The Descent

When Ametrine woke up the next morning, she felt a bit groggy but was excited to meet the new day nonetheless, until she sat up and looked at the empty bed on the other side of the room, and memories hit her like a freight train. He really wasn't coming back, was he? This was it. Her only friend, gone. Living where she isn't welcome.

She didn't even get to say goodbye.

She rolled herself out of bed and stood up on weak legs. Not only were her legs tired from yesterday, but the pain of loss was manifesting within her as her will to carry on swiftly faded. She could feel that the ship was once again moving, as it was gently rocking back and forth. She stumbled over to a desk next to the window, where she had sat many times before. Just as she placed herself on the old chair, she heard particularly heavy hoofsteps approaching her door. Clearly, it was Eswyn. No one else on the ship weighed enough to make the floor vibrate with each movement. Ametrine heard the door slide open as the brass mare approached, pulling over a chair from the maptable and sitting down next to her. It was apparent that Ametrine had to some degree come to her senses since yesterday, and Eswyn began to make small talk.

The conversation was far from interesting. Where they were from, if they had any siblings, whatever. It was clear that Eswyn just wanted to be there for Ametrine and to support her, but Eswyn was too small to fill the Bridges-sized hole in her heart. Without either of the ponies noticing, Nightmare Fuel, Foulplay, and a mare Ametrine didn't recognize had entered the pilothouse, and were sitting on the two beds. Nightmare began to speak.

"We're still here. Despite everything, we're still here. Six of us. We can't give up now, right? For our friends. Our crew. Our family." Despite his best attempt at a motivational speech, no one seemed even slightly moved, perhaps out of grief. "We're almost at the trench. We've only got..."

The dragon paused before looking down on the maptable, moving his claw around over the aged paper.

"We've only got the Sea of Shadows left."

Eswyn sprung up when she heard that name, bolting over to the maptable. As she looked down on the table, her expression changed from pure panic to an unemotionless stare, just like Bridges'. At first, this calmed everyone, as it seemed that this obstacle was no problem, but that changed when she spoke.

"Gehenna was right. This is a suicide mission."

"Who's Gehenna?" Asked Foulplay, as he too walked towards the table.

"Hell if I know." Eswyn replied. "Pun not intended."

"Anyways, when will we be arriving at this sea of darkness or whatever it was called?" The unidentified mare asked.

Machinery audibly moved within Eswyn once more, as her eyes shot wide open and she sprinted outside. The rest of the room followed her onto the ship's bow.

There it was. An endless ocean of pitch black, arguably more imposing than the last miscoloured sea. It was accompanied by an ashen grey sky, further dulling the already colourless water beneath.

"WHAT IN CELESTIA'S NAME IS THAT!?" A voice screamed from behind. It was Tidal Surge, the only crewmate not on the ship's frontal part. The five turned around in unison to see him pointing off at something in the distance. As they looked in the direction he was pointing to, they saw something that truly shook them to their cores.

A pure white whale, with reddish eyes and thousands of long, sharp teeth had jumped out of the water, only to plunge back down, leaving it shrouded within the sea of night they were moving across. The worst part wasn't it's needle-like teeth, or it's empty stare - No, it's that it was dead. The entire middle part of the whale was gone, stripped to the bone with it's ribs proudly on to display for everyone to see. Living dead was something she was used to - There were plenty of necromancers at Frostvale. But, there were no necromancers out here. At the academy, the dead were kept under control by their masters. But here, it seems fetid souls run amok.

As they stared at the ripples where the whale had disappeared, the unknown mare leaned over the ship's edge and vomited a miserable, green liquid in the abyss below. The rest of the crew, still horrified at the sight of that thing, were frantically scrambling around the ship and looking out over the sea for any more signs of it as some rushed down to the cannons below. But alas, it was gone.

Nearly ten minutes later, the feeble crew let down their guard and gathered in the pilothouse. Though they were all shaken, that white mare Ametrine didn't know had taken it the worst. She was sitting on one of the beds, shivering and gasping for air. Nightmare Fuel was next to her, trying to comfort her.

"We're safe now, Sanguis..." He said, sighing. "We're safe..."

Noticably, the mare didn't seem any calmer. Ametrine though that if she could get her mind on something else, perhaps they'd collect themselves. She stood up from her chair at the maptable, and walked over to the mare.

"So... Sanguis? Is that your name?" She asked the mare.

...

No response. Maybe it was still too soon to calm her down, she thought. As she turned around and was about to walk back, the mare behind her spoke.

"A-Abhor..." She stuttered. "My name i-is Abhor Sanguis."

Ametrine turned back around and offered a faint smile to the mare who'd now buried her face in her hooves.

"That's a nice name. What does it mean?" She asked, before noticing that the mare was unconversational and uncontrollably crying. Instead, the dragon next to her replied.

"It means 'Hates Blood.'" He said in a somber tone. "I guess it's true."