The Frozen Empire - An Empires SMP AU

15 - A New Ocean Monument

Filled with rue, Jimmy led Pix and Pearl to his dock where a large boat awaited their arrival.

Jimmy wasn't okay, he hadn't been for a long while, a constant shadow of self-loathing consumed him at all moments. Returning to the Cod Empire didn't help. 

Joel's statue took up the majority of the town, the grass had started to grow over it and small buds of lily of the valleys squirmed from the earth. He saw the peak of his Cod Church lying by Joel's knee, the windows were glazed in sheets of web-like ice. His walls had shattered, in the ponds were clusters of dead cod, the smell was unbearable - Like dead fish mixed with forgotten dreams.

The group split up, Pix, Pearl and Jimmy headed off to find the Book of Prophecies, whilst Gem, FWhip, Joey and Shelby stayed behind to make the Rivera a safe spot from Xornoth. Jimmy wished he was still in Pix's fountain, it was warm there with the candles of death around him.

"Wow..." Pix marvelled. "You made this?" 

"No," Jimmy replied bluntly. "I just added a sail to a shipwreck..." Pix's face flushed red.

Jimmy lied, he had made the ship, he had intended on leaving the very night he saw Gem in the Portal, after that, he didn't feel like doing anything.

Jimmy hopped up the ledge and onto the boat, almost slipping on the frosted planks. Pix followed suit, but he clambered on, leading himself around the boat whilst clinging onto the fencing. When Pearl tried to get in, her foot slipped and she almost fell into the water.

He winced, a flash of memory cutting him like a knife. Pearl turned into Lizzie, her eyes wide with fear as she then sank to the bottom of the sea, Jimmy reached into the waters, but his hand was being held back.

"Jimmy!" Pearl yelped. "Jimmy, I'm fine!" Pearl had got onto the boat, Jimmy realised he was now hunched over the edge of the boat, his hand turning white in the water. 

"Let's go..." Jimmy snapped, moving towards the mast and unfurling the woollen sail. The boat veered towards the horizon, where the Ocean Empire was. They speeded over, the breeze harsh like ice spikes lashing their face. Pix and Pearl conversed by the hull, glancing nervously back at Jimmy.

Jimmy swallowed his fear as the Ocean Empire came properly into view.. or what remained of it. There were spools of debris floating around, bobbing into each other and breaking themselves into smaller pieces. The peaks of the Prisma palaces jabbed out of the water, their roofs festering with large coral fans.

Jimmy took a deep breath, he walked down onto the deck and waited for the boat to teeter over to a safe place to dock.

"We can't stop anywhere close without the ship crashing..." Jimmy told them, they hastily stopped talking and stood in tentative silence. 

"So what do we do?" Pix asked, looking questioningly at the water. 

"I could go find her conduit, start it up again." Jimmy offered. Pix mused over the idea.

"I don't know..." Pearl started. "It looks kinda cold..." Jimmy waved his arm, ignoring her. He went to the edge and dove in.

Rushed with cold, he quivered and shook as the chill rolled over his body. But it didn't have the same effect it had on... his seabling. It felt warmer than the day that he had swum over here, so he urged through it.

It was too dark to make out anything, but he could faintly see the rim of the conduit iced over. Jimmy wiped the conduit against his clothes, it slowly churned with magic, the heart of the sea was orbited by Nautilus shells.

He placed it in the centre of the frame, then the ocean sparked to life. He was filled with warmth and his lungs rekindled with surface air.

He popped his head up, giving Pearl and Pix a thumbs up, they hopped into the water and swam over to meet him.

"Jimmy... You look freezing." Pearl grimaced.

"I'm fine," he rolled his eyes. "We should split up," Jimmy suggested, Pix nodded, and so they all split up to search the Prisma Palace ruins.

Jimmy sunk to the sand, slid off his shoes and watched as his webbed feet unfurled, his skin slowly flipped into beige scales and his face grew wavy tendrils. His tail blurted from his lower back and coiled in the ocean waves. 

Jimmy swam near the sand, he wasn't looking for the book religiously, he was just trying to regain his 'sea legs' - no pun intended. He crept through clusters of kelp, kicking up sand and collecting the sea pickles Lizzie decorated her ocean with. He was about to give up when he saw something in the corner of his eyes.

Lizzie had a statue of herself, lying in the sand, kelp arrangements flourished beside her feet. Jimmy smiled, coming around he sat down with a warm feeling in his chest. he reached towards her stone hand and grabbed it, tight... then it squished like flesh.

Jimmy threw up; his vomit dissipating and rising to the top of the ocean. He dropped her hand, releasing a long scream. The fish swam away from him and the gurgle of dying drowned's wailed from the horizon. Jimmy swam as fast as he could, but he bumped into a rock and a thin plume of blood drifted out from his nose.

Suddenly, the kelp thickened and acted like waving walls encasing him in with the corpse of his sister. He wanted to yell, but he just curled up in a ball, falling into a sniffling mess. He sobbed pleas for help as he scrunched his eyes tighter, wishing it all away.

Jimmy had sat there for 5 minutes until he dared to open his eyes and swim back to the boat. He sat dangling his legs off the deck, clutching onto his damp shoes with shaking hands. 

"Jimmy?" Pearl called, boarding the boat with pale frosty skin. "What are you doing back on the boat?"

Jimmy steadied his breathing. "I searched my area..." He swallowed. "I found nothing interesting." Pearl noticed the sad undertone in his voice, she sat down beside him.

"Jimmy..." She frowned. "I don't know exactly what you're going through, but I can't imagine coming back here is helping any." She clasped Jimmy's hand. 

"Don't touch me..." He flinched, Pearl shuffled away from him. 

Everything was all too much, everyone else believed they knew his pain, but they didn't. He lost his sister, his closest friend was gone, someone that he once called his lover was destroying this world, and the home he built from the ground up had been crushed by his brother-in-law. 

"I think I need to leave..." Jimmy turned to face Pearl, tears welling in his eyes. "Like leave the server... just for a while." Pearl opened her mouth to argue, but then just nodded submissively. 

"If you take a boat just now," She smiled nervously. "You can be gone before Pix comes back." Jimmy nodded, wrapping Pearl in a bear hug.

They made Jimmy a boat then ventured to the other side of the boat, Pearl placed the boat down.

"I'll be back..." Jimmy told her, she nodded, hugged him again, then off he drifted, riding into the night...