Crkkk-kkk-kkk!
Eagle Eye winced, ducking his head slightly as he glanced forlornly at the rattling ceiling of a tight hallway. Gulping, he adjusted his hoodie and shuffled along with his sword and shield levitating alongside.
Ahead of him, Props, Rainbow Dash, and Josho traversed narrow chambers between cold leaning bulkheads. The light from the two unicorns shone off of glossy metal surfaces, giving the claustrophobic interior an ethereal quality.
"Have we figured out just who this ship belonged to yet?" Rainbow Dash spoke out loud.
"Hmmm..." Props rubbed her chin in thought. "Quadruple bolted bulkheads. Exposed mana conduits. Reliance on leyline reinforcement coils instead of enchanted crystals." She smirked. "I'd say standard Alexian tech."
"Alexian?" Rainbow repeated aloud.
Eagle Eye's echoing voice spoke up. "They're unicorns and earth ponies who hail from the far south."
"I thought there was nothing but ocean south of us."
"Er... south of Franzington, more or less." Eagle Eye smiled nervously. "Below Ledomare, the Continent breaks up into a bunch of seas and deep rivers that open up into the ocean. Alexia is the closest archipelago to the mainland, and the equines there have mastered ship building and merchant trade. They've been known to sail their mana-powered steamships all along the continental shore. Where they're not exploring or trading, they're at least selling their ships to other cultures who need to use them."
"So this may not have been run by... Alexians."
"Certainly smells too good in here to be Alexian," Josho said in a dull tone. "For all the time they spend around water, those bootstrapped freakazoids never bothered to bathe."
"Yes, well..." Eagle Eye shuddered. "That's one reason we always fought for the Ledomaritans and not for the Alexians."
"Yeesh." Rainbow Dash winced. "Was everyone on your continent going to war with someone?"
"Made for a good economy," Josho said. "Heck, all the explosions you started in Blue Nova has gotta give tons of ponies new jobs."
"Jee... thanks..." Rainbow muttered with folded ears.
"It's sad to think about," Props spoke aloud. "Jasper, Ebony, and I had a lot of reasons to call Nightshade a 'meanie head,' but we never had any grudge against the hundreds upon thousands of ponies who worked for her." She pouted. "With her company going bye-bye now, how many of those employees are going to have trouble feeding the mouths of their beloveds?"
"Well, Props, with the war over, maybe they'll consider something that doesn't involve the construction of weapons," Eagle Eye said. "I can already see the Council of Ledo funding a major agricultural boom!"
"If they're lucky, they'll just open borders with the northwest provinces and let ponies fill in a lot of that abandoned farmland," Josho said. "Who cares if the plains are haunted by the spirits of the dead caribou who once lived there."
"Hey, uh, not to sound like a heartless lame-o, but does it really matter?" Rainbow Dash's jaw tightened. "That place is friggin' behind us. Let's just focus on what's ahead."
Eagle Eye craned his head with a smirk. "You've said that a bunch of times already, and yet here we are in the belly of a crashed sea vessel. How does this count on 'focusing on what's ahead?'"
Rainbow exhaled out her nostrils. "Look, we're here for Props, okay? I made her a promise that we'd look for her Uncle, so let's get it done."
Props gasped, hopping excitedly. "So you do remember!"
"I always did," Rainbow muttered, wings flapping between the icy bulkheads. "I just lost track of what was truly important for a while there."
"Our... uhm... safety...?"
"Let's start with 'happiness' and see if we can make the ends meet."
"Shhhh!" Josho hissed.
"Wow, old stallion," Eagle spat. "Way to be a buzz kill."
"No! I mean it!" He raised a hoof while glaring at a corner of the hallway. "Clam up!"
Everypony came to a stop behind him, dead silent.
Josho's eyes narrowed. He gazed from left to right. At some point, a slight clattering sound emanated from the bulkheads in front of them. His ears twitched, and he turned to look back at Rainbow.
Eagle and Props trembled. Rainbow, in the meantime, nodded back and flapped her wings harder. With the grace of a flying serpent, she slinked around Josho's shoulder, clung to the ceiling, and flew her way around the corner.
Edging her way into the shadows, she flew for a few frozen seconds. At last, hovering to a stop, she pulled the collar of her leather coat down and ran a hoof across her pendant. A dim glow lit up the room, casting ruby beams across the walls. Rainbow Dash found herself staring into what must have been an open storage compartment. It was twice as wide as the Noble Jury's mess hall. What's more, it was longer How long—she couldn't say, the reason being that half of the chamber was submerged in water.
It felt colder in the room, but it wasn't just the water's fault. Gazing up, Rainbow saw that the ceiling of the chamber sloped up while the floor went down. Exposed ice from the glacier pierced the bulkheads, and a fine mist hung over the waters. From what she could judge, that portion of the ship had broken like a twig where it impacted the glacier, and the water had formed overtime from where the ancient ice had melted from friction.
Hoofsteps echoed behind her as the rest of the group trotted to a stop behind Rainbow.
"Sinking squirrelsicles!" Props exclaimed. "This ship sure took a dip!"
"I'm guessing all the water came from the glacier," Josho remarked.
"I thought the ice was too old to just melt," Eagle Eye said.
Props shrugged. "Could be that exposed manaconduits caught fire and provided enough heat to allow a slow burn."
"That would explain the burn marks along the shattered bulkheads," Rainbow said. Biting her lip, she levitated down and pressed the tip of her hoof into the waters. "Hssssss!" She hovered back up, shaking her forelimb as if she had burned it. "Luna poop! I think I grew new nipples from just touching th-that!"
"Why would you even do that?" Eagle asked.
Josho pointed. "That's why."
Eagle and Props craned their necks to see. Their muzzles hung agape.
A dim orange glow emanated from the submerged end of the sunken chamber. There was a light source from beyond the broken part of the ship.
"Is... is it a fire?" Props remarked.
"I feel bad for not seeing it first," Eagle Eye stammered.
"Yeah, well, nopony's perfect, princess," Josho said. He turned towards Rainbow Dash. "Whoever's alive on board this ship, they're probably camped on the other side. If I know a crap or two about Alexian vessels, we've just trotted the bulk of it. That end is smaller and likely more insulated."
"Seems like a good place for survivors to last a while," Rainbow said with a nod. "I wonder if any magical devices could operate from inside?"
"What for?"
Rainbow turned towards Props. "How's the signal?"
The goggled mare held up the instrument in question. After half a minute, she flashed Rainbow a bright-eyed look. "Could from anywhere. Which probably means..."
"Right under our noses," Rainbow Dash said with a nod. She turned back to the waters. "There's gotta be a way to get over there."
"All the other passageways are blocked up by ice," Props said. "We all saw it on the way here."
"We could go outside the ship again," Josho said. "See if there's another way to enter the vessel from the far side."
"Nah... All of that is under the iceberg's surface," Rainbow said. "The way we entered is the only way to do it."
"What if we got one of Floydien's or Roarke's tools from the hangar and tried to burn a hole into the far side of the ship's hull?" Eagle Eye asked.
Crkkk-kkkk!
Everypony fidgeted nervously as ripples of water ran across the disturbed pool.
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Rainbow Dash said, starting to strip of her coat. "The longer we take to get to the far side of the ship, there's not going to be any ship."
"Uhhh..." Eagle Eye squinted. "What are you doing?" He jolted as Rainbow's coat was thrown into his telekinetic field.
"What does it look like?" Rainbow Dash cracked the joints in her neck. "The next step is simple. I'm gonna swim in there and check what's on the other side."
"Pffft... Your funeral, color wheel," Josho said.
"Are you out of your pony mind?!" Eagle Eye gasped. "That's freezing water! You'll become a winged popsicle!"
"You obviously weren't born in a floating cloud city." Rainbow Dash smirked at him in the unicorns' light. "I can handle cold. I'm 'cool' all the time for a reason, y'know."
"Rainbow, this isn't a joke! You could freeze to death!"
"It doesn't look that far of a swim," Rainbow said. "Besides, looks like they got a fire on the other side. I should be fine."
"At least let one of us come with you!" Eagle Eye said. "You shouldn't have to go alone!"
"Look, I'll give you guys a signal." Rainbow nodded towards Josho. "You bring the sound stones?"
Josho nodded and slipped one from out of his jacket.
Rainbow grabbed it in the crook of her hoof. "I'll fill you guys in on what I find. If I need help, then one of you can come over. Feel free to spend the next minute or two deciding who gets to be a second-wing polar bear for the afternoon."
"I volunteer Eagle Eye," Josho grunted.
"Dude!" Eagle squeaked.
"He already looks purple!" Props giggled.
"D-dudette!" Eagle squeaked in a higher pitch.
"Nnnngh... Yeah... I think I could use an excuse to wake up." Rainbow Dash gazed at the waters. "Celestia, give me strength."
"At this rate, she would do better to give you balls," Josho said.
"Not where I'm going." Rainbow Dash said. Stepping up to the pool's edge, she took one breath... two breaths... three breaths... then clamped the soundstone into her mouth and—
Splooosh!
If a million knives stabbed every single square inch of her body, it still wouldn't have been an adequate description of how cold it felt. Undaunted, Rainbow Dash kicked her limbs, torpedoing her way towards the dim light on the far end of the sunken chamber.