fluke

This is an ice floe in the cold cold ocean. A low flat mass of moving ice, the cocktail accessory of the arctic.

To this ice floe, in the course of their journeys, come titans and curiosity seekers. What an iceberg they say. I bet it stretches for miles. They plan a lifetime of destruction and exploration, whichever comes first, or both. But the ice floe goes no deeper; it is what it appears to be. It is a flat glittery surface, and nothing more. This is a perfectly lovely place for a polar bear to float along in search of better land, black nose hidden under white paw. This is a good place to fling aside a monster invented in haste and repented at leisure. This is a cold place, in short, that is nevertheless an inviting enough home for a few weirdos, human flotsam, at least temporarily. But it is no more than that.

The ships say they don't want any drama and then finding none back away and steer towards another iceberg.

The ice floe makes a list of other words that start with FL — flow, flexible, flirt, flake, flimsy, fleeting — and waits for the next anguished creature seeking refuge, the next boatload of self-destruction to flop uselessly against its shallow nature. Initial appearances aside, it never pretended to be anything else, after all.