A/N: All right, here it is. The start of my newest (and perhaps most ambitious) project: a retelling of Cameron's Titanic with the HTTYD characters. I promise I will try to be as historically accurate as possible while also giving respect to the true story of the Titanic disaster.

Some portions of this story are inspired by and/or based on a similar treatment written by UnderTheWillowTrees. I will be giving her due credit throughout the story. Thanks again for letting me borrow some of your ideas!

This is dedicated to the 1500 people lost when the Titanic sank, as well as to the 700 who survived to tell their story. You have not been forgotten.

HTTYD belongs to Cressida Cowell and DreamWorks SKG.

Titanic the movie belongs to 20th Century Fox.

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

- "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost

Prologue

Monday, April 15, 1912

How did I end up here?

It was a natural question to ask himself, he figured. After all, it wasn't every day you ended up clinging desperately to the rail of a sinking ship. Especially when the ship in question was the biggest, most luxurious, and supposedly safest ship on the ocean. Yet here he was all the same.

And he wasn't alone. All around him, hundreds of screaming and crying passengers and crew clambered toward the stern rising slowly out of the water. And to think that just a few hours earlier they'd been sailing along smoothly, not even the glimmer of a threat on the horizon. These people who had so calmly eaten their dinner and gone to bed without any care in the world were now on the brink of panic, looking death in the face as the great ship sank steadily lower and lower. It was only a matter of time, now. Minutes, perhaps. Then she would disappear forever, taking who knew how many people with her.

At least the lights were still burning, the only illumination in the pitch-black night. There was no moon, only a sky full of stars that sparkled and glowed in the sky, reflecting off the ice that littered the sea around the dying ship. Apart from the people in the twenty or so lifeboats drifting about, there wasn't another living soul in sight. They were all alone in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.

He felt a pressure on his hand as someone squeezed it. Either seeking comfort or offering it, he didn't know which. He squeezed back just as uncertainly and shifted position, using his other hand to grip the rail tighter. The deck was so steeply slanted that one wrong move and he'd go sliding down into oblivion. He didn't know what his chances were should that happen and he didn't care to find out.

The lights suddenly flickered, flashed, and went out. They did not reignite. "Oh God!" someone gasped.

God, he thought. What was it they had said? "God Himself could not sink this ship"?

They were wrong. So very wrong.

A great metallic roar rent the night, the sound of a ship in the final act of dying. It was so loud it overpowered the screams of the other people on board. This is it, he thought, gripping both the rail and the hand in his tighter. She's going. In a few minutes, she will be gone.

And soon after that, so will I.