two pairs of eyes spotted a giant glint of ice just a half kilometer out. Two muzzles went white. In the kind of synchronicity only present in close friends and family, two voices hollered, “Oh, Bugger ME!”
Two hooves slammed down on the telephone button as Fleet dove over the side of the tower. It was a ten meter vertical drop, then fifteen meters back to the flying bridge. The telephone could take as much as sixty seconds to cast the iceberg warning. Fleet could fly it in ten. His wings snapped out, and he darted back, tumbling onto the cross-walk, then into the flying-bridge, hollering “ICEBERG OFF THE PORT BOW!”
Up on the tower, Leeward continued hammering on the button, “Oy! Pick up you bastard!”
__
Sixth officer Moody glanced at the telephone, ringing beside him in the wheelhouse, before hefting it in his magic, “Yes?”
“Iceberg, Starboard ahead!”
“Thank you,” he hung up and flicked the phone over to Officer Merdock, no answer.
__
Officer Merdock let out a shout as a Pegasus crashed into the flying bridge, shouting. Immediately, his instincts took over. He grabbed the engine telegraph in his magic as he galloped back to the bridge-proper, “Hard a’ Starboard!”
The stallion at the wheel, Quartermaster Hitchens, threw himself into the wheel, cranking it hard over.
The engine telegraph echoed out as Merdock dragged it to ‘Full Speed Astern.
Moody entered the bridge from the wheel-house, behind, “Hard a’…Ah.”
Hitchins responded, “Hard a’ Starboard, Sir. The helm is hard over.”
__
Engineer Bell heard the engine telegraph chime, and glanced up from his soup. Probably another speed-up notice. A moment later, when the green marker slid over Full Speed Astern, he coughed out the soup that was already in his mouth, “Ah…”
A few moments passed as he and the other engineers on lunch stared at it in shock, “Huh…”
Bell caught on first, this was not a joke, never could be. He leapt to his feet and ran to the messenger station, where three coal-dusted Pegasi were settled in for a quick nap, “Up! Full Astern! Full Astern!”
He grabbed the microphone for the engine-room address system, “Full Astern! Full Astern! This is not a drill, Full Astern!”
Engineers, Greasers, and Messengers rushed across the ship, moving to close off valves, turn others open, and start braking the tree-sized axle shafts.
In the central engine room, the watch engineer heard the shout of a messenger as the filly shot through the door, barely missing clipping her wings on the steel edges. He snapped around and shouted, powerful Earth pony lungs carrying his voice in a broad bellow, “SHUT ALL DAMPERS! SHUT ALL DAMPERS!”
The filly dropped onto his chair, gasping. Near the aft end of the ship, the message took almost six seconds by telephone, if he heard it ringing over the roar of the engines. It took a trained Pegasus just over three, if they knew what they were doing. Obviously, this filly did. He grabbed a glass, and checked that it was at least moderately clean before filling it under the tap and handing it to her, “Drink up, little one. Quite a run there, don’t you think.” After letting her drink down half the glass, he pulled it back, “Breathe, filly. What’s the emergency?”
She panted out, “No idea. Chief Bell just interrupted our nap. Guess it was a three bell.”
“Aye,” he lifted the phone and pressed the button to connect to the head engineering room.
__
Merdock watched the iceberg come closer, straight ahead now. The bow started creeping to the port side. His jaw locked up as he the bow came around slowly. Tensing for the impact, he could do nothing bat watch as the horrid example of Newton’s laws came into being.
__
Leeward Spot braced himself in the cloud.
__
A loud crunch echoed through the ship as it collided with the iceberg. In the hold, the hull buckled in, spraying rivets and pressurized water across the deck, sweeping away the two stewards, and nearly taking Lovejoy’s tail with it. The Earth pony scrambled up the stairs, charging up as fast as he possibly could in an effort to get to safety.
__
Fierce Honor fell out of his bunk, rolling across the floor to the echoing squeal of metal on ice.
__
Thunder roared through the forward boiler rooms as plates buckled and water sprayed in a leg-span from the deck.
__
Jack and Rose broke their kiss as the iceberg came past, chunks being broken off by the impact and dropped to the deck. “Hey! Watch where you’re steering!” Jack hollered up at the bridge.
__
Merdock slammed his hoof into the Watertight Door Alarm, “Hard a’ port!” A glance out the side showed the iceberg to be approximately amid-ships. Maybe using the berg as a pivot, he could keep the stern clear enough to motor to safety.
__
Down in the boiler room, amidst the screams of water pouring over hot coals, the engineers and stokers dove through the door as it closed slowly, almost guillotining a hoof off one, “Go Colts! Go! Go! Go!”
__
Jack and Rose glanced down the side of the hull, leaning on the now bent railing, “Geez. Cut that one close.”
__
Shipsmith looked up from his ever-present little notebook, at the chiming crystal light fixture overhead. The shudder of the ship reached him, and he quivered. Too much of his own heart and soul were in the ship for him to not know. He gulped, and closed the book, calmly. There was no reason to panic. More lives would be lost that way, “Sweet Celestia. I know you’re sleeping right now, but I could really use some help right now. I bucked up, pretty bad.” The mutters were more to himself, and any still awake ponies just gave him the wide berth given to eccentrics who wandered around at two in the morning, muttering to themselves.
__
Mossy Brown raised a glass to her lips. It was nearly morning, and she was just about to turn in, not noticing the wall of ice passing just outside her stateroom window.
__
Leeward glared down at his mate as the other Pegasus flew back up to the nest.
“Oy, mate…That was a close shave.”
“Smell ice, can you? Sweet Celestia!”
__
Merdock started at the ocean, tuning out the bells and alarms as his mind moved into analysis mode. He had just run the world’s largest ship into an iceberg, on her maiden voyage. He was so fired. No hope for his career. Down the drain. What in tartarus was he going to do now, “Note the time. Enter it in the log.”
Captain Smith rushed onto the bridge, shirt unbuttoned, airborne as he tried to pull his pants securely around his waist, “What was that, Mr. Merdock?”
“An iceberg sir. I put her hard a’ starboard, and ran the engines full astern, but it was too close. I tried to port around it, but she hi…and I…”
“Close the emergency doors.”
“Already done, Sir.”
The captain wheeled to face his fourth Officer, “Boxhall, get to the carpenter, and get him to sound the ship.”
__
Fierce Honor stepped out of his room, rubbing his shoulder where it had dented the bunk leg on the other side of the room, “Wha…” Rats were running down the halls. A couple of Griffon chicks were chasing them with sticks and tongs. Food, to them at least, “Ma..Che cazzo!”
__
Further forward, Fabrizio and Jack’s pianist friend jumped out of bed, and jerked back, wings lifting him into the air with a yelp. He bucked the light switch, and stared at the pool of water on the deck. Bucking the door open, he started down the corridor, towards Fabrizio, howling and pounding on doors.
__
“Why have the engines stopped?” A first-class mare in a robe and slippers looked at the steward in the hall, “I felt a shudder.”
“I shouldn’t worry ma’am. We’ve likely thrown a propeller blade, that’d be the shudder you felt. May I bring you anything?”
Shipsmith galloped past, clutching a pile of papers in his magic, and trailed by Boxhall with another magic-load of files.
__
“Looks fine to me, ‘cept this rail here. I don’t see anything else.”
“Could it have damaged the ship?”
Jack laughed, “I doubt it. Didn’t seem like much of a bump, and this ship’s supposed to be magically enhanced to withstand small shocks. We’ll be ok.”
Behind him, a couple of colts, woken by the impact, were kicking around several of the chunks of ice.
__
Honor was at the middle of a crowd of passengers working their way aft, his duffel slung across his back as he splashed up through the water, “If this is the direction the rats are running, it’s good enough for me.
__
Bright Island, wearing just a topcoat, hurried towards the bridge, passing a steward trying to get concerned passengers back into their rooms.
“No cause for alarm, ma’am. Please go back to your room.”
The steward is stopped by Kale, who grabbed his collar. “Please, Sir. There is no emergency.”
“Yes there certainly is, I have been robbed. Now get the Master-at-arms. Now, you moron!”
__
Captain Smith looked at the level on the dash-board, “A five degree list in less than ten minutes.”
Carpenter Carved Wood stepped onto the bridge, “She’s taking on water fast…In the forepeak tank and forward holds, in boiler room six.”
Island entered the bridge, “Why have we stopped?” Anger tore his face in half as he stormed up to Captain Smith.
“We’ve struck an iceberg.” Nothing but the facts here. Getting angry right back would only make it worse.
Island seemed to calm down slightly, “Well, do you think the ship is seriously damaged?” His question was clearly more along the lines of ‘Will we be in Amareica for tea on Tuesday?’
Smith glared, then pushed past the stallion, following Shipsmith and Boxhall into the wheelhouse with Carved Wood on his tail. The door slammed and a kick to the lock made it clear Island was not allowed to join the conversation.
__
Stokers and colliers struggled to keep the fires lit, sloshing through knee deep water as messengers filled their message bags with wet coal and piled it atop the boilers to dry it out enough to feed into the hungry furnaces.
Chief Bell broke into the boiler room, shouting, “That’s it lads! Get up here, ‘fore Tartarus opens up!”
They quickly began scrambling, the larger messengers taking some of the lighter colliers up, speeding the process.
In the stern, messages had been passed to keep the remaining boilers running as long as possible. Chief Bell would inform the stallions when it was time to go.
__
Several gentle-stallions joined Jack and Rose on the deck, admiring the view, and barely noticing the ice chunks on the deck, some still being kicked around.
Another joined them, “Say, did I miss the fun?”
Heads shook sadly, “I believe we all did.”
Rose and Jack slipped away, leaving the nobles behind, just in case one of them noticed Rose, and was looking for her, unlikely as Jack figured it was that the tracker had asked others to help.
Captain Smith scowled at the papers floating before him and Mr. Shipsmith as the two moved down the corridor, tailed by Carved Wood, “Can you shore up?”
Carved Wood tapped the paper with a wooden stylus, “Not if those pumps can’t get ahead.”
They passed Rose and Jack, going deeper into the ship, Shipsmith poking at the page himself, “If we start up the pumps here, and here, and run hoses over the bulkhead, we could…No, it still wouldn’t be enough.”
Jack turned to Rose, “It’s bad.”
“We have to tell mother, and Kale.”
“Now it’s worse,” he really didn’t want to speak to either of the stuffy nobles right now.
“Come with me, Jack. I jump, you jump…Right?”
He nodded, “Right.”
__
Kale looked at his servant, Lovejoy, standing at the door, dripping water from his coat-tails onto the deck, “What happened to you?”
“Hold sprung a leak. They were not down there. I suspect to see them soon.”
“Excellent. Look, The Master-at-Arms is on his way here right now. I told him the Heart had been stolen, and I thought I knew who did it.”
Lovejoy’s face gave away nothing. He knew from the context that the diamond was still safe, somewhere, probably on Kale’s body. Sure enough, Kale floated the stone out and placed it in Lovejoy’s hoof. At the questioning eyebrow, Kale pointed at the crumbled note still sitting on the desk, “Put it in the boy’s pocket when they enter. I will have him arrested and locked up for the rest of the cruise.”
Lovejoy was about to point out how much shorter the cruise had become, but even he had to acknowledge that Kale was going above and beyond for what was a perfectly normal behavior for noble mares. Letting Kale suffer the effects of his own idiocy would free him from the service of the blasted moron. “Yes, Sir.”
__
Jack and Rose reached the suite and stopped at the door. Lovejoy was sitting on the bench outside the suite, ever-present scowl softened slightly, and coat-tails sitting in puddles of salt-water, “We’ve been looking for you miss.”
As the two passed him, Rose nodded, and sighed. Neither saw Lovejoy tucking the diamond into Jack’s overcoat pocket.
Kale and Truth sat on two of the chairs in the sitting room, with the Master-at-arms standing between them. Truth coughed as Jack entered behind Rose.
“Something serious has happened,” Rose spoke quickly, and assuredly.
Kale nodded solemnly, “That’s right. Two things quite dear to me have disappeared this evening. Now that one is back,” he looked to Jack, “I have a pretty good idea where to find the other,” he pointed at Jack, “Search him.”
The Master-at-Arms stepped up to Jack, “Coat off, mate.” The stallion was just going through the motions, he didn’t think the colt was guilty. At first. Seeing the leathery wings, he tensed, and began running a magic scan over Jack, muzzle to tail.
“This is horseshit.”
“Kale, you can’t be serious! We’re in the middle of an emergency and you…” Rose was cut off by the stallion making beeps with his mouth and pointing at the coat in Lovejoy’s hooves. He took the coat and scanned it again, before pulling the stone out of the pocket.
“Is this it?”
Rose stared in shock. Jack turned to look, and saw the stone, his own face dropping.
Kale nodded, “That’s it.”
“Alright then. Now, don’t make a fuss,” he began clamping hoof-cuffs on Jack, before tying the Thestral’s wings down with a length of rope.
“Don’t you believe it, Rose! Don’t!”
Rose looked at Jack, then at Kale, “He couldn’t have.”
“Of course he could. Easy enough for a professional. He memorized the combination when you opened the safe.”
Rose thought back to when she had caught Jack’s eyes in the mirror. He had been behind her, but… “I was with him the whole time.”
Kale leaned in and whispered into her ear, voice colder than the air outside, “Maybe he did it while you were putting your clothes back on.”
“They put it in my pocket!”
Lovejoy held up the coat, “It’s not even your coat, son,” the tag inside had labelling on it, “Property of A.L. Ryeson.”
“That was reported stolen today,” the Master-at-Arms snugged the rope down around Jack’s ribs.
Jack coughed, “I was going to return it! Rose!”
Rose backed away, confused. She knew he couldn’t have done it, but at the same time, could he have? She had changed in the bedroom, leaving him with the safe for almost five minutes. She turned her head away, looking at the wall as Jack was dragged away.
“Rose, don’t listen to them…I didn’t do this! You know I didn’t! You know me!”
Devastated by the sudden overturning in her perspective, she began to tear up, “DO I! DID I EVER!” Her mother moved over and lay a hoof over her shoulder, waving the stallions away. A napkin made its way out of the older mare’s bag and wrapped around Rose’s spittle covered muzzle as she continued to cry and scream at Jack.
“Why do we ever believe stallions?”
__
Shipsmith burst into the forward mail hold, stopping at the rail as he saw the mail sacks floating. Mail-ponies frantically splashed around, trying to corral the floating bags to the stairs. Lights beneath the water were still illuminating the room, an eerie glow that made him sick to his stomach. His hoof moved down the steps and stopped as his shoe splashed into the icy water. Before him was that very, very expensive carriage, submerged to the fenders already. Turning, sadly, he started back up.
Captain Smith looked down at the stallions, “Don’t stay too long. Save what you can carry in one trip, nothing more!”
__
Trotting back to the bridge, Smith at his side, the designer unrolled one of the floating papers, a side cross-section of the bulkheads. “Water is up to here in the aft, to here in the bow. That puts us at an inclination of this.” His pencil and notebook floated alongside the cross-section as he scribbled into it, “That puts us at here.”
The three stallions re-entered the bridge, and Shipsmith slapped the paper down on the wheel-house table, half-ignoring Bright Island as the Unicorn pushed up behind him.
“When can we get underway, do you think?” Again, speaking words that didn’t mean what the voice meant.
“Water fourteen feet above the keel in ten minutes…In the forepeak…In all three forward holds…Boiler room six.”
“Alright.” Smith was as passive as he was able to be. Island, on the other hand, was jumpy.
He poked the map, “But that’s only four, right? We can float with four flooded?”
Shipsmith grabbed the unicorn’s head with his hoof and pulled him closer, “Five. She can stay afloat with the first four, or any other three. Not five. Never with five. As she goes down by the head, the water will spill over the tops of the bulkheads…at E deck…from one to the next, back and back. There’s no stopping it.”
“The pumps?”
That everpresent notebook slammed onto the table, pages spread open to show a series of numbers un-readable to anyone not in the engineering crew, “The pumps buy us time, yes. Hoses and some clever work with the aft pumps, sure. We can buy us a few extra minutes. But only a few. From this moment on, no matter what we do, Titanic will founder.”
“But,” Island butted it, and Shipsmith seriously considered bashing the rich Unicorn’s muzzle into the table until it stopped talking, “This ship cannot sink!”
Instead, the designer and builder of the ship sighed, “She is made of iron, Sir. I assure you, she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty.”
Smith winced, feeling the punch of the knowledge deep inside him, “How much time?”
“An hour. Two. Maybe more if we can keep the bulkheads up…”
“And how many aboard, Mr. Merdock?”
“Two thousand two hundred souls aboard, Sir.” He looked down at the paper on the table, “We…”
Not a word was spoken for a long minute, then Smith turned to Island, “Well, Mr. Island, you got your headline.”
__
Shipsmith stormed down the length of the boat deck, watching impatiently as stallions of all ranks scurried to uncover the boats and get them in position. Steam howled out of the funnels above, and he stuffed his ears with the familiar buzz of his own magic to muffle the sounds. Speaking was nearly impossible over the shriek, and the officers couldn’t keep the crewponies in order. One pair of particularly bright stallions were struggled with a davit, trying to get it in position. He moved up close, howling over the steam venting, “Turn it to the right! Pull the falls taut before you unchock! Have you never had a boat drill?”
“No sir! Not with these new davits!”
He scowled and grabbed the tackle for the falls in his hooves, “Move it!”
Several passengers started moving up on deck, woken by the noise, and wondering what was going on.
__
Voices and knocking echoed down the corridor, and Truth stood up, “I had better go dress. Must look good, no matter what happens.”
Truth left the room, leaving Rose, Lovejoy, and Kale in a small circle. Kale moved closer to Rose, and gently gripped her jaw in his magic. A cold expression crossed his face as his hoof crossed the space between them and collided with her face, “It is a little slut, isn’t it? I smell him…” Rose flinched back, prepared for a second hit that didn’t come, turning her bruised muzzle away from him, “Look at me, you little…”
A loud knock on the door interrupted him, and Kale waved Lovejoy to the door. As it opened, a steward poked his head in, “Sirs, Miss, I have been told to ask you to please put on your life-belt and come up to the boat deck.
“Get out. We’re busy.”
Still, the steward moved into the room, ignoring the cold glares from both stallions as he pulled the white harnesses down from the top of the dresser, “I am truly sorry about the inconvenience, Mr. Hockley, but it’s the Captain’s orders. Please dress warmly, it’s quite cold tonight.” He handed one of the vests to Rose, mistaking her fearful expression for the wrong source, “Not to worry, miss. I’m sure it’s just a precaution.”
“This is ridiculous. Get out!”
__
First Class stewards made sure to not create panic, in their courtesy and politeness managing to convey no sense of danger whatsoever.
__
A pounding woke Mr. Cartmell, a third class stallion travelling with his daughter. He opened the door and looked out to see a steward pounding on doors, yelling, “Oi! Everybody up! Life-belts on! Let’s go!”
Puzzled, the stallion turned back to the inside of his room and switched on the light, “Cora, honey, get your jacket. You can go back to bed in a few minutes, but they want us up on deck now.” He lifted the still half asleep filly in one hoof, and rooted around on the floor until he found her coat and boots. She giggled tiredly as he dressed her, then almost fell asleep again as he pulled on his own boots and jacket. He settled her atop his shoulders, head snugly between his ears, and donned his hat, letting it shut out the light for his tired little filly as he started up the corridor to the stairs.
__
“CQD, sir?” Jack Frequency stared at the Captain.
Smith nodded, “Yes, that’s right. The distress call. CQD. Tell whoever responds that we are going down by the head and need immediate assistance.” The stallion hurried out, having more to do.
“Blimey.”
“Maybe we ought to try that new distress call. SOS,” Sparks smiled, “May be our only chance to use it.”
Jack nodded, laughed, and started tapping the key. The first ever SOS. Dit Dit Dit, Da Da Da, Dit Dit Dit…Over and over.
Shipsmith turned away from the crewponies, who were beginning to figure out the davits. The deck was still empty, but for crew. He yelled over the shrieking steam at Merdock, “Where are all the passengers!”
“They’ve all gone back inside, Sir! Too damn cold and noisy for them!”
He glanced at his pocket-watch and started for the grand staircase.
__
A large number of First Class passengers gathered near the base of the Grand Staircase, getting indignant to various degrees about the situation. One, Mossy Brown, snagged the young steward that had helped her with her bags earlier, “What’s doing, sonny? You’ve got us all trussed up and now we’re cooling our heels.” The steward stumbled back a little at the forcefulness of the request, but recovered quickly and bowed to her.
“Sorry, Ma’am. Let me go find out.”
The band started playing, roused from sleep to play calming music, in order to allay orders.
Hockley stormed into the foyer, life-belts lying across his back as an almost afterthought. Beside him, Rose stumbled along, like she was in a trance, or asleep, bouncing off Lovejoy and Kale alternately as she managed to not quite walk in a straight line.
“Celestia damned Equestrians, doing everything by the damned book.”
“Now, Kale. There is no need for such foul language,” Truth turned to her maid, “Truly, please go turn the heater on in my room, so it won’t be too cold when we get back.”
Lovejoy stopped the maid as she passed, and pressed a life-belt into her hooves, “Do not waste your time.” His face said more now, to the mare, than any words he ever could have. All his cards were on the table, and there was no more time for bluffing. Not to the help, anyway.
Shipsmith trotted up to the base of the stairs and stopped, staring at the clock. Every tick was like being punched in the heart, and every tock made his own head hurt. Rose saw his expression and moved towards him, “I saw the iceberg Mr. Shipsmith. And I see it in your eyes. Please, tell me the truth.”
Without tone, or any semblance of personality left, the stallion spoke, “The ship will sink.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. In an hour or so…All this…My life’s work…Will be at the bottom of the Atlantic.”
“Celestia.”
Kale reached them and froze up. The Titanic? Sinking?
“Tell only who you must. I don’t want to be responsible for a panic. And get to a boat quickly. Don’t wait. You remember what I told you about the boats?” Shipsmith sighed.
Rose nodded, “Yes, I understand. Thank you.”
The stallion trotted off, urging other passengers to put on their life-belts and get to the boats.
__
Lovejoy wrapped Jack’s fore-hooves around a pipe, cuffing them back together. The two looked at each-other. Two gamblers, all the cards in play, and only a few chips left on either side. A messenger, one of the ones from the hold, co-opted into duty as an address system, still coal-faced, darted into the room and stopped abruptly, wings flaring almost to the wall, “Thank Celestia! Sir, you are requested by the Purser, Urgently.”
The Master-at-Arms looked at his prisoner, cuffed to the pipe. Lovejoy nodded, “Go. I can watch him,” he slid a pearl-hilted revolver out of his jacket. The Master-at-Arms nodded, and tossed the hoof-cuff key to Lovejoy.
“Let them know I am on my way,” the stallion stepped out into the hall and started towards the stairs as the Pegasus shot off, wings missing the walls by mere hairs-breadths.
Lovejoy flipped the key in the air and caught it in his teeth before tucking it into his coat pocket.
__
Harried Bridle nervously spoke into the phone lying on the desk, “Carpathia says they’re making seventeen knots, full steam for them, Sir.”
Captain Smith replied, voice shaky but still in control, “And she’s the only one who’s responding?”
“The only one close, Sir. She says she can be here in four hours. No less.”
“Four hours…” Smith’s voice took on a somber tone as the full enormity of the calamity struck him like a hammer, “Thank you, Bridle. Continue broadcasting.”
The phone clicked off, and Smith placed it back on the cradle before turning to the blackness before the wheelhouse, the ripple of water already peeking over the edges of the well-deck, “Sweet Celestia.”
__
Officer Light-foot looked out over the assembled crowd. Nobles in various states of undress. One soft-featured mare was actually bare-hoofed. He had never seen that before. A few others only wore robes, stockings maybe. The restaurant Maitre is still in his top hat and coat, the restaurant having not quite closed before the impact. Some of the late diners wore life-belts over velvet gowns, scarves, and heavy jewelry. Some held books, small dogs, even their jewelry cases in hoof.
Seeing the captain walking up, he moved to speak, but stopped at the passive look on the Captain’s face. His own face fell, but he quickly regained his composure, cupping his hooves around his muzzle to shout into the stallion’s ear, “Hadn’t we better get the mares and foals into the boats sir?”
Captain Smith nodded, distractedly. His fire was gone. The great stallion who had led, was gone now. Technically, that left Merdock in charge, but with that stallion on the other side of the ship, handling those boats, he was definitively in charge here.
He turned to the crew and started shouting, using his magic to amplify his voice, “Right! Start the loading! Mares and foals!”
Just as he finished shouting, the earsplitting din of the steam bellowing out of the iron pillars cut off abruptly. The sudden unearthy silence carried his words, echoing across the deck.
The band leader raised his violin, “Colts, Number tenty-six. Ready, and…” An elegant dance waltz burst forth from their instruments. The music wafted across the ship, very slightly brightening the mood as Light-foot tried to urge several mares into one of the waiting boats.
“Ladies, please. Step into the boat.”
One familiar mare, one he remembered from the tour earlier, Mossy Brown, stretched a hoof out onto the boat, trying not to look down. Getting both fore-hooves onboard, she made a half-leap, kicking her rear-hooves into the boat as well. She barely managed to stay upright as it swung away from the ship, then back, “It’s alright ladies. It’ll hold.”
A second mare leaned out, and with Mossy’s help, climbed into the boat, “You just watch. They’ll load us into these silly boats to freeze for a few hours, then we’ll all be back on the ship by breakfast.”
__
Kale, Rose, and Truth made their way up onto the deck near the band, and started towards the half empty boat with Mossy Brown in it. Truth started to turn back, “My brooch. I left my brooch in my room, I must have it!”
Before she was able to get very far, Kale, dignified as he was, grabbed her tail in his teeth and pulled her back. She looked at him in confusion as he spit out the shampoo-scented strands, puzzled by this uncharacteristic action.
“Truth, stay here.”
The mare froze in fear for the first time in her life. Never before had she known such terror as that induced by the cold look on Kale’s face. Was he terrified, or just putting on a façade.
__
Chaos filled the steerage hallways, stewards pushing their way through throngs of passengers of all species and culture. Some wore life-belts, others wore little to nothing.
“I told the stupid sods no luggage. Aw, bloody Tartarus!” He threw up his hooves at the sight of a family pulling their luggage down the corridor, and blocking it off completely, “C’mon, help me get this mess cleared out.”
Fierce Honor looked at his new friend and groaned, pointing at the pile-up, “Tommy?”
We’re almost to the stairwell. Let’s go,” the two started up a side passage, bypassing the blockage, and reaching the bottom of the Third-Class stairway. Families stood at the bottom, including the young moose Honor had fallen for. She smiled back at him and they embraced, before she pointed up the stairs, mumbling something in Norwegian.
Tommy took to the air, flapping up the stairwell to the top, where an iron gate was shut in the path. Several stewards and crew stood on the other side, one speaking to a mare already pressed against the gate, “Miss, it’s not yet time to go up to the boats. Please stay calm.”
Nearby, an Earth mare hugged her colt close, looking out at the steward. “What are we doing mummy?”
“Waiting dear. When they finish putting the First Class ponies in the boats, they’ll be startin’ with us, and we’ll want to be ready, won’t we.” The colt smiled at her, and stood as tall as he was able, squaring his shoulders in a mimicry of a noble stance.
__
The boat was less than half full when Merdock decided it was time, “Lower away! By the left and right together, Steady colts!” The boat began down, then lurched as the line started slipping through the blocks. The mares onboard gasped, some clinging to their foals as the boat started swinging down to the water, twenty meters below.
__
Jack looked out the porthole in the Master-at-Arms’ office. Water had already passed it, and was starting to leak in through the side. Lovejoy was leaning against the table, rolling a bullet down it as the angle increased ever-more.
“I believe this ship may sink,” Lovejoy crossed over to Jack and looked him in the eye, “Now, as a token of our appreciation,” his tone made it very clear he didn’t appreciate what Jack had done, and the hoof to Jack’s abdomen made it more clear, “Compliments of Mr. Hockley. Your turn.”
The stallion turned and left the room, smiling to himself. He had called the colt’s bluff well, and held all the cards still. A last second raise just made his pot bigger.
Jack gasped for air as he leaned on the pipe, watching the slow trickle of water through the edge of the glass. It wasn’t meant to be submerged. It wouldn’t hold for long.
__
The first rocket took to the skies, launched by Officer Boxhall, leaving stars of white floating through the air.
Bright Island stared in shock at it for a few more moments before frantically moving over to the officers, shouting, “There is no time to waste!” With a terrified shout, he waved at the crew of one boat, “Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!”
Fifth Officer Lowe looked at Island for a moment, uncomprehending, “Get out of the way, you fool!”
“Do you know who I am?”
Lowe, not having a photographic memory for cutie-marks, and not being able to see one under all the noble garments, shook his head, and squared his shoulders to the stallion, “You’re a passenger, and I’m a ship’s bloody officer! Now do what you’re told!” He turned to the other crew, “Steady colts! Stand by the falls! Metric! Cumulus! Get your bird-brained flanks down there and guide the boats!”
Island shrugged away, “Right, yes, Quite sorry.”
Light-foot waved the crowd forward, “Mares and Foals only! Sorry sir, no stallions yet!” Another rocket burst overhead.
The camera-wielding stallion had it set up, cranking the handle as fast as he dared, hoping to catch some video of the rockets, with his mare positioned in front of the boats, “You’re afraid darling. Scared to death. That’s it. Perfect.” Either at that point she had suddenly learnt to act, or she was completely terrified.
Rose wached as farewells happened all around her. Husbands saying goodbye to their wives and foals. Lovers and friends parted. Mossy Brown had her arms outstretched, gripping those of another mare, “Come on, you heard the stallion. Get in the boat, sister!”
Truth looked out across the boats, “Oh. Will the lifeboats be seated according to class? I do hope they aren’t too crowded…”
Rose gritted her teeth, “Oh do shut up you old cow!” Truth froze, mouth hanging open. “Don’t you understand? The water is freezing, and there isn’t enough lifeboats. Not by half…Half the people on this ship will die, mother.”
“Not the better half,” Kale scoffed. Rose realized what Kale meant in a flash. Jack was third class. He didn’t stand a chance. She glowered at him, face lit up by a rocket exploding overhead.
“You unimaginable bastard.”
Mossy interrupted any further argument with a shout, “Come along Truth, get in the boat. These are the First Class seats right here! That’s it,” she took the terrified mare’s hooves and pulled her across the gap, then started looking around for more, without even making sure her companion had found a seat, “You too, Rose. You’re next, Darlin’.”
Rose shook her head and turned away.
“Rose, get in the boat!” Truth started up the call next, not wanting to lose her daughter now.
Rose smiled wryly, “Goodbye, Mother.” No preamble, no apology, no remorse. Just a simple farewell. She started away, leaving the boat behind.
Truth was unable to do anything, her magic having been specifically honed to holding small objects up close, and Rose being quite a bit outside her range. Kale, fortunately, was closer, and grabbed Rose’s tail in his teeth. She bucked him in the face and trotted off into the crowd. Kale caught up quickly and grabbed her arm in his, pulling her around roughly, “Where are you going? To him? Is that it? To be a whore to a gutter rat? Dam to a bunch of little batlings?”
A glint of madness sparked in her eyes, indescribably horrible to Kale, “I’d rather be his whore than your wife!”
She tilted her head back, hocked as big of a gob of spit as she could muster into his face, and head-butted him, right between the eyes. He released her, and she galloped off, laughing, even as the spit started drooling down her mane.
__
“Lower away!” Light-foot hollered at the top of his lungs, leaving Truth howling for her daughter to come back.
“Oh, stuff a sock in it Truth. She’ll be along,” Mossy wasn’t so sure anymore, as the boat began to slide down on its falls.
__
Rose pushed past a cluster of ponies and a rather broad-shouldered griffon maiden with her wings half-flared in agitation. Behind her, Kale continued charging after her. Ducking under the Griffonness, Rose hollered, “He tried to take advantage of me in the crowd!”
The stallions in the group turned to Kale, appalled, as did a couple of the mares. The Griffoness however, let out a bellow of rage, dropped to all fours, and spread her wings wide in a show of dominance. Kale was trapped by them, trying to convince them that Rose was lying. It was futile, like trying to tell a Unicorn they couldn’t walk on clouds. By the time he broke free and was able to get into the entrance, Rose was totally gone. Not a hint of her, and one of the other stallions, the first to realize Rose had been lying, tapped him on the shoulder, “Guess you shoulda kept a tighter leash on that one.”
__
“Ain’t none’a you colts ever rowed before? Gimme those oars. I’ll show you how it’s done,” Mossy climbed over Truth, stepping on her hooves as she did so. All around, boats in varying states of fullness rowed frantically away from the ship.
__
Jack yanked on the pipe, grunting with the exertion. He was a strong flier, on account of needing his wings to perform his best art, but because of that very same art, his legs were not as well exercised as they probably should have been. The pipe didn’t budge, and his wings were still bound. A check at the window, yep, still leaking. And now it was joined by a gurgling from the door, water creeping in underneath the panel.
“Shit.”
He bit down on his fetlock and started yanking with all the strength in his neck, trying to pull his hoof loose. Nothing but a bloody hoof to show for it.
“Help! Somepony! Can anypony hear me! Celestia, I swear, I will make your sister hunt you down if I die like this!” He tugged on the cuffs again, “Luna! I swear to never ask for another thing so long as I live! Just get me out of here!”
He looked at the water pooling against the wall, “This could be bad.”
__
Shipsmith poked his head into several staterooms in First Class, calling out for anypony who might have missed the call to the deck, or ignored it, “Anypony in here?”
Rose galloped up to him and skidded to a stop, “Mr. Shipsmith, thank Celestia! Where would the Master-at-Arms take somepony under arrest?”
“Rose, you must get to a boat, immediately!”
“No! I’ll do this with or without your help, sir. But without will take longer.”
“Take the elevator to the very bottom, go left, down the crew-pony passage, then make a right.”
“Bottom, Left, Right. Got it.”
“Hurry, Rose.”
“Thank you!” she hollered over her shoulder as she galloped off to the elevator.
__
The elevator operator was just beginning to close down his lift to make for the boats when Rose reached him, “Sorry, Miss. The lifts are closed.”
Rose let the fire in her eyes show as she grabbed the high collar on his uniform in her magic and dragged him into the lift, no thoughts passing through her head except to get to Jack, “I’m through being polite, dammit! I may never be polite the rest of my bucking life! Now take me down!”
The operator fumbled with the gate, pulling it shut with his magic before starting the elevator down.
__
Mossy and the two crew-ponies managed to get the boat a few dozen meters from the ship. Far enough to make it clear that the ship was steeply angled, “C’mon fillies! Join in, it’ll keep you warm! Let’s go Truth! Grab an oar!” Truth just stared at the spectacle, the greatest ship in Equestria, tilted into the water, lights still blazing.
__
The decks passed in front of Rose, as she repeated the directions in her head, preparing for the sprint. Her preparation went up in steam as the icy water flowed around her hooves. She yelped, joined by the operator, who yanked the gate open, “Well?”
The water was almost to her knees, soaking her dress as she splashed out, using her magic to hike up the skirt so she could move better. Behind her, the lift started rising, “Hey, wait!”
“Sorry, you’re on your own now.”
She glared at him for a moment before turning to the corridor, Left, crew passage. She found the door and slogged into it. Completely deserted, of course. She was completely alone, and quite cold now.
Right, right…Right. The cross-corridor was even more full of water, with a row of doors on either side, “Jack? Jaack?”
__
Jack leaned on the pipe, tired from trying to yank it free, realizing deep inside that he was totally screwed. Then the sound comes through over the gurgling of water, “Rose! Rose, In here!”
She forced the door open, creating a small wave as water tried to move out of the way of the door. Splashing over, she grabbed Jack in her arms, “Jack, Jack, Jack…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Jack sighed, enjoying the warmth Rose brought with her, in spite of being knee deep in icy water.
“Rose, that guy Lovejoy, he put it in my pocket. He told me so.”
“I know, I…He spoke more than six words to you?”
“His face. I’d kick his flank in poker any day. See if you can find a key for these. Try those drawers. It’s a little brass one.”
She kissed him and hugged him again, the turned to rifle through the desk contents, magically tossing out anything not made of brass.
“So, Rose, how did you find out I didn’t do it?”
“I didn’t,” she glanced over at him, “I just realized I already knew.”
They shared a look, broken by a perforated line of metal bits floating past them.
__
A boat floated free of the ship as two stallions disconnected the lines, letting it away. Sitting in the boat, a young mare leaned over the edge, her weight counter-balanced by a large griffon and his mate, “I despise small boats. I just know I’m going to be seasick. I always get seasick in small boats. Good heavens there’s a stallion down there…” Jacks face was just barely visible through the port-hole, frowning up at the surface.
__
Rose stopped trashing the room, and froze in the now hip deep water, gasping for breath, “There’s no brass key in here.”
The water was getting deeper, and Jack had already instinctively tensed his wings to get them away from the water, though they were tied, “You have to go for help.” Not a request, an order.
“I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder as she splashed out the door.
Jack nodded, “I’ll wait here then.” He glanced down at the water as it reached the dock of his tail, “In this cold water. Shit.”
__
Rose splashed down the hallway to a stairwell going up to the next deck. Growling at it, she started up the steps, dragging her waterlogged dress with her. She tipped her teeth into the collar and ripped the buttons out, shimmying out of the heavy fabric and leaving her in just the lighter slip and stockings. Climbing to the top of the stairs, she found a labyrinth of steerage hallways. Still no other ponies. She started down the hall, looking for help, “Hello? Somepony?”
She rounded a corner to see a stallion splashing towards her, then passing her without slowing.
“Help me! We need help!”
Nothing by the clopping of hooves in the water and the echoing of over-stressed metal shrieking. The lights shut off for a long moment, and she stopped breathing, half begging for the lights to come back on, half hoping they wouldn’t.
They did, and she spotted a steward galloping closer, carrying a saddle full of life-belts. He grabbed her arm forcefully and started dragging her like a wayward foal.
“Come along then, miss. Let’s get you topside, miss, that’s right.”
“Wait. Wait! I need your help! There’s some…”
“No need to panic miss. Come along!”
“No, let me go! You’re going the wrong way!”
He wasn’t listening, and he wasn’t slowing down. She couldn’t break free, so she shouted in his ear. When he turned to look, she swept a hoof up and smacked him square in the muzzle. He let her go and staggered back, falling over into the water. Staggering to his feet, he shouted, “To Tartarus with you!”
“See you there buster!” The steward galloped off, holding his nose in one hoof. She scowled and turned back towards where Jack was, seeing a glass case. Inside the case was a fire axe. Perfect. She lined up and bucked the glass, driving her very expensive designer shoes through the glass and into the panel. Ripping the mangled heels off, she grabbed the axe and bit down on the middle of the handle.
Quartermaster Hitchens stared at the ship, and the whistle, “We can’t go back. The suction will pull us down if we don’t keep going.”
“We go room for lots more. I say we go back,” Mossy Brown was quite forceful, but the quartermaster refused to back down.
“No! It’s our lives now, not theirs. And I’m in charge of this boat! Now row!”
Mossy Brown released her oars and stood, her powerful Earth pony build a great deal larger than Hitchens’ slight Unicorn frame, “Who’s rowin’ the damn boat here! Ladies!”
None really wanted to defy the quartermaster though, and most just kept rowing in the direction away from the sinking ship.
__
Kale and Lovejoy entered the foyer from the corridor, to see one of Kale’s fellow noblestallions in full ensemble, with his valet.
“Bean, what’s the occasion?”
“We have dressed like gentle-stallions, and are prepared to go down as such.”
“That’s admirable, Bean,” Kale passed the elderly stallion and started up the stairs, “I’ll be sure to tell your wife…When I get to New Yoke.”
__
Two card games continued as the ship sank. In the smoking hall, everything was quiet and civilized. No panic. No servants or crew either, but none of the stallions sitting around the card table minded. One Pegasus snagged a cigar off a silver serving cart as it rolled past, and snipped the end off, sniffing it appreciatively.
“Seems we’ve been dealt a bit of a bad hand tonight, eh.”
The response was laughter, and a lighter being hoofed over to light the cigar.
“Indeed,” a Griffon dropped a couple of bits on the table, “Raise.”
__
Kale and Lovejoy moved aft with purpose, passing the head chef, who is tossing the floating deck-chairs into the water to help those who have already gone overboard.
__
Light-foot growled at the press of passengers, now from all three classes. One crew-pony, a broad Earth pony, swept the deck with the tiller of the boat he was standing on. Light-foot pulled his revolver and pointed it at the crowd, “Get back! Keep order!”
The passengers backed down, thankfully, and Officer Lowe began ordering the boat down. Light-foot sighed and turned away from them, flicking the pistol open with his magic, revealing it to be empty. “Dammit. Why tonight, Celestia. Why now?”
__
Kale and Lovejoy reached Merdock in time to see him lowering the last boat, “We’re too late.”
Merdock turned to them, “There are still some more boats further forward, sir. Come with me.”
__
A small panic developed at the water, as boat thirteen caught in the outflow of water from the pumps. It slid underneath boat fifteen, which was still coming down. Right on top of them. Passengers inside shouted and screamed while stallions braced themselves in a valiant effort to catch the descending five ton boat. Finally, one of the occupying crew, a stoker who had evacuated when a little coal-streaked filly had told him to get out, leapt to the aft falls and whipped his horn at it, slashing through the rope with a magic spade. Another Unicorn in the boat slashed the forward falls, and together they pushed themselves to safety.
__
Kale looked over the rail to see Officer Lowe, using his pistol to discourage ponies from jumping on as it passed the open promenade, “Stay back you lot!” Twice, he fired. Four times the shots echoed.
“It’s all starting to fall apart. We don’t have much time,” he noticed Merdock moving away, and started after him. Now, though, Merdock didn’t seem to care if Kale was there, or not. “Mr. Merdock, I’m a business-stallion, as you know, and I have a business proposition for you.”
__
Jack burst onto the deck, followed by his building retinue just aft of the third funnel. Rose wass the first to actually notice, having already been on deck, and knowing where to look, “The boats are gone!”
A quick spin, and she spotted a large Griffon escorting two finely dressed ladies back inside, “Sir! Are there any boats left?”
The Griffon looked at her, tiredly, “Yes, miss. There are still a couple of boats up front. This way, follow me.”
Before he had the chance to turn to lead them off, Jack darted past, scooping up Rose, and trailed by Tommy and Honor at a full gallop.
The Griffon turned back to the two ladies he was escorting, shrugged his powerful wings, and started walking again, “I guess they didn’t need to be shown. Shall we?”
__
As the group passed the band, Tommy paused for a split second, gaping at the bass player as he deftly stepped to an angle nearer to the wall, “Ah, music to drown by. Now I know I’m in First Class.”
__
Water started pouring over yet another bulkhead, and deep inside the boiler-rooms, a coal-streaked filly settled her hooves onto the catwalk. Bulkhead H. It was spilling into boiler room two. She scratched a note into the wet dust on her fore-hoof. She was getting so, very, very tired. It was becoming hard to remember the way, and the angles were shifting. It was throwing her off. She started flapping again, making use of the boiler thermals as much as possible to reach the engine-room once more.
__
Water spilled onto the forward boat deck, a few meters from where Officer Merdock and a team of stallions worked to drag the first of the four collapsible boats into the davit. The crowd is sparse, most of the passengers still being near the aft end, further from the water.
Kale levitated one of the stacks of money out of his pocket and into Merdock’s, “So, we have an understanding then?”
Merdock nodded, “You, your servant, and one mare. As you stated.”
Kale stepped back, satisfied, and glanced around. Lovejoy still hadn’t returned with Rose. He stood now, beside Bright Island, who did not meet his eyes. No matter. Lovejoy returned and tapped Kale on the shoulder, “I have her. Other side. With him.”
“Mares and Foals? Any mares or foals?” He glanced at Kale, “Anypony else?”
Kale looked at the boat. His moment was here. He could escape, leave that blasted mare behind, and get off the boat. Or…”Celestia Damn it to Tartarus! Come on then!” He followed Lovejoy across the ship, taking a shortcut through the bridge. Island, seeing an opportunity, and an empty seat, moved forward into the collapsible. He stared straight ahead, not meeting the eyes of the officer.
Merdock, also carefully did not reciprocate the act of not looking into Island’s eyes as he raised a hoof, “Take them down!”
__
On the port side, Light-foot gestured passengers into the next boat, using his pistol to keep them moving, hoof off the trigger-plate. Beneath them, the sounds of rushing water drowned out the shouts, but were enough incentive, as the ocean filled in staterooms on B-deck, to get them into the boat.
“Mares and foals, please. Mares and foals only. Step back Sir.
Even in Jack’s arms, under his wings, Rose was shivering. Nearby, a mare with two foals in tow kissed her husband, “Goodbye for a little while,” he looked down at his two fillies, “Go with mummy, she’ll keep you safe until daddy gets back.”
The mare turned and helped her foals into the boat before climbing in herself. She looked back, keeping the fillies heads pointed away from the ship, and their father, “Hold your mummy’s hooves and be good fillies, promise me.” Both fillies uttered muffled promises, not quite understanding.
The stallion held his head high, refusing to let tears fall until his family was out of sight. He knew he wasn’t going to make it.
Another stallion scribbled a note, and handed it to one of the mares on the boat, “Please, take this to my wife in Des Moines, Iowa.”
The mare nodded, and slid the note into a small bag, already filled with similar notes from other stallions.
Jack looked at Honor, “You better check out the other side. Take Tommy. He’s got better eyes.”
The stallion nodded, and dragged Tommy away to check the other side for more boats.
“I’m not going without you Jack.”
“Get in the boat, Rose,” Jack was just about to repeat himself when Kale trotted up, looking like he had just won the lottery.
“Yes, please Rose, get in the boat,” Kale looked at the two as Rose moved instinctively back under Jack’s outstretched wing. In her wet slip and stockings, she was quite possibly one of the least modestly garbed passenger he could see, “Celestia, look at you…” He slid his coat off, and wrapped it around her shoulders, “Here, put this on. Cover yourself up.”
She shrugged into the coat and looked over her shoulder, as Light-foot hollered, “Quickly ladies, into the boat. Hurry please.”
“Go on, Rose. I’ll get the next one.”
“No! Not without you!”
She doesn’t even notice Kale standing there, watching the whole exchange, jaw tensed in rage. Kale leaned in close and in a low voice, growled, “There are boats on the other side that are allowing stallions in. Jack and I can get off safely. Both of us.”
Jack smiled reassuringly, “Yeah, Rose. I’ll be alright. Hurry up so we can get going…We’ve got our own boat to catch.”
“Hurry up, Rose. It’s nearly full.”
Rose turned, and felt herself being bodily hoisted into the air and set in the boat beside a group of other mares and foals. “Lower away!”
The two stallions waved as the boat descended out of view. As soon as Rose disappeared, the two turned, and Kale nudged Jack, “You’re a good liar.”
“Almost as good as you.”
“I always win, Jack. One way or another,” a toothy grin with a hint of sadness crossed his face, “Pity I didn’t keep that drawing. It’s going to be worth a lot more by morning.”
Jack returned the sad smile, “There’s not actually any boats over there is there?”
Kale shook his head. As much of an unimaginable bastard as he was to the Thestral, he knew they were both equally screwed now, unless one of the boats on this side started taking stallions.
__
Rose watched the ropes travelling through the tackle as the boat lowered towards the water. It was all in slow motion, soundless. She heard nothing. Not Light-foot’s orders. Not the passengers clamoring. Not a rocket bursting over-head. Only her heart, pounding in her ears, blood rushing through them like a raging river. She looked up to Jack as another rocket back-lit him and Kale, the Thestral’s wings trembling. Tears began to flow. Rose began to move. She lunged across another passenger in the boat and clambered over the gunwale. With a leap, she managed to get her fore-hooves over the rail of the A-deck promenade, one deck down from the boat deck. She returned to the Titanic.
Jack spins around at the sudden shouting, and darted to the edge of the ship, to see Rose struggling up over the railing, “No Rose! No!”
Kale, witnessing the same act, realized, right there, that Rose was willing to die for this gutter rat. Rage welled up inside him as Jack performed a back-spinning wing-roll to drop the one deck to where Rose was.
Jack tugged Rose up over the rail and the two tumbled onto the deck, “Rose, Rose, You’re so stupid, You’re such and idiot...” His lips pressed against hers between words, overcome with multiple emotions. Love, anger, fear, disappointment.
“You jump, I jump, Right?”
Jack stared at her for a moment, “Right…” He kissed her again, “But not back onto a sinking ship!”
Hockley scowled at the happy pair, raging at the fact that a gutter rat was getting his girl, but still fairly confident he could keep her from the Thestral. A hoof landed gently on his shoulder, and he found the route to his goal. He spun around and ripped the pistol out of Lovejoy’s belt before pursuing Jack into the central staircase. Screaming in rage, he opened fire. The first bullet took out a carved cherub statue. The second carved a divot out of the paneling behind Jack’s head. The third embedded itself in a magnificently carved mahogany Minotaur, guarding the doors to the dining hall.
Kale pursued the couple down the stairs.
__
The dining hall was already partially submerged, and Jack bodily picked up Rose, carrying her water-logged body over the waves into the hall. Kale followed, firing off two more shots. Still no hits. As his hooves touched icy water, he retreated, “Enjoy your time together!”
__
Lovejoy reached Kale at the main landing, sitting on the floor, laughing at something.
“What could possibly be funny?”
Kale looked at his servant, face twisted in horrified mirth, “I put the diamond in my coat pocket. And I put my coat…on her…” He placed the pistol back in Lovejoy’s hoof, “I’ll let you keep it…If you can get it.”
Lovejoy thought about it for a moment before slogging into the icy water. The water reached his barrel as he made his way to the dining hall.
Inside, amongst the tables and ornate columns, he hunted. Normally, a pony couldn’t be considered a predatory species. Because most weren’t, the rare exception held great honors as Trackers. Lovejoy, however, had been, even as an Earth pony, skilled enough to be called Celestia’s own Royal Tracker. Though he had never met the solar monarch in pony, he was part of a group of maybe ten stallions in the entire world to gain that title. Now, he proved it.
Dark eyes panned silently across the flooded hall, watching. Serving trolleys moved of their own accord, bumping into tables and pillars, splashing into the water.
Behind him, the ocean followed his ascent in a roiling wave, now past the first landing of the stairwell.
__
Chief Engineer Bell watched as the steam-pressure began to drop. No more was being diverted to the powerful engines, which had fallen still. The majority of the engine crew had already departed, but he had to remain, to keep track of the messengers. A Thestral stallion skidded to a stop on the deck, “Boiler Room one refuses to evacuate. They said it’s their duty to keep the lights on for all the ponies upstairs.”
“Get who you can on the pumps. Keep the boilers dry as long as you can. Tell the others.”
Bell looked at his sandwich plate. It was beginning to slide along the flooring. The angle, judging by rough estimate, was about fifteen degrees. That meant, based on what was flooded, and flooding, the ocean was actually several dozen meters below him. The propellers weren’t even in the water anymore.
He glanced down at the crank-shafts, straining to support the weight of the propellers without water. They would hold, of course, but they were unneeded now.
The steam coming in was all being piped straight into the dynamos, several of which were glowing yellow, even red hot. Titanic’s very life-blood, and it was nearly out. “Celestia dammit! Everypony who’s getting out, get out!”
The stallion settled into a comfortable position, propping himself against the rail in case the angle increased more, and picked up his sandwich, “I ain’t going anywhere else ‘till I’ve eaten. Got that Celestia?”
__
Jack pressed his hoof to his lips, “Stay here,” he darted across the deck, from one table to another, barely staying ahead of the rising water.
Lovejoy continued climbing the deck, slogging through the water, watching as a cart loaded with fine plates rolled between two tables. The slight list of the ship caused it to turn into a table, stopping it and scattering the dishes across the deck. Rose scrambled out of the way, and Lovejoy spotted her. He aimed, and moved to pull the trigger-plate when Jack tackled him from the side. He drove a hoof into Lovejoy’s, cracking the hard nail and breaking the gun loose. Lovejoy scrambled to recover the pistol in his other hoof, but met Jack’s rear-hoof in a powerful buck to the abdomen, slamming him into a stone column. Lovejoy fell into the water with a splash, “Courtesy of the Chippewa Falls Darksons.”
“Let’s go! Jack grabbed Rose as he passed her. The two galloped uphill, into the galley. Behind them, tables are beginning to flat, like islands in a lake, and the door they came in in entirely submerged.
__
Lovejoy scowled as he retrieved his floating gun and shook it out. “Celestia, this isn’t worth it, is it?”
Nonetheless, he had to follow to escape. Might as well keep trying to get that diamond.
__
Rose started up the staircase at the far end of the galley, but was stopped by teeth on her mane. Glancing back, she saw Jack motioning down. Stopping one deck lower, they watched Lovejoy start up. After all, who wouldn’t go up.
As the hoofsteps disappeared, Rose heard crying. A colt, below them. She motioned down, and Jack followed, more wanting to get her to safety. Water swirled around the colt’s legs, and Rose pointed, “We can’t leave him.”
Jack nodded, and swept down the corridor, scooping the colt up. As he reached the stairs again, he realized that route was not an option as water began to gush over the steps. The well was too narrow for him to use his wings, “Come on!”
He charged the other way, splashing through the water. A pair of doors seemed promising, but was creaking and groaning, at closer inspection, and leaking water above the doorknob, “Back, back!”
Rose swiveled on the spot and charged into a cross corridor. A stallion charged up, and in a thick accent shouted something in Russian, taking the colt from Jack. He galloped away, colt on his back.
__
The deck continued to rise at one end, sink at the other, as a stallion with his little filly on his back looked at the last boat ready for launch. He wouldn’t make it, he knew. “Hey, Cora, honey. This is your boat. I’ll be on the next one.” The still collapsed one that was still tied down. He hoofed her over to a mare onboard the boat. Looking past the filly’s head, the mare smiled sadly at him and mouthed, “I’ll take care of her…”
No promise was needed, nor suggested. Merely cold hard facts. At this point, any hope was good hope. The boat started down.
__
“No! Don’t go that way!” Jack hollered after the stallion, who was charging at the door Jack had just turned down. As the stallion reached the straining doors, Jack spun and grabbed Rose roughly, charging away from the waves. The door split open, and the stallion and colt vanished beneath the churning water. Jack barely managed to catch onto a light fixture on a corner as the water hammered past like a locomotive, tearing at his already tormented wings. Rose, he held tight to his chest with all four hooves, dragging himself around the corner with his wings.
A stairwell came into view, and Jack made his way to it, fighting the waves trying to pull him around. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he was in the stairs, and released Rose. The two scrambled up the steps, water swirling behind them and rising slowly.
__
A waterlogged Pegasus filly landed in front of Chief Engineer Bell, panting as she dropped a water-filled satchel on the tilted grating. He almost absently hoofed her his sandwich, “You look like you could use a smoke break.”
She sighed, “Pumps couldn’t keep up. Boilers are gone. All we’ve got left is the remaining pressure in the lines, I guess…”
“Yep. That gives us about three more minutes of lights, tops. So, let’s enjoy it while we can.”
She smiled back at him, and gave the sandwich back, “Sorry, not hungry. Mortal terror, and all.” She had just watched a dozen or so stallions who refused to give in die as the icy water poured into the searing hot fireboxes, cracking the cast iron like an egg, and had narrowly avoided the same fate by virtue of being behind another messenger, who took a fire-door to the ribs. She was the last one alive, save Engineer Bell, who hadn’t evacuated.
“I think we can get out through the rear smoke-stack, or, you can. Ladder’s just over there,” he pointed with his hoof at the escape ladder. It didn’t go all the way up, and the hatch at the top was still locked, so they probably couldn’t get out.
__
Jack reached the top of the stairs, cupping his arms around Rose, at the steel gate blocking the path. Jack threw himself against the gate, bending it slightly, and scaring the steward passing by. The steward looked and spotted the water behind them. Instinct told him to flee, and Jack knew it.
“Wait, wait! Help us! Unlock the gate!”
The steward looked at them for a moment before continuing to flee, not stopping at the gasps of Rose and Jack when the icy water reached their waists. Jack pounded against the gate, standing on his rear-hooves alone.
Rose tried, “Help! Help us, Please!”
He turned back and looked at the couple, standing behind the gate, deep enough in the water that they couldn’t stand on all fours without drowning. Water poured through onto the landing as the steward thought for a split second, “Oh, Bucking ‘art’rus!” He slogged back to the rail, against the current and pulled a key-ring out. He started fighting with the ring, trying to find the right key, then to get it in the key-hole under the water. Water began to fountain up between his hooves as the pressure grew, and the lights suddenly shut off. Everything plunged into darkness. Rose gasped, and instinctively lit up her horn, only to see the steward swimming to the stairs,
“Sorry! So sorry!”
Jack glared at the departing stallion before looking down. The keys had fallen to the deck below. He dove and felt around for them before scooping the ring up and fighting to get the door unlocked. A pause at the surface to take a breath, “Rose, keep your head up. I need that light.”
He dove back down and shoved the key into the lock. It gave at a twist, and he shoved the grating out of the way. Water pressure shoved them through, in the darkness, and up to the only exit right now, the stairs. Scrambling, they worked their way out to the surface.
__
Kale lurched down the ship, towards the bridge, scowling as he tried to find another boat. The band still continued to play. He passed a filly, maybe two years old, hiding in an alcove. Kale didn’t even look back as he passed. Reaching the large crowd around one of the collapsible boats, he spotted several crew, including officer Merdock, fighting to get the boat to the davits, unsuccessfully. Pushing forward, he attempted to get the officer’s attention, unsuccessfully.
Nearby, Fierce Honor, and Tommy were pushed forward by the crowd, and pushed back by the officers, some of whom were swinging around pistols to dissuade further approach.
__
Light-foot looked up at Collapsible B, as it started sliding down the oars from the top of the deck-house, “Good, good. Slowly. Keep it under control.”
He was about to congratulate the stallions holding the ropes, when one oar started creaking, “Hold it! Hold it! Somepony get another oar in there!”
One of the moose cousins from Sweden moved up with the next oar, to place under the boat, only to jump back as the stressed oar snapped. Now short one oar, the boat began to put more pressure on the next. It snapped, taking the next with it, and the next, and the next. The five ton boat crashed to the deck, splintering the hand-polished wood decking. The moose looked at his cousin, and shouted at him in Swedish.
Merdock scrambled up onto the side of Collapsible boat A, watching the crowd storm forward, screaming in rage, terror, and a number of emotions the Unicorn couldn’t even begin to determine. One Pegasus shouted, “Give us a chance to live, you limey bastards!”
The Unicorn officer fired his gun into the air twice, having remembered to load it, “I’ll shoot any stallion who tries to get past. Mares and foals only!”
Kale stepped up to him, “We had a deal. Remember?”
Merdock reached into his coat and pulled out the stack of bills, tucking it casually back into the rich stallion’s breast pocket, “Get back.”
__
Tommy felt himself being shoved forward, a stallion behind him rushing the officer. Two shots rang out, and Tommy tumbled to the deck, skidding along the slick surface, bullet in his chest. The other stallion didn’t fare much better, “I said, stay back!”
Honor charged up to his friend and cradled the bleeding Pegasus in his arms, “Oi, Tommy. You ain’t dead. You ain’. Get up off your lazy British ass.” He watched Tommy’s eyes dim, then close, “Buck you too then.” Tears ran down his face, not that he would ever admit it.
__
Merdock looked at the chaos his act had just caused, and stepped up onto the rail, using one hoof on the davit to support himself as he removed his life-belt and flung it to the crowd. A temporary silence crossed the group like a wave as he looked to his men and saluted them. Flawless posture, hoof across his brow precisely, “I am sorry,” he shifted the pistol to his temple, hoof still saluting. A tear formed at the edge of his eye, but never had the chance to slip out. The pistol barked, and fell as the magic holding it, and holding the stallion upright, disappeared. Like a puppet with cut strings, he toppled into the ocean.
The other crew paused only briefly, honoring the dead officer, before working to get more mares and foals into the boat. A purser hollered, using magic to amplify his voice, “Any more mares, foals?”
Kale realized what he had to do to survive. Galloping back to the filly he had seen earlier, he scooped her up and put her on his back, holding her with magic as he pushed through the crowd, “Here’s a child! I’ve got a filly!”
He stopped at the purser and, without blinking, spoke, “Please…I’m all she has in the world!” Not technically a lie. He hadn’t seen any parents or siblings. He may very well have been her only hope.
The purser nodded and pushed him into the boat before waving his gun in the air at the rest of the crowd, keeping them back.
“There, there. It’ll be ok.”
__
Shipsmith stood before the fireplace in the first-class smoke room, staring at the large painting of the Titanic above the mantle. A hot fire still blazed in the marble box. Behind him, a table toppled under its own weight, dumping an ashtray on the floor. Jack and Rose rushed in and almost passed him completely, before Rose stopped, “Mr. Shipsmith?” His life-belt was sitting on a still upright table, and his posture, though tall, showed his sorrow, “Won’t you even make a try for it, Mr. Shipsmith?”
His hoof brushed a tear off his cheek, “I’m sorry young Rose. I truly wish I could have built you a stronger ship,” the stallion coughed politely and levitated his life-belt to Rose.
“Rose, it’s going fast. We need to keep moving,” Jack grabbed her hoof and started for the door.
She grabbed the belt out of the air and wrapped it around herself, as the older stallion nodded, “Good luck to you, Rose.”
She hugged him, “And to you as well, Mr. Shipsmith,” she followed Jack out the revolving door.
__
The waltz ended, and the band members looked at each-other, the leader, Heartley, nodded to his companions, “Right, that’s it then.”
The others began moving away, towards the remaining boats near the front. The tall stallion placed his violin to his chin and began again. He knew he wasn’t getting off the ship, no point in panic. The soft melody of ‘Nearer, Princess, to thee’, became a sorrowful dirge as tears dripped down his muzzle, settling on the elegant instrument.
The other members of the band stopped, as one, though in different parts of the crowd, and turned back. They took up their places, knowing now, they would be on the ship when it went down, and they accepted that. It was simply how it had to be. They filled out their positions, the music growing in volume as more instruments joined. They were not the only ones playing. The haunting melody sprouted into more as a Third-class guitar strummed into the beat, and a second-class bass, every instrument on deck. Heartley swore he heard a piano join in. Words, then joined in, “If in my dreams I be, nearer, Princess, to thee…” Not a crack, not a sound, but hair on strings, and the sorrowful words, echoing their final destination.
__
A stallion offered his life-belt to Captain Smith, who merely pushed it away with his wingtip. Wordlessly, the captain stepped into the bridge, gazing sadly at the fully submerged nose for a moment before stepping back into the enclosed wheelhouse. He closed the door and settled himself comfortably in his chair. Nothing there but him and the dozens of instruments showing the fading heartbeat of the great ship.
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Shipsmith withdrew his pocket-watch and checked the time before reaching a tendril of magic up and adjusting the clock on the mantle. 2:12 a.m. Everything must be correct. Everything he could. His eyes began to cloud with tears, but he wouldn’t break. He was at peace with himself. With the ship he had failed to build strong enough. Only his body now held fear.
__
A waterlogged Pegasus filly braced her rear hooves on the ladder, using her entire body to torque the dogs on the sealed hatch open.
__
Chief Engineer Bell chewed thoughtfully on his sandwich, tapping his hoof in the water spilling up through the grating, “Aht, not yet Celestia. I’m still eating.”
__
Two elderly Griffons settled in their First- Class cabin, pajamas on, holding claws as water swirled around their bed.
__
A red maned mare calmly tucked her foals into bed, singing softly, and making sure they were nice and warm.
__
Collapsible Boat B floated off the side of the ship, trailing lines behind it as stallions frantically tried to cut it loose. A Griffon, sighing at the slowness, gripped one of the lines in his talons and bit through the thick line like it was made of butter. Stallions dove over the boat, trying to get it upright before it could get too far away.
__
Fierce Honor unbuckled the life-belt from Tommy and moved it to himself, “Mamma, I’m so sorry. Goodbye.”
__
Water climbed the windows on the front of the wheelhouse, Captain Smith looking on with a blank expression. His eyes told everything. He knew where he was headed, and that it was coming soon. “Celestia, forgive me.” The windows burst, flooding the room with glass and water.
__
Collapsible A dove through a wave, washing hundreds overboard. As they attempted to climb back in, frenzied, Kale jabbed them back with an oar, “Get back, you’ll swamp us!”
__
A wave sucked Honor beneath a davit, where his hoof tangled in the line. He struggled to free himself as the weight of the rope and the davit pulled him under. Finally, he freed himself, and burst to the surface, gasping for air.
__
Heartley lowered his violin, “Gentle-stallions, it has been a privilege to play with you tonight.” Water was nearly to their post, and was already swallowing the forward smoke-stacks. He swallowed, raised the violin again, and continued playing.
__
Jack and Rose burst out onto the deck, into a crowd. Chaos everywhere. The entire bridge was underwater from what he could see, “Okay…We keep moving aft. We have to stay on the ship as long as possible.” He started pulling her towards the aft end of the ship.
__
Collapsible Boat A slammed into the side of the forward funnel, the stallions on it rowing like mad to get away from the swirling vortex.
__
Fierce Honor found himself being forced against the grating of a vent as water hammered down into it, pinning him with tons of force. Even with his prodigious strength, he couldn’t free himself. The last furnace touched water and exploded, hot air shooting up and blasting the stallion free. He surfaced and continued to swim away, panicked.
__
Jack scooped Rose up in his arms and leapt over the back rail of A deck, landing deftly in the crowd on B deck. Another stallion, a very large Earth pony in a chef hat, joined them in pushing through the crowd, Jack saving his wings for the final push. At the rail, ponies were leaping into the water.
Before them, a slender stallion staggered forward like a zombie, blocking the path, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”
Jack pushed the stallion, “You wanna walk a little faster through that valley, pal?” He glanced up at the moon, and swore he could see a twinkle in the eye of the Mare on the Moon, “Oh, thanks Luna. I’d prefer a frikkin boat.”
__
The forward smokestack began to lean forward as the stay-cables snapped, whipping through ponies like they weren’t even there. The stack dropped, violently discarding the water in its path, and the ponies unfortunate enough to be there. Honor was flung back, and started swimming as he surfaced, straining to escape as the huge funnel began to suck in everypony close enough to get caught in the whirlpool. The Earth pony refused to die. Not here, not now. He had to get to America, to tell his mother he was alright.
__
Another stallion was torn off his hooves and sucked into the still flooding grand staircase as the waves ripped him down the hall. He managed to catch onto a headless Cherub, broken apart by a bullet, and brought himself to a stop, just in time to see the huge glass dome collapse under the weight of the water above it. Icy water tore through the chamber, swallowing everything it couldn’t destroy outright as it swirled into the First-class dining hall.
__
The rearmost smoke-stack, actually an empty pipe just there for the look, was tilted at a significant angle when a little waterlogged filly burst out of the hatch in the bottom. She tucked her head back into the tall tunnel, and shouted, “Chief, I got it open!”
__
Chief Engineer Bell continued chewing on his sandwich. Sure, he could swim over and start climbing the tunnel to the surface, but he was still hungry, and wet sandwiches were unpleasant to eat. Besides, it wasn’t like he should have even still been alive. The water around his hooves was icy, but he could see where it had been boiling as it had curled over the bulkhead from the last boiler room. At least, for a few more seconds. The lights went out as he placed the last bite in his mouth and deliberately started chewing as slowly as possible, “Not yet.” Besides, the surface crew needed those lights. He grabbed his flashlight and dove back to work, chewing as he forced what steam was left in the lines, what power remained in the massive dynamos, to bring Titanic to life for just a few more minutes.
__
Water tore through unflooded corridors, shattering doors into splinters and crushing any pony caught in it. Third-Class passengers still trapped by a gate had no chance. The gate was torn apart, but so were they.
__
Rose struggled to climb the stairs as they tilted increasingly steeper. The chef, breath strong with alcohol Jack couldn’t identify, mumbled, “Sorry Miss,” and shoved his muzzle square into Rose’s backside, lifting her on his head, up to the top of the stairs. Still in shock from everything else, Rose barely noticed the unwelcome act, and Jack didn’t even hear it, as focused as he was on making it to the rail, Rose’s hoof wrapped in his tail.
Hundreds of ponies dove overboard as the ship tilted more severely. The bronze propellers, no longer near the water, gleamed like Celestia’s crown. One stallion slipped off the rail, and before he could be caught, slammed head-first into the port propeller, ringing it like a giant bell before sliding off in a smear of saltwater and blood.
Jack dug his hooves into the deck to keep climbing as the angle increased, though not steep it was certainly more than most had ever climbed on a smooth surface. They passed a preacher and his congregation, hundreds of ponies, clinging to every fixed object on deck, and to each-other.
Glancing up at the moon, Jack smiled, “C’mon Rose, we can’t expect Luna to do all the work for us!”
A stallion slid past, slamming into the congregation, who stopped him and settled him into a position on the rising deck. They arrived at the railing, and Jack wrapped a wing around the rail, pulling Rose up to it, and wedging her in beside him, “Hey, look,” he pointed up at the flag, now hanging over the deck, the same flagpole she had scrambled for when she had slipped…was it really only two days ago? “This is where we met, Rose.”
The pastor’s voice rose above the screams, empowered, though not by magic. He was a Pegasus. Emotion crackled through his words, “…And I saw new Heavens and a new Equestria. The former Heavens and the former Equestria had passed away and the sea was no longer.” The lights went out, though flares still flew into the sky.
Jack muttered, “Long as it waits to disappear until we aren’t on it.”
“I also saw a beautiful new Jerusalem, the holy city coming down out of Heaven, from Faust, beautiful as a bride prepared to meet her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne ring out ‘this is Faust’s dwelling among ponies. She shall dwell with them and they shall be her ponies, and She shall be their Goddess who is always with them.”
Rose glanced around. With the exception of the pastor, faces showed terror. The Pegasus didn’t even flinch as the deck’s incline forced him to wrap a wing around the nearby capstan for support. His congregation hung from his hoof as he continued speaking, “She shall wipe every tear from every eye. And there shall be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the former world has passed away.”
__
The Pegasus filly cleared the end of the pipe, settling on it briefly as she realized just how far gone the ship actually was. The stacks were all in the water, her own, surrounded at the root by swirling waves. The front-most was missing entirely. And on a night like this, there wasn’t enough clouds in the sky to make life-rafts for even close to a fraction of the Pegasi, to reduce the load on the wooden boats.
__
Cupboards split open, spilling plates into the water and onto the floor.
__
A piano slid past Shipsmith, who placed a rear-hoof back slightly further than was proper to maintain his balance. The clock continued to tick in the firelight. He was alone in the dark, waiting for the chimney to submerge and begin flooding. His right fore-hoof gently caressed the side of the fireplace, the warm brick, “I am sorry, truly. Celestia, give me into the care of your sister. Faust knows she has a place set aside for this.”
__
Passengers slid down the tilted decks, losing their grip on the slippery wood as the bow sank deeper.
__
More ponies fell from the rails, Griffons, Pegasi too tired to fly, still they tried. Another hit the middle propeller with the dull thump that only a Griffon could have made, the bell echoing louder than the cracking of bone.
__
Truth looked at the sinking ship, terrified, even as Mossy insisted on trying to get closer, to rescue more ponies. The ship, supposed to be unsinkable, standing there, backdrop of stars, completely dark, but for a few hoof-held lights.
“Faust above,” Mossy Brown gasped, and stopped breathing for a moment, frozen at the spectacle. Something that could literally not be put in proportion against the endless backdrops.
__
Pipes burst around him, the abrupt shift from steam-heat to icy cold cracking them like twigs. Machinery threatened to pull loose from overstressed bolts that were never meant to handle inclines like this. Water sprayed across the breaker panel. Chief Bell howled as the cold water struck him, but jerked the breakers back into position anyway. The room suddenly became lit up again as lightning arced between something. Beneath the salty waves, the dynamos roared, churning water to a boil as it sizzled off glowing red coils. Huge flywheels kept spinning, casting boiling water away even as they threatened to fragment under the stress of freezing in boiling water. “NOT YET!” The rest of his half-chewed mouthful fell to the water, but he didn’t care, “I’M NOT DONE WITH MY JOB YET!”
__
Bright Island couldn’t even look at the ship. It hurt him to know that he had taken the cowardly path to escape, the sounds of the dying echoing back to him. There was a sudden, terrifying report like a cannon firing, but so much bigger.
__
The deck split open between the third and fourth funnel with the thundering echo of metal shearing.
Lovejoy, a deck below, watched as the hull tore open. The maw widened before him, exposing the bowels of the ship, tearing apart like the booming of artillery. Stay cables tore loose, ripping ponies into the crevasse. Lovejoy dropped to his knees, tears pouring from his eyes, “Celestia forgive me.”
__
Chief Bell let loose a scream of rage as the lights went out for good, and the deck levelled out briefly.
__
The water tore through the stern, sucking it down violently. Lovejoy didn’t have more than an instant to see the other side of the crevasse approaching before it collided with him, twisting and mangling the decks as it brought them back together violently.
__
Jack tucked his wings into the rail, rolling over Rose as the stern dropped, slamming into the water violently. Some of the ponies in the congregation began cheering. “We’re Saved!”
Jack looked at Rose, lying beneath him, and shook his head grimly. Nope. From his vantage point, he saw the bow protruding from the waves, several ponies atop it by chance. Not for long. It crept back beneath the waves, descending rapidly. The weight began to pull on the strained keel, dragging the stern upwards once more. Rose clung to Jack as the angle increased further. The preacher held on, flapping his wings against gravity in an effort to survive. More hooves started to lose grip. Griffons, weighted down by jewelry, fell, crashing into Pegasi flapping mist dampened wings. Bodies hit the water. Moose fell from a nearby family.
“Rose, move it!” He dug his teeth into her collar and lifted her up and over the railing, frozen as solid as the corpses below. As soon as she was on the top of the rail, he hissed in her face, “Come on, Rose! I’m here. I’ve got you!”
It was the very same rail he had leapt over just two nights earlier, saving her for a second time. As the ship reached vertical, Jack hovered away from the deck, hoof caressing Rose’s stocking encased one. Bodies continued to plummet as Jack tried desperately to look at Rose. He saw the large letters spelling out the name of the vessel, in brilliant white, reflecting the moon. Rose, less composed than the wandering artist, stared down through the rail at the chilly black water bubbling below them.
At their side, clinging to the railing, sat the baker they had run into earlier. He still had that bottle in hoof, “Helluva night, eh?”
The ship started dropping straight down, dragging Jack along for the ride, his hoof refusing to release its grip on Rose, but his wings refusing to carry the extra weight, “Take a deep breath and hold it right before we go into the water,” his voice sped up, trying to beat the ship, “The ship will suck us down. Kick for the surface and keep kicking. Don’t let go of my hoof. We’re gonna make it Rose,” he smiled at her, “Trust me.”
Her already naturally wide eyes grew wider as she stared at the approaching salt-water. She squeezed his hoof tightly, and grabbed his mane in her magic, “I trust you.”
The deck below dissipated into blackness, fading away faster and faster. The boiling surface hit Jack, ripping at his wings, but he refused to let go. Everything went dark, cold, painful. Still, he refused to fail now.
Flapping his wings, Jack made his way to the surface, hugging Rose to his chest.
__
Chief Engineer Bell picked up his soggy sandwich as the water rushed up into the room, “Buck you too, Celestia.” The pressure ruptured his already blind eyes, tore his eardrums apart, then crushed him into the bulkhead as it burst under the pressure of the water outside.
__
The Pegasus filly from the engine room burst out into the water, shooting for the surface as fast as she could, and immediately launching herself into the sky. It was cold, she was wet, and there weren’t enough clouds around to form a proper platform. Still, she looked around, shivering to keep warm as she fought her way to one of the lifeboats that were returning to pick up any more survivors. Or, count the bodies.
__
Jack burst through the surface, dragging Rose up, just long enough to catch a breath before they were forced beneath the water by panicked ponies and waterlogged Griffons. One Earth Pony stallion pushed Rose under as he tried to climb on top of her. Jack, still holding her hoof, was twisted around, and snap-kicked the stallion in the jaw, knocking him away, “Swim, Rose! Swim!”
Her strokes are less effective than his, even as his wings formed a thin sheen of bloody ice that cracked and sliced at his leathery wing surfaces, then froze once more. He can go higher, maybe find a cloud, like he could see several Pegasi doing. But…He can’t let go of Rose, not for one second. He searched about for something to get her out of the water. A lifeboat maybe. A door? A pile of bodies in life-jackets? Back to the door. No, it was too submerged. The bodies…Gross…He muttered, “Luna, forgive me…” and grabbed at Rose’s dress in his teeth, mumbling through the cloth, “Keep swimming, keep moving…Come on, you can do it.”
Wailing surrounded them, screams, moans, a chorus of the dead and dying. He half expected to see a gate to Tartarus opening, but no…Nothing like that. Blackness as far as he could see. Glancing up, he noticed that the moon was obscured. Clouds, too high for him to reach. Too high for any of them to reach in their half-frozen state. Still, in the darkness, he found solace. A warm rain might well save them, but a cold rain would certainly doom them.
__
Mossy Brown stretched out a hoof and gently touched one of the bodies in the water, turning it around. Truth gasped as she saw the icy rictus splitting the stallion’s muzzle in half. Mossy placed her other hoof on Truth’s shoulder, “Another dead. Sweet Celestia…”
__
The tiny amount of icy fog the filly had managed to gather was not enough. She was lying across it like it was a chin-up bar, fore-hooves down at her rear ankles, gripping them securely to keep from slipping as she hung there like a storm-cloud, black with soot and oil, just barely out of reach.
__
“Rose, see that mound there?”
She whimpered below him, not really wanting to look around at all the frozen and freezing bodies.
“Rose, open your eyes. I found something. It’s a little cold.”
She refused, but stretched out to touch it with a hoof. It gave a little, but she was able to get both hooves on it, and clamber out of the water. It wasn’t quite tall enough. Her hooves were still touching, and she could feel the chilly water freezing in her stockings, splashing against her fetlocks.
Rose slowly opened her eyes, and screamed. A few hoof-lengths before her, a corpse stared at her, his beady eyes crystalized in pain. Jack lowered his hooves over her eyes and slowly started to lower himself onto the pile, “JACK! THERE’S A DEAD GRIFFON STARING AT ME!”
“I know, Rose. I know,” he stopped as the pile wobbled. It wasn’t stable enough for two. He glanced at the dark sky, a sarcastic smile on his face, and whispered, “Rose, hang on. I’ll be right back.” He darted upwards, screaming at the top of his lungs, “DON’T YOU DARE LET THAT RAIN GO, LUNA!”
She didn’t listen. Not this time. The icy rain followed him down as he crashed onto the mound of bodies, spreading his hooves as far as possible. He shuddered as the icy water soaked into his hooves, and as the tiny freezing missiles from the sky struck his already bloodied and frozen wings. Not a sound. He had said his piece. Now, it was his job to keep Rose safe. He glanced down beneath the canopy of his wings. Rose had curled up, brought her hooves to her chest in a combination of fear and cold.
__
Kale stood tall atop his overturned boat, swinging an oar like a rapier, floating in his magic, “Stay back! I’m telling you, keep off!”
A slightly familiar face reached the side, a Griffon, Quartermaster Rote, soaked to the bone, but still paddling strong in his heavy coat. “Cease your prattling, chick. And put that oar down before you hurt yourself.” An Earth Pony stallion got too close, and Kale cracked his skull with the oar. Rote leapt from the water, soaked wings still far more than powerful enough to lift him onto the boat, where he grabbed the oar in his claw, “SIT DOWN!” He tore the oar from Kale’s grasp and violently shoved the Unicorn down onto the curved belly of the boat and turned to the other passengers, “Carefully. Calm yourselves. We will be able to save more if the boat is the correct way up,” his eyes panned across the assembled bodies, some living, some not, looking for Pegasi, who would be given slightly wider areas, allowing for their wings to spread out in the water.
__
The filly floated through the cold rain, shaking it off as best as she could. Those down in the water already would be powerless to stop it, as it crystalized on their bodies, formed into sheets of ice that drew away their body-heat, sapped their strength.
“Please, Celestia, bring the sun back soon…” She had no way of knowing when the sun would rise, or if it would.
__
“Come on Rose, just stay there, I’ll keep you warm until the boats come back. Just a little longer now, they had to row away to get away from the suction and now they’ll be rowing back.” A whistle sounded out, echoing across the ocean as a Unicorn forced a wind spell through his whistle, saving his voice for shouting. A downward glance told Jack that Rose was freezing, even beneath his body. Her pale fur had gone whiter, her lips were beginning to blue. She shivered against him, and he crouched lower on the pile of bodies, ignoring the searing pain as the layer of ice on his back tore into his skin, and tore off fur. He needed to keep her warm, and he needed to keep the pile stable.
“Thank the Princess for you, Jack,” her words worked their way between her chattering teeth, struggling to reach his ears.
Nearby, the sounds of more ponies called out, screaming for help, trying to draw the attention of the boats.
__
“They’ll pull us right down, they will,” a stallion in Mossy Brown’s boat shouted, as he pushed the water-bound ponies back with his oar.
Mossy, on the other hoof, listened to the cries for help, and tore the oar from the stallion’s hoof, “Aw, Knock I’ off. Yer scarin’ me. C’mon fillies, grab yer oars. Let’s go!” None of the mares so much as flinched, “Well, come on!” They wouldn’t meet her eyes, staring instead at the linings of their coats and scarves, “I don’t understand the bushel a’ you. What’s the matter with ya? It’s yer stallions back there! We got plenty a’ room fer more!”
The stallion took his oar back, “If you don’t shut that hole in yer face, there’ll be one less in this boat!”
Truth focused specifically on a small ice crystal on her coat, shutting out everything else.
__
One of the fire-stallions glanced around at his boat, “We should do something.”
A noble Pegasus shot him a dirty look, “It’s out of the question.” The crew settled back into their seats, huddling guiltily, holding out hope that the sound would stop soon.
__
The rain terminated, and Jack raised his head with a glass-like crackling as the ice across his mane shattered, slicing the long strands apart. The water had become a glassy mirror, reflecting the stars and the moon. It was now that Jack started to realize why Luna had let loose with the rain. It had saturated the corpses, submerged those not wearing life-jackets. There were fewer bodies, though still a lot. And the pile had sunken further. Jack leapt off, cracking the ice on his wings as he slipped into the water, allowing Rose to float higher above the water, “Hey, Rose?”
“It’s too quiet.”
“I know. They’re just getting the boats organized,” Rose stared over Jack’s head, she knew the truth, that the boats weren’t coming. The nobility wouldn’t let them. She understood Jack’s words as the sentiment that they were meant as. “I don’t know about you, Rose, but I intend to write the White Star Line a Very Strongly Worded Letter about all of this.” Rose laughed weakly at Jack’s words. They were going to die.
“I love you Jack.”
His hoof touched hers, “No, Rose. Don’t say your goodbyes yet Rose. Don’t you give up. Don’t you dare.”
“I’m so cold…”
Jack ground his teeth, “You’re going to get out of this…You’re going to go on and you’re going to make foals, and watch them grow, and, and you’ll die an old mare, warm in your bed. Not here. Not in this cold. Luna still owes me that much. You understand how that works?”
“I can’t feel my horn…”
“Rose, listen to me. Listen, closely. Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me. It wasn’t luck. It wasn’t fate. Luna, help me out here! I was meant to be here, because it would get you there,” his hoof pointed in what he figured was the direction of New Yoke. He gasped at the cold, “Luna brought me to you, because she needed me here. And I’m thankful for it, Rose. I’m glad to be here.” His eyes never wavered from hers even as he felt the chill crawling into his heart. “You must promise me. Do me this honor, Promise me that you will survive this…That you will never give up…No matter what happens…No matter how hopeless…Promise me now, and never let go of that promise.”
“I promise,” tears crept down her cheeks, freezing against her fur.
“Never let go.”
“I promise,” she looked into his eyes, “I will never let go, Jack. I’ll never let go.”
Sound faded away, only the dull slap of the water against the floating bodies breaking through the silence. Jack twisted his head back, his already shredded mane crackling with ice as he looked up to the moon, “Luna’s seen you make that promise. Luna’s gonna make you keep it.”
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Officer Low stood atop the gunwales of boat 14, beak chattering in the cold air as he spread his wins wide, intimidatingly so. Four other boats sat nearby, half empty, one slowly sinking lower as it was filled with mares being transferred carefully over. His talon gripped a hasty figure in a shawl, and hefted them across the gap between the two boats, glowering as the shawl shifted to reveal a stallion. Angrily, he dropped the stallion and turned to the crewponies on his boat, “Right then, Start rowing.”
The searchlight picked up a field of bodies and debris, a trail of flotsam. A violin, a wooden guardspony, a framed photograph, even a waterlogged camera. White life-belts held the waterlogged bodies in place as the carefully rowed into the mass of death. Most froze to death, only a few drowning in the churned water. Some looked like they were merely sleeping. Others stared lifelessly at the sky with frozen, glazed eyes.
The mass became too thick to get the oars between the bodies, and oars began to clunk woodenly against the frozen bodies. One stallion, Low almost considered taking the creature’s name for later reprimands, but it wasn’t worth it at this point, threw up over the side. “We waited too long,” his wings drooped down to the deck as he dipped in his seat. If anyone would be suffering for this failure, well as far as he knew, he was the last officer alive.
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Rose stared unseeing at Jack’s pale, ice dusted muzzle. He stared back. Neither moved, hooves locked together. Above, the clouds floated, chilling above, without any remorse. Pegasi that had managed to get to the clouds were beginning to drop, the cold air becoming too much for them, as the clouds dissipated. She mumbled, half-delirious, “Come, Josephine, in my fly…” her voice stopped for a moment, her frost addled brain struggling to find the words, “My flying machine…”
She paused as she saw a silhouette of a boat. Stallions rowing so slow she could see the droplets of syrupy water dripping from them individually. Voices echoed out, distorted, and slow. The light flickered across her, and she jerked, ripping her mane where it had frozen to the pile of bodies. The bpat was moving away. They didn’t see her. She poked at Jack, “Jack.” No reaction. She waved her hoof slowly before his untracking eyes. His frost-coated muzzle made him look like he was only sleeping. She hoped that was true. “Oh, Jack…”
She felt her Self slipping away, her will to live, her spirit. The boat was ever further with every breath. Rose watched them leave. She closed her eyes, knowing that there was no point in trying. No reason to live. She couldn’t make it anyway. Her muzzle dropped, slapping wetly against Jack’s shoulder.
__
__
A little, ice dusted Pegasus dropped from her cloud ring and landed with a splash, near the boat, but far enough away that she didn’t know if they would spot her. No life-belt, and her grimy clothes barely stood out in the dark water. She screamed into the cold water.
A talon gripped her collar, and she started struggling, fighting it, “NO! I’m not ready to die! Lemme go you stupid bird!”
Her fighting stopped as she was brought up in front of a pair of hawkish eyes that she recognized. The Quartermaster was a face most of the crew had encountered at some point or another. She stopped struggling as his beak turned up in a smile, “Stupid bird am I?”
“N..Not you. That Valkyrie, coming to take me aw…” she noticed that the talon holding her up was attached to the Quartermaster, “Ay…Oh. Thank you, sir.”
“Jack?” He didn’t move. Not a flinch. She raised her hoof, ignoring the crackling as her fetlock tore where it had frozen to the bodies. Her hoof hit Jack, square in the middle of the forehead. He slipped back, still unmoving, and sank into the water. She screamed, “JACK! NO!” He was gone.
She looked around now. Jack was gone. But what was it he had said, Luna would make sure she kept her promise…But Luna was in the moon. How? She dropped her head to the freezing pile with a fleshy thump, and started wriggling into it, the sharp edges of the ice cutting at her skin. She stared at the ice for a minute or three before she saw something coming up.
Jack’s face emerged from the water, his hoof took hers, “Come on Rose. You promised. The boat’s right there. You can make it. Follow me.” He pulled her into the water, though she wasn’t sure how much of the work he was doing, and how much she was. She swam up to a floating Officer corpse and grabbed the Griffon’s whistle. It shrieked in the cold air, and she cheered to herself, looking around for Jack, but he was gone. No matter. He was nearby. He would be rescued too.
She blew on the whistle again.
__
Officer Lowe turned the boat at the shrieking whistle, “Row that way! Pull!” The boat arrived to a chilled, pale Unicorn mare blowing on the whistle still around his superior officer’s frozen neck. He reached down with his talon and dragged her up into the boat, away from the whistle.
“Find…Jack…” she mumbled as she passed into unconsciousness beneath Lowe’s coat and several blankets.
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”Fifteen hundred ponies went into the sea when Titanic sank from under us. There were twenty boats floating nearby. Only one came back. One. Six were saved from the water, myself included. Six out fifteen hundred.” Rose sounded like she was regretting being saved. The salvage crew stared at her in awe. The reality of what happened hit them for the first time since they had heard the story. Now, they felt like grave robbers.
Steep Dive was the first to speak, “Did they save Jack?” Nothing about the diamond. Even Rock Heart didn’t care.
“Seven hundred of us waited there, sitting in the boats, expecting to die. We hoped to live, certainly. But we were uncertain, except for a few Pegasi who had no doubts in their minds that they wouldn’t. We waited for hours for any sort of answer. Good or bad.
__
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Island stared at where the ship had gone down, the waves still trembling in that peculiar round way a pond did when a stone fell in it.
__
Kale sipped nervously from a hip flask offered to him by a black-faced stoker. The giant of an Earth Pony smiled.
__
Truth huddled into her coat, beneath Mossy Brown’s firm arm.
__
Rose slept, and dreamed. Dreamed of Jack, of Luna, of Thestrals and Unicorns.
__
A Pegasus sitting on one of the ‘life-clouds’ they had pulled down noticed the rescue ship first, and leapt up, shouting.
__
Officer Lowe lit a green flare and tossed it up to the leaping Pegasus, staining the cloud a smoggy green.
__
The Carpathian floated calmly between the icebergs, Pegasi and Thestrals from the crew and passengers that had offered to help flapped around, scooping up one or two survivors at a time from the less seaworthy boats as others were drawn up to the gang-way doors.
Survivors found each-other, wept in each-other’s arms, survived.
Rose found herself slipping onto the deck wrapped in warm blankets.
Bright Island was no longer fitting of his namesake. His eyes were dark, both with exhaustion and sorrow. He passed a row of survivors, trying to avoid their harsh gazes. It wasn’t right, they were saying with their eyes, that he survived when so many of them didn’t. More than once the officers escorting him had to catch him, to stop him from hurling himself off the side.
__
Kale searched around the deck where the survivors had been situated for the time being. One of them had to be Rose. He knew it, deep in his heart. He had to apologize. He approached where the Steerage passengers had been settled in, and was stopped by a steward from the Carpathian, “Sir, you won’t find any of your people there,” the steward tapped Kale’s tuxedo, “That’s all Steerage.”
The glare Kale gave the stallion made him lurch back and flee. It wasn’t that it had any particular power behind it. Kale was too tired for that. It was more that his eyes were ringed in black, exhaustion and fear wearing on his face as harshly as the weather, so deep that he could be mistaken for a corpse.
He continued to look through the Steerage passengers, maybe he could find her. Beneath one of those blankets, hiding behind a shawl…
He finally found the pale golden Unicorn, sipping tea. He sat on his haunches before her, eyes still dark, but with some glimmer of life left. She looked like a refugee. He looked like a corpse. Fitting for how he felt. His hoof brushed her splintered mane away from her muzzle, “Rose.”
“Yes, I lived. How awkward for you,” there was no malice in her voice, though rightly, there should have been nothing but.
“Rose, your mother…”
He was cut off by her hoof reaching up and touching his muzzle so gently he would have sworn it hadn’t touched at all. He still recoiled like he had been slapped.
“Please, Kale. Don’t talk. Just listen. We will make a deal, here, signed in the blood of the dead. From the moment you stand up, I don’t exist for you, and you don’t exist to me. You will never see me again, nor will you attempt to find me. In return, I will say nothing. What happened last night will never be revealed. In turn, you get to keep your carefully crafted honor,” her last words were just as soft as the first, but it felt like she had spat in his face again. His Honor, not like it had any meaning to him now.
“Is this in any way unclear?”
Kale paused, thought it over, reasoned that a real lawyer would have been able to find some loophole, then stopped. It wasn’t worth it. “Your mother will weep at your grave. I will not.”
“I didn’t expect you to,” her hoof met his for a moment, then he pulled away and stood, walking to the railing.
“Rose, before I walk away for good, know this. You are more precious to me than any jewel. I cannot promise to treat you as though you no longer exist,” he coughed, and pulled his tuxedo vest off, laying it carefully on the deck, folded like he intended to pack it in a suitcase. His shirt followed, revealing his frost-faded fur. “I cannot go back to them, to the honor I no longer have. It is time to say goodbye to Kale Hockley. Goodbye Rose, and may we meet again under different stars.” His hooves clomped against the deck as he trotted away.
That was the last time I ever saw him. As Kale anyways. He changed his name, took up one from another Third Class family that didn’t make it. I never knew he was such a magnificent actor. He married some mare, got his millions. The Crash of 28 killed him though. I heard he put a pistol in his mouth. His foals fought over what was left like hyenas or so I read.
A steward trotted up to Rose and asked her for her name, she responded, clearly and without thinking, “Brilliant Rose Darkson.” After a moment, the steward looked at the paperwork in his magic, “Did you lose somepony?”
Rose quivered, and softly her voice crept out, “I lost everypony.” No tears. Now was not the time. Jack’s soft hoof on her back kept her from breaking.
__
The Carpathian eased into New Yoke Harbor, slipping past the Statue of Liberty. It was beautiful. A media circus greeted the ship at the dock. Immigration officers checked each as they left the ship. Rose gave her new name, stronger this time. She saw Kale nearby, giving his own false name. She pushed into the crowd and vanished.
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“Can you exchange one life for another? A Caterpillar turns into a Butterfly. If a mindless insect can do it, why couldn’t I? Was it any more unimaginable than the sinking of the Titanic.”
“We never found anything on Jack. There’s no record of him at all,” Steep Dive muttered to himself, half directing it at Rose.
She smiled, “Of course not. There wouldn’t be, would there? I’ve never spoken of him to anypony else, up until now. Not even Fuzzy. Not even her grandfather,” she turned to Rock Heart, “But now you know there was a stallion named Jack Darkson, and that he saved me. In every way that a pony can be saved.” Her eyes closed softly, “I don’t even have a picture of him. He exists now, only in my memory. Mostly.”
A feather-light touch on her shoulder, where none of the other occupants of the room could reach, brought her tears out, “There you are, colts. The whole story.”
__
The wrap-up party filled the ship with cheery music, despite the lack of success. Enough had been found that the diamond was no longer the important part. Rock Heart didn’t join in though, standing with his forehooves over the railing, staring at the obsidian surface.
Fuzzy trotted up to him, carrying a pair of beers in her magic, “I’m sorry.”
Rock looked at her, a pause in his monotonous staring, “We were pissin’ in the wind the whole time. I doubt there even was a diamond,” his eyes suddenly focused past Fuzzy’s head, “Oh Shit!”
__
Rose stopped her nightly walk at the back of the ship, standing at the same part of the railing where she had met Jack on the Titanic so many years before. Jack stood at her side, as he always had. Her nightgown fluttered in the breeze, a resounding contrast to Jack’s dirty tunic, still stuck to his fur in that tailored way that had made her heart flutter.
He helped her stretch up over the rail, holding his hooves to her sides for balance as she leaned out. “I kept my promise, Jack.”
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Steep Dive was the first to arrive, hearing the shout and snapping to attention in the way that only a High-cloud Pegasus could. It had taken him just under half a second to go from swinging the young orange Pegasus filly around to hooves touching down on the railing, wings stretched out. Then his brain caught up.
Rose lurched back from the railing, and something fell to the deck, attached to her hoof by a thin chain. The Heart of the Ocean.
“You had it the entire time?” Rock Heart stared at the gleaming stone. Rose smiled back.
“You know, the hardest part about starting out so poor, was being so incredibly rich. But every time I thought of selling it, it reminded me of Kale. It reminded me how he had given up his riches, how he intended to earn his honor back without his family money. I got by without his help.” The stone floated into the air, and out over the water. Dive tensed, his rescue instinct ready to dive after the falling stone. He had time to pull up.
“Don’t drop it, Rose!”
Dive flicked his wings, telling the others he could catch it. Distract her.”
Heart shook his head at his partner, “Look, Rose, I…I don’t really know what to say to a mare who tried to jump off the Titanic when it wasn’t sinking, and back onto it when it was…We’re not dealing with logic here, I know that…but please…Think about this a second.”
“I have. I came all this way so that this Thing could go back where it belongs.” The stone glittered in the light. Rock Heart crept closer, hooves barely moving. His horn glowed softly as he prepared to grab the stone the instant it left her grasp.
“Let me just hold it in my hoof, Rose. Please. Just once.” He moved closer, almost touching her. To everypony’s surprise, she actually brought the stone forward and set it in his upraised hoof. It fit perfectly there. It was exactly how he imagined it. It was perfect. “Goddess…” His eyes climbed, meeting Rose’s own. Her eyes seemed so much deeper, more wise now than ever before.
“You’ve been looking for treasure in the wrong place. Only life is priceless, and making each day count.”
His hoof relaxed, falling away from the levitating stone. His eyes never left Rose’s, even as she gave an impish little grin, the same one he had seen in the portrait. The diamond shot away, skipping across the dark surface twice before sinking into the ocean and disappearing forever.
Steep Dive hadn’t even had the chance to stop himself from leaping after it. He had pulled up just in time to hit the water with his outstretched hoof moments too late. “Lady, that sucked.”
Rock Heart stared, his face trying to decide what reaction was appropriate. He settled on laughter, rolling over on his back, legs kicking in the air. All of that, just to watch it drop. He would never see that stone again, even if he spent months scouring the sea floor for the blue glint.
Inside a two and a half meter sphere, three large ponies sat in a pile. All around them, consoles crammed with equipment illuminated their faces. The pilot, Anatole, a massive Russian , hunched over the controls, his massive Russian head resting between his hooves. “Ах, под сосною, под зеленою, Спать положите вы меня! Ай-люли, люли, ай-люли, люли, Спать положите вы меня.,” his voice rang out softly in the sphere.
Beside him, drooling on the CO2 scrubber, sat a thin brown unicorn with a gray mane hanging over his eyes. Rock Heart was his name, and this was going to be his eighth salvage operation, with seven ships already found under his name. He stirred quietly, ear flicking at the familiar Russian singing.
Lying across both of them was a red maned yellow Pegasus named Steep Dive. He had both wings stretched out as far as they would go, the tips of his broad wingspan curling underneath both of the other ponies in the sphere. Sitting on the console in front of him was a pile of blue paper, the schematics of the Titanic.
With a flick of his hoof, Anatole adjusted the balance of the submersible, re-centering the balance as it approached the ground below.
__
The submersible, from outside a short cylinder, dipped down and touched the soft mud with a gentle kiss that threw up small clouds of debris.
Inside, Rock lurched awake, almost kicking Steep Dive in the muzzle, “Wha!”
“We are here,” Anatole stopped singing and started peering through the tiny port-hole at the front, only occasionally glancing at his array of sensors.
Off to one side sat a second submersible, a large, brilliantly visible red ‘2’ painted on the otherwise white surface.
“Mir one to Mir two, how was the drop?” Rock smiled as he waited for the return signal, crawling through the water. Even as close as they were, radio-waves were slow underwater, and had to be boosted in power, so they really only could speak if they were within arm’s reach.
“Long. Time to search. Meet back in four hours?”
“Affirmative,” Rock nodded to himself, making a note.
__
Five minutes later, the submersible, Mir one, buzzed along, Anatole peering through the port-hole as Dive watched the sonar and the mud through his own port-hole. “A little to port, I see it. Eighteen meters. Fifteen. Thirteen. Slow down, we’re almost there.”
“I don’t see it.”
The floodlights suddenly stopped illuminating mud, instead crawling up a towering plane of rusting metal. Anatole threw the thrusters into reverse, the force knocking Rock over onto his side.
“There she is.”
The submarine began to rise off the mud, lights climbing up the massive panel. As it reached the top, the submersible started crawling along the railing, until it came to a point at the bow. Anatole turned Mir one and backed away, revealing the knife edge of the ship, illuminated by the powerful floodlights. Below, just barely visible in the light of the submersible, the bow sank into the mud, pushing it aside like black waves, bringing images to the three’s minds of how the magnificent vessel must have looked eighty-four years ago. It was beautiful, and intact, except for the moss-like growths of rust hanging from every metal surface.
Rock brushed a hoof across his eye, wiping away a tear, “It still gets me, right here,” he tapped his chest.
Anatole smiled, “Is just guilt. For stealing from the dead.”
Rock picked up a camera from a small shelf near the top and switched it on, turning it towards himself, “Thanks, Brother, Work with me here.”
He smiled at the camera, checking his reflection in the lens before pressing the record button, “It still gets me every time… to see this sad ruin of a great ship. Just sitting here, rusting away, where she landed at two thirty in the morning, April fifteenth, Nine-Twelve of the reign of Celestia, after a long fall from the world above.”
Anatole rolled his eyes, “Драма есть кровать куин-сайз.”
Dive shook his head, “Boss, you’re full of shit.”
Anatole started the submarine forward again, letting Rock aim the camera through the porthole beside him, across the immense forecastle, anchor chains still laid out in two neat rows, bronze windlasses gleaming through the rust.
Mir two was just barely visible creeping along the side, around the massive anchor. “Geez, it’s like a bug,” Dive pointed at the eight meter submersible as it crept past the railing and dove out of sight.
“Here we are again, on the deck of the Titanic, three kilometers down. Four hundred and twenty-two kilograms per square centimeter. Enough to crush this sub like an ant under a freight train if the hull fails. These windows are twenty centimeters thick, and if they go, it’s sayonara in two microseconds.”
The submersible settled gently onto the top of the boat-house, pointing Rock, and the camera at the officers quarters.
Rock smiled, “Right, now let’s get to work,” he set the camera down and switched it off, pulling the tape out and sliding it into a recorder set into the panel above him.
Dive nodded and stuck his head into a pair of goggles with screens mounted on them before wrapping his wingtips around a pair of joysticks and settling into a seated position, using Anatole’s back as a chair.
“Alright Snoopy, see what you see,” Dive pushed forward on both sticks.
Rock tapped the record button, watching as the light turned red, “Recording.”
__
Snoopy, a bright red boxy device, puttered out from a wire cage in the belly of the submersible, towing a green tether behind it. Two cameras transmitted images to Steep Dive, but only one was actually being recorded. Slowly it crawled up to the edge of a large cavity, the Grand Staircase, or where it used to be. Dive counted off the decks as it descended, and pushed forward into the First Class Reception Room. Dive breathed a soft, “Beautiful…” as the cameras swept across ornately carved woodwork, somehow still not eaten by parasites. The elegant lines were only broken up by the trails of rust hanging from every metal surface, blurring the image into a vast underwater grotto before it melted back into the floating mansion it was.
A piano, mashed against a wall, yet still apparently intact. Snoopy moved closer, and with a touch that wouldn’t even ruffle a feather, Dive pressed a gripper against the nearest key. The ivory disintegrated under the touch, and Dive swore.
He turned Snoopy away from the piano and moved away, dexterously ducking under a chandelier that gleamed in the floodlights, lit up once again. Along the floor, a bottle of champagne, still sealed with wax; a few plates, some still intact; a high-heeled shoe; a porcelain doll-head. Snoopy dipped down and very gently grabbed the bottle by the neck, lifting it from the sediment. Three ponies held their breath as Dive placed the bottle gently in the carrying rack beneath the boxy ROV. It didn’t break, and all three let out deep sighs.
The next hallway stretched out, much more intact than the last, some doors even still hanging on their hinges, ornate moulding, a lamp sconce, hints of the grandeur. Stopping to glance down at the schematics in his lap, Dive ran a hoof along the lines before turning his attention back to the ROV, “I’m at the door. Stateroom B-fifty-two. The door is still intact,” his voice dropped low enough that the microphone couldn’t pick it up, “Sweet Celestia, let the door be unlocked.”
The gripped gently touched the brass knob, knocking off a string of rust that dissipated into floating dust. The knob, amazingly, was still intact. The door, not so much. As soon as he twisted the knob, the heavy brass structure tore loose and fell, almost dragging the ROV down with it as it carved a path through the rotten wood door and hit the deck with a gooey clang. “Guess not, Sorry.” He pushed the claw into the door and swept it across, cutting the rotten wood before climbing to cleave a vertical groove, then another horizontal one removed a chunk of wood-rot that rather amusingly stayed in shape as it was pushed out of the door, at least for a few moments before it too disintegrated into dust.
Dive gritted his teeth as the ROV jerked, “Something’s got me. Gotta back out and try again.”
The ROV backed slowly out of the hole, and followed back along the hallway until he saw the problem. The tether had become entangled on the chandelier. The gripper gently pinched the line and pulled it off the hooked brass, careful not to snag it on any rusted sharp edges. Pulling the line down to the deck, he paid it out slowly, ensuring that there were no knots. Finally, he was able to continue, and ran back to the stateroom. “I’m good,” he glanced at Rock, who pushed the record button again as the ROV poked back into the room. A quick glance showed that the cable was still loose as he crept into the sitting room.
“I’m in the sitting room, heading towards Bedroom B fifty-two.”
“Stay off the floor. Don’t really feel like seeing how far through there Snoopy can get before clogging.”
“Aye, Aye Bossman,” Dive saluted with his free hoof as he pushed Snoopy past the antique fireplace. There were still logs in it, probably as moldy as the door. On the opposite side, the cameras panned over a divan and a writing desk. A quick check of the floor showed that an ink-pot had overturned on the deck, though any stains it might have made rotted away with the carpet.
The door to the bedroom was narrower, and the sides of Snoopy’s casing brushed against it, tearing out chunks of wood that burst into dust and rust, “Crossing the room. Check out the bed,” he pointed the cameras at the canopy bed. It was huge, but that wasn’t the part he was pointing out. Tiny bubbles escaped from the edge of the flattened mattress, and Dive moved towards it, wary of the bubbles disrupting his flight path as he pressed the gripper through them. “Boss, can you run a check on the bubbles from here?”
The unicorn pressed his horn against the side of the sphere and focused, sending out a tendril of energy through the magically sensitive structure cable in the middle of the tether, routing through the many hundreds of meters of line, until he felt the ROV. Pushing his senses through that narrow band of energy was slightly more difficult, but it wasn’t the first time he had done something like this. He waved Dive closer to the bubbles, the cameras’ view filling with the blue-green glow of Unicorn magic as he poked at the bubbles. One exploded, then the entire mattress all of a sudden collapsed and a storm of bubbles roared up to the ceiling. Rock lurched back, banging his head on the instruments above him, “Oww…Bucking Clouds!”
Both of his teammates stared at him for a long moment, expecting an explanation, “It was filled with cloud magic. Damn mattress was a cloud sack. I burst the bubble, let out the magic.”
Dive smiled, “Sounds about right. Records said the First Class used cloud mattresses for added comfort,” he continued moving forward, over the bed, and up to the wardrobe against the wall. Carefully, he lifted a lamp out of the way, setting it aside. The ancient oil-lamp was probably useless now, so it could wait till later. The gripper closed around the wardrobe door, “If this doesn’t open, I’m just gonna rip it off.”
A quick affirmative from Rock gave him the go-ahead, and he tugged back. The door moved reluctantly, and bent, but didn’t disintegrate like the other doors. Probably a thicker material. Shifting his position, Dive pointed the cameras down, keeping a light on the settling dust as it revealed a black object. “Is that?”
“You see what I see?”
The glow of the light from the display lit up Rock’s broad smile, “Payday colts, Payday.”
The small steel safe sat there, glowing in the light from Snoopy’s back, beautifully intact.
Several blocks from the dock, the whistle echoed out, shaking the window of a un-down pub, crowded with dock-workers and crews of various ships. Just inside, a poker game was just wrapping up. Four stallions sat around the table, an Earth pony, a Thestral, A moose, and a Pegasus, all dressed in tattered vests and floppy hats.
The Thestral, Ratchet Jack Darkson, glanced at his friend, a dark furred Earth Pony named Fierce Honor. Across the table, the other two argued loudly in Swedish. Jack ran a wingtip through his long, unkempt brown mane, his hoof scratching at the gray fur on the bottom of his chin, “Hey, Honor, what do you think they’re arguing about?”
Fierce Honor smiled, “Those crisp tickets.”
“Hit me again Sven,” Jack took the card and slipped it into his hoof. Not even a flicker of expression from his face, or his wings. He had a great deal of skill at bluffing, and it was going to come to a head now, since he couldn’t lose anyway if he tried.
Honor refused a card, but slid another bit into the pile. The pile was huge, containing bits from several countries, topped by the crisp white tickets. The whistle howls out again. The final warning, “Moment of truth boys. Someponies life is about to change.”
All but Jack lower their cards to the table. “Alright, Honor’s got niente. Olaf, you’ve got squat. Sven, uh oh…Two pair. Hmm,” he turned to his friend, “Sorry Honor.”
Fierce Honor spluttered, “What sorry! What you got? You lose my money? Ma va fa'n culo testa di
cazzo—“
Jack smiled, “Sorry, you’re not gonna see your mama again for a long time…” He lets a full house hit the table with a loud slap, a mad grin crossing his face, “’Cause you’re goin’ to America! Full house boys!”
“Forca Madonna! Yeeaaaa!” Honor whooped with joy as the two across the table from them started bickering. Jack started raking the pile into his saddle-bags, tucking the tickets under his hat and securing the ratty fabric to his head.
“Sorry boys. Three of a kind and a pair. I’m high, and you’re dry, and,” he turned to his friend, “We’re going to…” Together the two chorused “AMERICA!”
Olaf raised his meaty hoof, moving forward like he was going to clock Jack, only to spin and instead deck Sven in the muzzle, sending the moose backwards through the window, his broad antlers taking the criss-crossed wooden frame with them. Not even bothering to get back up, Sven’s drooping face just fell further. Olaf didn’t even help him up, instead going into a tirade in Swedish, shouting at his cousin. Jack finished filling his saddle-bags, and Fierce Honor’s, before withdrawing the tickets from his hat with a flourish, kissing them, and leaping on his friend’s back, riding him around the pub like they had just won the lottery.
“We’re going home! To the land of the free and the home of the real hot-dogs! On the Titanic! We’re riding in high style now buddy. We’re practically Celestia-damned royalty, Ragazzo Mio!”
“You see? Is my destinio! Like I told you, I go to America! To be a millionaire!” He ran over to the pub-keeper, “Capito?? I go to America!”
“No mate,” the stallion behind the counter smiled back, “Titanic go to America. In five minutes,” he gestured out the window at the great ship, five blocks away.
Jack snapped to attention, diving for the pair of saddlebags on the floor by the table, “Shit! Come on Honor!” He swooped under his own bag, scooping the other up in his teeth as he secured the strap on his bags with his hooves, “Mmph Umph!”
He dropped the bag on Honor’s back and paused dramatically in the doorway, “It’s been grand, farewell!”
The two darted out the door, galloping as fast as Honor’s legs would take him. Jack flapped overhead, powerful strokes of his large wings propelling him forward in spite of the extra weight of the loot in his bags.
Carrying everything they owned, the two darted up the pier, right up to the back of the crowds. Security Pegasi floated over the crowds, obviously watching for anyone who might try to board without a ticket. Jack couldn’t see a path through the masses for his friend, Not that it meant much. He was plenty strong enough. He grabbed Honor under the arms and flapped hard, drawing both into the air as he floated quickly forward. Reaching the side of the massive vessel, Jack almost dropped his friend, “It’s incredible." To the two of them, it was truly a monster, a floating mansion. More wealth existed before their eyes than they had ever seen before in their combined lives, and doubtless would ever see again.
Honor urged Jack forward to the boarding ramp, where they set down and moved up to board at the rearmost gangway, Third Class E-Deck. The unicorn officer at the top was just removing the pins that held the gangway on as they arrived, preparing for the cast-off. It began to droop, supported by unicorns on shore as Jack started up it, waving the two tickets, “Wait! We’re passengers!”
The sprint had pushed him to his limit, and he let his tongue roll out of his mouth as he leaned on the railing of the gangplank.
“Have you been through the inspection queue?”
“Of course,” Jack bluffed happily, the words slipping across his flat teeth like truth, despite the blatant falsehood, “Anyway, we don’t have lice. We’re Americans.”
A glance at Honor, whose distinctive muzzle shape was not common to the northern Americas, brought pause to the stallion.
“Both of us.”
“Right then,” the officer sputtered as he pulled the gangway back into place, “Come aboard.”
He took the tickets and looked at them, scanning through the names on the two pieces of paper. A passenger manifest hung on the wall, glowing in his magic as he checked for the names on the tickets. “Gundersen. And…” He stared at the Thestral for a long moment, “Gundersen.”
“Come along Olaf,” Jack grabbed his friend’s shoulder and hoofed down the hall, speeding past ponies of all shapes and sizes, as well as a few Pegasi, Thestrals, a couple of Zebras, and even a few Minotaurs. Both came to rest several dozen strides down the corridor, grinning ear to ear, “We are the luckiest sons of bitches in the world!”
__
The mooring lines, as thick as a stallion’s barrel, fell into the water and a cheer rose from the pier. Seven powerful tugboats dragged on the other side of the ship, guiding it down the path, away from the quay.
__
The two darted through a door onto the aft well-deck. Quickly, Jack took to the air, pointing towards the stairs up to the poop deck as he shifted direction and shot out the side of the ship, redirecting smoothly onto the deck, where a couple rear hooves on the railing held him in place. Honor reached the railing a few moments later, to see Jack yelling and waving to the crowd below.
“You know somebody?”
“Of course not. That’s not the point!” Jack hardly paused in his wild gesturing, some of it potentially offensive, “Goodbye, Goodbye, I’ll miss you!”
Honor joined in, laughing as he called out excitedly, “Goodbye, I will never forget you! Farewell my friend!”
He almost cracked from his joyful reverie when he heard Jack holler out, “Goodbye, you tow-headed moose! Thanks for the tickets!”
A glance at the departing quay showed the Moose and Earth pony Sven and Olaf standing angrily, waving obscene gestures at the ship. Honor replied with his own laugh, “Ey! There’s foals watching this!”
__
The crowd of well-wishers waved heartily around the two offended ex-passengers as the massive walls of black metal rushed past, seeming to be moving impossibly slow, because its length made its speed still unable to draw the stern past the leading edge in a feasible time.
Before the ship, the last two tugs were dwarfed by the raw size of the great vessel. They would remain attached until it reached the end of the river, in order to keep it from plowing into the shore. The Equestrian Channel yawned before them. The waves crashed against the sides of the ship as it rolled onto the channel, shaking it softly as it was redirected into the appropriate path.
__
Jack and Honor returned to the interior, making their way down the corridor to the room number listed on their tickets. It was chaos, ponies arguing and shouting in numerous languages, or wandering the halls in confusion. Even a few couples trying to translate the signs through a phrase-book. Finally, they found their room. The white door was exactly like every other door, and it was only because of Jack’s need to float over everyone’s heads that had even allowed him to spot the brass number above the door. Not that everyone thought that was good, and he had a number of hooves tugging at his tail, trying to make him stop flapping and creating gusts in the hallway. He set down deftly, balancing on two hooves on Honor’s back, “Right, my friend. We are nearly there. A little further, one more door, And turn!”
The cubicle was painted a stark white with four bunks and exposed piping in the ceiling. Jack glanced in and made his way for a top bunk, right underneath a sweating pipe. The two Moose on the other side stared at them, “Where is Sven?”
Jack smiled as he sat down, head just missing the pipe, kicking his rear hooves just in front of Honor’s face, “Lost a card game,” he flashed the tickets, barely giving a second thought to why they didn’t act surprised that Olaf hadn’t made the ship.
Back at the staircase, she nearly dropped the axe, along with her jaw, at the increasing depth of water. Up to her neck now. She dove in, gasping at the cold, and barely managing to keep her head above water as she swam to the room she had left Jack in. The water was almost to the middle of the door, and she could feel it weighing her down as she re-entered the room.
Jack smiled at her return, from his perch up on top of the pipe. “Will this work?”
“Let’s find out,” Jack dropped into the water with a gasp and twisted around, stretching the cuff-chain across the pipe. The very short chain gave him very little actual span between his hooves, “Ah, Rose, perhaps you should take a couple practice swings.”
She nodded, and slammed the axe-heat into the cabinet.
“Now, try to hit that same spot again.”
This swing was off by a good two hoof-widths.
“Oh…Kay. The water brushed over Jack’s waist, “That’s probably enough practice.”
He stretched the chain as tight as he could manage, and closed his eyes. Fortunately, his wings were the source of his best art, not his hooves, and as a Pegasus, he didn’t necessarily need to walk ever. Still, he kinda liked having all four hooves intact.
“You can do it, Rose. Hit it as hard as you can, I trust you.”
His own eyes being closed, he didn’t see Rose close her own. The axe struck home with a loud clang, and jack felt icy water splash into his face. He opened his eyes and stared at the axe sunken into the pipe, “Nice work there, Hatchet.”
He dropped to all fours, wincing as his neck came in contact with the icy water. For a moment he stopped breathing, “Shit! Excuse my Prench. Ow Ow Ow, that is cold! Come on, let’s go!
Swimming out, Rose started for the stairs she had just come down. Only a hoof or two of the stairwell was visible. “Too deep. We gotta find another way out.”
__
Water splashed over the entire forward well deck, no longer just licking at it, the entire deck was beneath the water, taking the name-badge beneath with it. The raised foredeck was just barely reaching the surface of the water, the bowsprit poking into it. Another rocket exploded overhead, and Mossy Brown stopped rowing for a moment, “Now there’s somethin’ y’all don’t see every day.”
__
Steerage passengers moved along the broad main corridor of the ship, trying to get to an open gate as the water continued to flick at their ankles. A steward on the deck tried to keep them calm, only to crack himself when a door split open and splintered across the decking. He recovered quickly though, “Hey, you! You’ll have to pay for that, you know! That’s White Star Line property…”
“Shut up!” Jack and Rose hollered simultaneously. Quickly passing the dumbfounded steward, they met the steerage stragglers headed aft. It was completely blocked in places by large families carrying all their luggage.
One mare hoofed Rose a blanket, recognizing the uncontrollable shivering wracking the golden mare’s body, “Here, dearie. Cover up.”
The mare’s husband nodded and handed Jack a flask, which he looked at for a moment, “Huh?”
“Drink it. It’ll take some of the chill off.”
Rose snatched the bottle from Jack’s hoof and downed half of it in one gulp before handing it back to Jack, who took a sip and handed it back to the stallion as Rose blushed, “Sorry…”
As the two continued aft, Jack tried every gate and door along the way, to see if any stairs were open.
__
On the boat deck, with the forward portion submerged, the action had made a path to the aft. Now, the work became more frantic, more panicked as passengers and boats moved away. Kale pushed through the crowd, looking for Rose, in a hope that perhaps she would be there still. A mare shouted over the crowd, calling for a filly who might be lost already. A stallion hollered something Kale didn’t quite hear.
A mare grabbed Light-foot’s hoof just as he was about to launch another boat, “Will you hold the boat for just a moment? I have to run back to my room for something…”
Light-foot scowled and shoved the mare into the boat, “Boats don’t wait.”
Mr. Shipsmith approached him from behind and pushed on his shoulder, “Officer, why are these boats being launched half-full?”
The stallion stepped past and leaned his horn-light closer to a tangled fall, “Not now, Mr. Shipsmith.”
“There, look…Twenty or so, in a boat built for sixty-five. And I saw one with only twelve! Twelve!”
“Well,” Light-foot glanced at the boats in the water, “We were not sure of the weight.”
Shipsmith snorted, “Rubbish! They were tested with the weight of seventy Draft stallions. Now fill these boats, Mr. Light-foot. For Celestia’s sake, stallion!”
__
Kale spotted his loyal servant coming towards him, and moved to meet him half-way, “Not on the starboard.”
“We’re running out of time. And this strutting martinet,” Kale pointed to Lightfoot, “isn’t letting any stallions on at all.”
“The one on the other side is letting stallions on.”
“Then that’s our play. But we’ll still need some insurance,” Kale started looking around, heading towards the bow, “Come on!”
__
“Please, Ida, get into the boat.”
“No. We’ve been together for forty years, and where you go, I go. Don’t argue with me, Isador, you know it does no good.”
The stallion’s face fell, and he nodded, love and sorrow mixing on his face. There was no doubt in his mind he was not going to make it. Nor would she. They would be together, in the end.
Light-foot glanced at the couple, “Lower away!”
__
The bow railing sank beneath the waves, water swirling around the capstans and windlasses on the forecastle. Captain Smith looked down at the flooded well deck from the bridge. Two stallions galloped across the forecastle, the water there splashing around their hooves as they dove into the well-deck and made to swim for the rest of the ship.
Another rocket went up, cracking behind Smith and shrouding his face in the deep shadows granted by the brilliant light.
__
“Fierce Honor! Fi!” Honor turned to see Jack and Rose pushing through the crowd, and pushed back, embracing the soaked stallion. The two embraced like brothers.
“The boats are all leaving Jack!”
“We gotta get up there, or we’re gonna be gargling saltwater. Where’s Tommy?”
Honor pointed over the heads of the crowd on the stairwell. Tommy had his hooves mashed against the bars of the steel gate. It was opened just a hoofs-length and some mares and foals were squeezing through, “Sorry, mares only. No stallions. No stallions!”
Some terrified stallions, not quite understanding, rushed the gates. The crew shoved them back, pushing and hitting, even biting to make them back away, “Get back! Get back you lot!” He turned to the others, “Lock it!”
As the gate finished closing again, and was secured, one of the stewards, who had drawn a pistol, slowly lowered it.
Tommy batted himself against the gate, “Celestia above, stallion, there are foals down here! Let us up so we can have a chance!”
Now, the crew began to show fear. They let the situation get out of hand, and now have a mob on their hooves. Tommy gave up and flapped back down to Jack, Rose and Honor, “It’s hopeless that way.”
“Well, whatever we do,” Jack pointed towards the up-tilted aft, “We better do it fast.”
Honor turned to the family of moose, praying under his breath that they understand him this time, begging them to come with him, to follow him to safety. Unfortunately, her father refused to move. He refused to panic, to allow his family to go with this colt.
The young moose reached over and pulled Honor into a kiss, “Family…” She stepped back into the group, and Honor turned, sadly, to join Jack.
“I will never forget you, mi amore.”
__
Kale opened the door to his safe and pulled out the wads of bills in it, still wrapped in their bank sleeves. The diamond found its way to the pocket of his overcoat, “I make my own luck.”
Lovejoy nodded, tucking a pair of pistols into his belt, without a word, his face spoke volumes.
Kale grinned, and led the way back onto the deck, leaving the safe to swing shut on its own.
__
Jack, Rose, Honor, and Tommy pushed past groups of confused passengers, now totally lost, but certain of which way goes away from the water. Past a mother changing a diaper. Past a mare arguing heatedly with a stallion in Zebrican. Past a stallion kneeling on the floor, trying to comfort a mare. Past another stallion working on translating the signs with a small phrase-book.
The group finally came to another stairwell, and managed to climb two full decks before reaching a gate where several stallions are screaming at a scared steward.
“Ey! Go to the main stairwell, with everyone else. It’ll all get sorted out there.”
Jack scowled, then looked at Tommy, “Luna damn it all to Tartarus! You son of a bitch!”
He grabbed the end of a bench bolted to the landing and started pulling on it. Tommy and Honor pitched in, tugging violently on the structure until the bolts sheared, and the flooring tore up. Rose quickly figured out what all the street-worker slang they were hurling at each-other meant, and cleared a path up the stairs, using her magic to push and pull on coats, making standing in that path particularly uncomfortable.
“Move aside! Quickly, move aside!”
The bench made a path up the stairs and rammed into the gate, Tommy and Jack leading, Honor hammering it from behind. A second impact tore the gate loose, and knocked it over, nearly on top of the steward.
Rose stepped through, standing atop the overturned bench, “Now, if you have any intentions of keeping your pathetic job with the White Star Line, I suggest,” she glanced at the cowering steward, “Strongly, suggest, that you escort these good ponies to the boat deck, now.
Tone represented class, and class won out. The steward dumbly nodded and motioned for the ponies to follow him.
__
The ship was tilted far more severely now, with nothing above the water at the bow, save the foremast, yet the lights are still lit. Another rocket screamed into the sky.
__
Chief Engineer Bell shouted as he tried to get more stokers out of yet another flooding boiler room. Many refused, even the messengers, coal-faced and tired. Still they flew, ferrying messages from the rising water to the stern, as the telephone system perished beneath the constant short circuits.
A Pegasus filly landed on the platform in front of him, “Boiler room four is beginning to flood in. Three has been evacuated fully.”
Bell looked at the tired filly, sweat drops and sea-water leaving her almost Zebra-striped. A momentary pause, and he looked at his now cold dinner. An hour since the call for full-reverse, and it still lay untouched. He wasn’t hungry anymore. He pushed the plate to her,
“Eat a little. Keep your energy up. Celestia knows you’ll need it.”
The filly frowned at him, but took a bite of the sandwich before darting back towards the sinking bow, leaving the rest behind.
__
Captain Smith forced every bit of air he could through his whistle, calling for the boats to come back. Now that the deck was closer to the water, it was possible for them to bring some right up to the deck and load them there, “Come back! Come back to the ship!”
Rose let her eyes wander across carefully arranged pictures, photographs of her life, lived. Just the way she had promised Jack. In every one, she felt the presence of the Thestral who now stood at the doorway to her room. The artist nodded, “You’ve held on long enough Rose. There are ponies waiting to see you. To see me.”
She smiled, and settled into her bed, getting comfortable. With a snort, she muttered, “Bet Kale wants to sock you a good one.”
“I’ll let him. One free shot, for old times sake.”
Rose smiled and closed her eyes for the last time.
__
When she opened them again, she was standing on the grand staircase. It was intact again, not shot up, damaged, flooded, nothing. It was just as beautiful as the first day she had seen it. Finely dressed stallions and mares stopped and looked up at Rose. Rose looked back, and felt a soft hoof grip hers as a wing wrapped itself around her side. Jack, by her side, always.
Standing there at the bottom of the wooden steps, she saw the elegant black patterns of the younger of the two Alicorn princesses. Luna turned, and held up a hoof, inviting Rose to come down and join them. Rose did as she was bid, and as she reached Luna’s side, she noticed that her ever-present companion was nowhere to be found. Until she looked at Luna directly. Jack was bowing before her, elegantly painted wings spread in deference to her authority.
“Ratchet Jack Darkson, Child of Star-Streak and Moonshine, After mine own heart. You swore an oath, the exact specifics of which you kept, to the meaning, if not the word. I recall you taking time off during Brilliant Rose’s honeymoon to terrorize the White Star Line. Yet, through it all, you kept a far stronger oath. One that was never spoken. Do you recall what you said to me?”
Jack’s muzzle rose off the floor, “I swore to protect Rose until it was her time. I swore to take up arms against you, your majesty, and the sun itself to keep her safe.”
“And you have. You have served your oaths to the truest extent any stallion I have ever known has managed. Now though, you may rest. Be at peace, Artist Moon-spawn.” Her hoof settled on his back, and she was gone in a flash. Only the mark of her silver hoof-print on Jack’s back remained. He hardly had time to catch his breath before Fierce Honor tackled him to the deck. Rose laughed, then joined in the impromptu wrestling match.