Thalassa 1/?

The floor pitched and rolled under her feet. In the darkness something with damp, matted fur scampered over her feet; she kicked it away with a stifled intake of breath before it could decide if it wanted to carry on with its journey or stay and sink its teeth into her flesh. She wouldn't make much of a meal for it, anyway; it had been two days since her meagre rations of food had run out and she would have to break into one of the boxes of provisions stored in the hold soon. In an hour, perhaps. The ship's crew had mostly gone to bed some time ago.

Footsteps sounded directly above. She drew herself further back into the shadows, in her living space in a corner behind a stack of boxes. In her week out at sea, she had had many false alarms, but she never ceased to be vigilant. She had no illusions about what they would do to her if they discovered her there.

The door to the cargo hold opened, and booted feet tramped down the wooden stairs. Rats skittered away to their own corners. She heard a low, masculine voice muttering absently, and raised her head slightly to inhale the fresh sea air. She longed to feel the breeze full on her face, instead of the cloying, stinking air of the hold.

"Where has that rum got to - ah! Already!"

Peeping between the boxes she caught a glimpse of part of a lion's mane of hair and intent eyes examining a box of empty bottles with dismay. She ducked when the eyes swung around the gloom of the hold in search of more rum, lifting a little lamp in his hand. She knew who he must be, the hoity-toity passenger the rough seamen muttered about, the young royal ambassador they'd been forced to accommodate on their voyage. She wondered if he knew half the things the men said about him, none of which were complimentary, and all of which were rather graphic. When she replaced her eye at the peephole she used, she saw he was now commencing a search of the boxes lashed down in the hold, and a trill of fear ran down her spine at his systematic thoroughness.

"Perhaps," he muttered - and staggered as the ship listed and rolled. The box of potatoes he'd opened tilted, sending tubers rolling across the floor, mostly in her direction. She flung herself low, and the sound of her pounding heart nearly drowned out his exclamation of, "Cap'n'll have my hide!"

Her world was dark. She had closed her lids to hide the whites of her eyes, the gleam of her irises. Potatoes rolled against her feet and knees. She thought again of the methodical way he had searched the boxes earlier and felt dread. The scraping footsteps came closer, closer.

Let it be done with quickly, she thought, and as if in answer light flared in front of her eyelids - a dim flame by most standards, but after her time in the dark, it blinded her.

When she could see again, she saw the young ambassador standing above her, the golden-red mane framing an impassive face.

"You don't look to me," he said matter-of-factly, "very much like a potato."

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A/N: For Josh: a casually written, lighthearted bit of fantasy (with perhaps a dash of romance), instead of my normal doom and gloom - writing is meant to be fun! ;)

Also perhaps for Claire, as an apology for the last eye-burning sea story she read from me, and for Shan's delayed resurrection, and for not getting around to bringing Anya to life yet. Claire is a demanding wench and I can't keep up! :P