Meanwhile, several blocks away from the Titanic and inside a local pub, a man called Natsu Dragneel was about to make the biggest win of his entire life. He was a lanky drifter with salmon hair a little long and wild for the standards of the time, he is also unshaven, and his clothes are rumpled from sleeping in them. He was an artist originally from Italy but had traveled almost all over Europe which led to him adopting the bohemian style of art from Paris. His personality was self-possessed and sure-footed which was rare for someone so young. Unless of course, you had grown up living by your wits which he had done.
Since he was 15, he had taught himself every street trick and tactic in the book and by the time he had reached age 18, he knew them all by heart. Card tricks were a challenge that he had especially mastered and it just so happens, that he was in the middle of a poker game with two Swedes that day. There the three of them were, just sitting around that table and playing a serious hand. Natsu had bet the ten bucks he had been saving in his pocket and the Swedes had bet their third class tickets for the Titanic.
"You stupid fishhead." One of the Swedish men said to his partner. "I can't believe you bet our tickets."
"You lost our money." His partner replied. "I'm just trying to get it back. Now shutup and take a card."
A card was drawn.
"Hit me again." Natsu said. Then he took a card and slipped it into his hand. "The moment of truth boys. Somebody's life's about to change."
The Swedes put down their cards. Natsu hrld his close and his face made a disappointed expression.
"Well it looks like I'll be losing those ten bucks."
The Swedes looked at each smugly and chuckled. But Natsu suddenly slapped a full house down on the table.
"Cause I'm going to America to spend it all!" He cheered with a huge grin on his face. "Full house boys!"
The table exploded into shouting in several languages. Natsu just raked in the money and the tickets.
"Sorry boys. Three of a kind and a pair. I'm high and you're dry." He laughed. "Goin' to the land o' the free and the home of the hot-dogs! On the Titanic! I'm ridin' in high style now! In fact I'm practically royalty!"
"Well I wouldn't celebrate just yet." The pub keeper warned. "Titanic departs in just five minutes."
"Oh shit!" Natsu cursed, glancing over at the clock.
He grabbed everything that he owned which was kept in a kitbag and bolted out of that pub, sprinting toward the pier. He tore milling crowds and weaved through groups of people. At one point, he tripped on a dock and dropped the tickets. One landed in the sea but Natsu managed to save the other one. At long last he made it up the stairway and toward the gangway doors.
"Wait!" He called to the crew mate getting ready to close it. "I'm a passenger."
Though flushed and panting, he managed to hand him one ticket.
"Have you been through the inspection queue?" The crew member asked.
"Of course!" Natsu lied cheerfully. "Anyway, I don't have lice, and I'm American."
"Alright then, come aboard."
Natsu didn't hesitate for a moment longer. He ran across the deck and up the steel stairs toward the rail, looking out at the huge crowd standing on the docks and waving goodbye. That Natsu didn't know any of them from Adam, he still yelled and waved to them as if they were all lifelong friends of his.
"Goodbye! Goodbye! I'll miss you!"
He did that until the ship had floated from the docks and the people waving were just a blur. After that he went down to the third class level and enter the bunker hall where all the third class passengers would be staying. They were all modest cubicles that were painted enamel white and contained four bunks and a sink. To the passengers of first class this probably wouldn't be very comfortable but to Natsu and other passengers in his class, it was perfect.
"What happened to Liam and Ludvig?" A voice asked.
In walked a middle-age yet muscular Jewish man with a red beard, with him was an attractive young brunette.
"Excuse me?" Natsu asked.
"We were supposed to sharing a bunker with Liam and Ludvig Olsson. Who are you?"
"Natsu. Natsu Dragneel." He introduced. "Sorry to disappoint but the Olsson brothers lost their tickets to me in a game of cards."
"Ah." The man said. "Well that's okay. I never liked them They always cheat at cards and they hit on my daughter."
"Which is why I always hit them in the head with a bottle." The young woman laughed before holding her hand out to Natsu. "Nice to meet you, my name is Cana and this is my father. We're happy to share our quarters, clothes, and our secret stash of booze."
"You sound like my kind of people." Natsu said shaking her hand.
He then laid his only luggage down on one of the bunker beds and stepped out of the room to see what kind of interesting people would be traveling with him. There were people from all over the world on this level. Jewish, Irish, Italian, French, Swedish, Norwegian, English, and so much more. Yet even though they came from different lands and different cultures, they all had the same goal. Go to America for a new and better life, and they would be taking the journey in comfort. What a dream.
However not every third class member was unloading their luggage in a bunker and making themselves comfortable. And not every third class member had gotten on board legally with a ticket. There was one passenger who had managed to stow away on board.
Her name was Wendy, she was a little girl from France who was about eleven or twelve years old. An orphan who as a baby was the only survivor of an earthquake that destroyed her entire home and killed every member of her birth family. She had no other living relatives so she was placed on a train to England and brought up in one of the orphanages. But then orphanage was foreclosed and while other children left to live on the streets, she stayed behind and lived in the abandoned building for as long as she could.
When she became too cold and too hungry to stay there any longer, she thought that perhaps a new life in a new world was her best chance. She had no money and couldn't buy a ticket, so she had to be crafty. She sneaked on to Titanic by disguising herself as a boy hired to shovel coal in the boiler room. It wasn't that hard to do so, she already wore boy's clothes. And with her hair tucked up into a cap and her face and hands smeared with ashes and soot from the old orphanage fireplace, no one suspected a thing.
"We go full ahead!" Shouted the head engineer. "Put your backs into it."
The engineering crew and Wendy picked up a shovel and started adding coal into the furnaces which would then heat the water and send steam to the reciprocating engines. Wendy was a small child but strong and formidable. Many times she had gathered firewood and coal to put in the fireplace at the orphanage so this was nothing. Her only problem was keeping up the facade that she was young worker boy.
"Hmm..." The head engineer was watching Wendy work with a skeptical look. "You're awfully small and thin for a boy."
"Yes sir." Wendy replied in a deep voice. "I get that a lot."
"Is your father around here?"
"No sir. I ain't got no parents." She was speaking in cockney accent to further sell the illusion. "But I'll be no trouble sir. I'll just work and keep to myself, I will."
He was still slightly skeptic and he watched her for a few minutes longer. But then he let her alone and focused on the other workers.
"Phew!" She thought in relief. "Thank God he fell for it. Now all I have to do is just keep working, not cause any trouble, and stay down here, which isn't so bad. There's no bed but it's warm in this place and warmth is all I need to get a good night sleep. Nothing else."
Unfortunately she forgot one small detail in her perfect plan to travel to America free of charge and undetected.
Growl!
"Uh-oh!" She thought, looking down at her belly. "I knew I forgot to bring something. I forgot to bring food. Well I've been hungry before, I can eat when we dock. I mean one day without a meal won't kill me...But if the trip doesn't last one day?"
She looked over at one of the men shoveling coal.
"Hey gov'nor!" She called in her fake deep voice. "How long til this ship reaches the states."
"Three days, so I've been told." He answered.
"Three days!" Wendy thought in a panic. "Mon dieu! It's already been three days since my last meal. If I go three more days, I'll be dead by the time the ship arrives. What am I going to do?"
"So this little girl sneaked onto Titanic illegally just by dressing up like a boy?" Weisz asked Lucy as she was telling the three of them about the young stow away.
"Yes." The old woman confirmed. "Back in those days, you didn't applications or background checks to get a job so it was very easy for someone to get away with something like that."
"And you said her name was Wendy?" Shiki asked. "That's the name on that bracelet I'm looking for. Did it belong to her?"
"Not at first." Lucy said. "Originally the bracelet belonged to an American woman called Wendy Acherley. Her daughter moved to England and married an English Councilman. They had one son and he grew up to be the one who would create Titanic. Jellal Fernandes."
"Jellal Fernandes. The shipbuilder? You knew the shipbuilder?" Shiki asked intrigued.
"I knew him well. His wife was a dear friend of mine. Perhaps you've heard of her? History knows her as the unsinkable Erza Fernandes."
"What was she like? Tell us?"
"Hold on to yourself. I'm getting there. Be patient." She said. "Now where was I? Oh yes, so the ship taken off and everyone had made it on board. Father, Dan, Levy, and myself were just getting settled into our suites..."