Titanic

by Imperator Chiashi Zane

Hooves Down Part 3

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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
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“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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”