She had already recognized it as the gangplank she had walked up three days ago while boarding the ship. She and all the other passengers already knew that the passage would be treacherous. It was too late to try the crossing, she had been warned. Enemy patrols had been increasing, the number of ships making it through to the vast safety of the Atlantic too few.
She had little choice, however; she had promised to stay with her grandmother until the end, regardless of the risk, and to that pledge she had remained faithful. Now that she had seen her only remaining relative laid to rest in home soil, Olya had packed a small bundle of her most valuable possessions and gone to the port. Those possessions were widely scattered now, either floating like her, or sinking in the dark.
Olya lay back, felt the creak of the rocking flotsam against the back of her head. The wind blew across her supine form, unbearably chill. Even if she hadn't gotten far from her homeland, she at least had gotten away. She had left her home because it was no longer hers -- Stalin's army had seen to that. Her intention had merely been to get out, into the world, where she could choose any place to be her home. It was mere luck that it ended up being here, floating on the surprisingly placid surface of the ocean. Perhaps the waves had been momentarily hushed by the remnants of her passage ship sliding deep into the water. She could almost feel it far below, continuing on without her.
She did not panic. She was too wet, cold and exhausted to do so. While she was aware that this sense of calm was most likely an illusion, the body exerting its feeble powers over the mind to keep it from thrashing itself into madness, she accepted it anyway. It didn't take a nautical expert to realize that the combination of freezing wind and wet clothing would challenge even the strongest of constitutions, and might even become a losing battle if help didn't come soon. The only comfort she had was currently wrapped around her neck, fur that held the last soothing patch of warmth in a world where everything was stubbornly refused to turn to ice, but merely grew colder and colder.
She reached up, and with nearly-numb gloved fingers tugged its long loops a little tighter around her throat, tilting her head so that she could rub her cheek against its softness. It had been her grandmother's, and the lovely old woman had made a ceremony of it when handing it over to her granddaughter. "To keep your heart warm," she had told Olya, her voice creaking like the rocking chair she had vacated to retrieve it, "to be a part of me in whatever new country you come to." Then, having completed her final task, she used the fact that she was already on her feet as an excuse to cross the room and climb into the last bed she would ever lie down in.
Olya had stood there, as moved as she would be if her grandmother had reached into her own chest and produced her slowly beating heart for Olya to take on her journey. Now she pulled the fur tightly around her neck, and found that when she opened her eyes again to look at the aurorae overhead, the head of the fox lay upon her chest. For a moment she stared back into its glass eyes, wondering if its taxidermied smile was friendly, or predatory.
Then, without moving, it barked at her. A shivery bark, one that trembled with the same cold she was feeling. Strange, that the warmest thing around should be complaining so. After everything else that had happened, Olya was only slightly surprised that the stole her grandmother had kept in a hat box, and only brought out on special occasions, had chosen now to come back to life.
The bark came again. This time, its utter lack of movement made her realize that the sound wasn't coming from the fox around her neck. Something else had made the noise, something nearby. For a moment, Olya considered not even raising her head. She didn't want to turn away from the brilliant lights elegantly pirouetting above her. To do so would be to have them go entirely unwitnessed by anyone on Earth, which at the moment she found unbearably sad.
The barking persisted. A note of panic seemed to be creeping into it, and Olya finally couldn't help but try to determine where it was coming from. She slid her elbows back and under herself, propping her upper body so that she could see over the edge of the vaguely boat-shaped piece of wreckage she lay across. Soon the waves would regain enough height to start washing over the shallow sides and chill her anew, but for now raising her eyes only a few inches was enough to take a look around.
She turned her head from side to side, and while the ethereal lights didn't fully illuminate her surroundings, they did manage to outline objects nearby. And there was, surprisingly, something moving on the face of the otherwise still ocean, a smallish something that from her low vantage point was the tallest thing in an landscape strewn with charred, irrelevant pieces of everyday life -- chair cushions, pieces of wood, strips of canvas, human bodies.
It was a small dog, wet and shivering, standing on what might have been a child's suitcase. It must have been a well-groomed lapdog before, but now its fur clung heavily around it, as if trying to warm itself against the little thing's speeding heart.
Had she possibly seen it being carried around on deck in the sunset hours before the attack, a pampered pet snuggled close to the bosom of some well-dressed matron? Regardless of what it had been before, it had lost all its pretensions now, yipping desperately over and over at her. She could tell that the dog wasn't barking out of malice or anger, but only fear and the novelty of another living thing marking this vast flat horizon of death.
"Shh, shh," Olya whispered at it, even though there was no one else around but her to be annoyed. She found that, after all the explosions, screams and splashes, she merely wanted things to be reverently quiet. It wasn't until she timed her shushing to occur between the thing's fervent barks that it actually heard her and got the message. The dog calmed down and fell silent, dedicating its energy to shifting its balance agitatedly back and forth on its little floating platform, as if it were trying to figure out the best angle to jump over to her.
Olya sighed, watching the forlorn way its tail wagged, weighed down with sodden fur, which formerly must have been upright and poofy. It whined a little, realizing that the distance between them was too far to jump, growing with every second. In fact, the pieces of wreckage all seemed to be growing farther and farther apart, a devious fact that the ocean's level surface seemed keen to hide. Soon it became clear that there was no way the little dog could swim to her, no matter how far it could leap, not without being dragged to the bottom by its already waterlogged coat.
For a moment, Olya and the dog just looked at each other, the only two survivors of this catastrophe as far as they could tell. Olya took a long, slow breath, and tugged the fox fur tighter about her neck, trying to savor the little warmth still held in its feathery fibers. She took hold of the fox's snout and threw her arm out to the side, unfurling the long stole out in the dog's direction, wincing in emotional discomfort as the tail and hind legs slapped down on the surface of the water. She could feel the weight of the water begin soaking into it immediately, and hoped that the dog would understand.
It did. It jumped off the little valise, its back paws pushing it hopelessly away, and splashed into the frigid water almost on top of the long fox's tail. It snapped at the fur immediately, and dug its teeth in as if knowing exactly what Olya had planned.
She pulled hand over hand, dragging the fur, now heavy with salt water and living animal freight, back onto the floating wreckage with her. The dog threw its front paws up on the wood as soon as it was close enough to do so, and scrambled its back legs out of the nearly-frozen water to join her.
Olya actually laughed when the little animal ran over and began licking her face, its tongue and breath feeling blessedly tropical with warmth. The dog spun around excitedly, came back again to lick her face some more, and she ran a gloved hand over its fur, scratching behind its ears. It nuzzled her neck, and even if it were merely for her body heat, she didn't care. It felt close enough to true gratitude and affection for her to accept it as such.
Eventually, the dog calmed and settled, curling into a tight ball as close to her head as it could get. The wet smell of it finally became the one thing that overpowered the gut-turning stench of smoke that still lay across the water. This olfactory evidence remained even though the air had visibly cleared enough for her to see the shimmering lights overhead. Now that her grandmother's stole had no more warming properties, she wadded it into a wet lump and rested her head on it like a pillow, tilting up so she could see more of the aurorae that gracefully burned the sky.
"Look, doggie," she murmured to it in her native tongue, "look at the show we're being treated to tonight." She pointed, and the dog actually raised its head, following her finger momentarily before attempting to snuggle even closer to her. It didn't really seem to notice the vast multicolored beauty playing out above them, but Olya realized that the little dog already had everything that it needed, lying there with her. She was happy to give it companionship, and happy to have it in return.
For, she now realized, no help was coming. The horizon was empty in every direction, and any rescue would come too late for either of them. She lay back, allowing herself to despair for just a moment, but then relaxing. It was out of her hands now. She just needed to be more like her little travel mate, content with what she had. She was being gently rocked by cool waves, and the sky above her blazed with immense curtains that constantly teased that they were about to part, about to reveal a show unlike any the world had ever seen. For the two of them, it was not such a bad ending, better in fact than those of the souls that numbly bobbed in the water around them.
She took off her gloves, tossed them over the side, and pet the little dog that nuzzled against her with her bare, trembling fingers, watching the lights overhead as the still water bore them both away.
