"Batten down the hatches! Hoist the sails!" Captain Winter shouted, her voice heavy and authoritative. She repeated her orders over and over as her elegant tan wings carried her over the deck of the Bedazzled Unicorn. She watched as her crew dutifully hopped to their orders, trying to regain control of the ship as the sudden snowstorm beat against its hefty wooden frame. The captain knew it was an uphill battle, but this was exactly her strong suit. Her cutie mark was an anchor for a reason, after all. This was her talent- her thing. A lesser captain wouldn't have gotten this far into the storm, much less stayed this calm and in control. Just then, the captain noticed something coming up over the horizon. It was something big- really big- and the ship was headed right for it. The pegasus with crow's nest duty that day called down to verify the big, silhouetted object headed right for the ship. It was a big, tough ship, sure, but it was no match for an iceberg or a rock or whatever was looming just over the horizon. Land wasn't too far behind it, but the captain knew she had to consider first things first.
"Hard port at the helm! There's something up ahead!" Winter called to her first mate, a timid cream-colored Earth mare who wore her cherry-colored mane up in a tight bun behind her head. Cunning was her name. Cunning Steele. The Bedazzled Unicorn began to slowly swerve to the left as Winter's first mate readily followed her command and turned the well-worn wheel at the helm, forcing the ship to begin its slow lurch to the left of... whatever it was.
The captain had to let a notable shiver run through her elegant naval frame to the point of rattling the brass buttons on her snow-spattered naval uniform. Up until now, the heat of the moment had kept her mind off the harsh reality of the situation. She had never seen a snowstorm this blinding before. She could barely hear the beating of her own wings or the tip of her elegantly- if she did say so herself- curved muzzle. Winter, true to her name, always liked the cold, which is why this shiver caught her off guard. Her frost-encrusted wings folded themselves against her body as the captain was forced to plant her gloved hooves firmly on the ship's deck. Quickly continuing her orders, the captain trotted across the deck, issuing orders, corrections, and encouragement to her dutiful crew while keeping an eye on what she could now see was a giant ice-encrusted rock jutting ominiously out of the water, and the most earnest efforts of her first mate did little to change the course of the ship. Winter had ordered the sails rolled up, after all, and the ship simply didn't have enough speed to move away from the rock. With a crash imminent, Winter took to the skies once more. Shouting over the deafening roar of the storm and the rough sea beating against the sides of the ship, Captain Winter called up her strongest Captain's voice and shouted, "Prepare for impact! Prepare for impact! All hooves below decks to salvage food and rum! Repeat, food and rum!" Upon her orders, all fifty-some rponies that staffed the deck of the Bedazzled Unicorn filed downstairs, spreading the captain's orders to the sprawling below-decks crew. Winter trotted down soon afterwards, silently pleased that she saw so many ponies securing the walls agains impact and dredging up as many supplies as possible. Cunning remained at the helm, holding the wheel as far left as it would go, to no avail.
And, well, the inevitable happened. The icy rock cleaved into the side of the ship, sending icy walls of water washing over the whole of the lower decks. Winter managed to scoop up a few of the crew members into her gloved hooves who were standing near the staircase, and a few of the pegusai managed to squeeze their way out over the rising water, but most of the crew didn't make it. Winter, her wings beating against the frigid air and almost freezing in the ever-harshening storm, managed to drop her few rescued crewmembers into a lifeboat and rescue First Mate Steele from the helm and the rising water as her wings beat ever faster to shake off the frigid conditions. Cunning didn't even say anything, she realized the gravity of the situation more than anything. Even with adrenaline behind her, the captain's wing beats eventually grew farther and farther apart. The pair fell closer and closer to the ground, eventually landing in the thick layer of snow on the ground, looking back just in time to watch the last of her ship disappear under the raging waves and the lifeboat that carried the few surviving crewmates blank out in the blowing snow. A single, frozen tear- something that the stoic captain had shed only a hooful of times in her life- ran halfway down Winter's elegant cheek before freezing on there in the cold, gingerly pulling in the stoic captain's tan fur. Without a word from either mare, the two began a long trudge towards the little light in the distance, hoping for someone who could help. The far north was cold and unforgiving, but Winter didn't get to be a captain by letting some cold get her down. Even on a very failed mission to the frozen north with many good, dead ponies under her belt, the stoic captain knew she needed to stay strong. The heft of her sword resurfaced in the captain's belt, reminding her of its presence. The metal was cold as it pressed up against Captain Winter's snow-covered naval uniform, pressing its presence into her consciousness.
