//------------------------------//
// Love and Money 
// Story: Titanic 
// by Imperator Chiashi Zane 
//------------------------------//

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.