Rose wanted to sob, to throw herself to the ground and scream out nasty names at him, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Silent tears streamed down her face, she had been so happy when Fancy had been presented to her, a new companion for her in her new life. She had never truly had a a pet of her own before, her mother wasn't fond of cats, and the dogs belonged to her father. They stunk anyways, and she didn't want much to do with them.

Holding her sore wrist in her hand she sat at the table but didn't bother to touch the food. She felt like she never wanted to eat again, couldn't eat again as she remembered the blood and horror, and the miserable end to the poor kitten who had barely lived to a few months. The idea that he could eat after what he did made her want to gag, threatening to lose what little was left in her stomach. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't stop the tears, couldn't control herself despite the years of practicing in doing exactly that.

Ariel had asked to tend to her, but nothing would help. It was about more than a few dresses, jewels, and a cat. Everything she owned sank with that ship, including now her innocence. Who would believe that she would escape this order unharmed? Unmolested? None. She would be lucky if the prince wanted anything to do with her at this point. All her life she had been told to avoid any situation that might compromise her, she was nothing without her innocence, yet even while she obey every rule, did everything right, it didn't matter. Would her father even want her back now? This train of thought only made the tears flow faster.

===

"The captain will handle that, best not to get in his way, lass." Gerard muttered quietly to Ariel before sitting down at the table. The meal looked delicious and he dove in, hopefully it would work well to soak up the ale and gain his strength back. He needed to be in top shape if he was to be prepared for what might come. Capturing the princess was easy, keeping her until they got their gold would be the hard part.

It was easy enough for him to ignore the young girls tears, she was crying over a cat and dresses, all of which her father could easily replace a hundred times over when she returned to him. Women. He'd never understand them. "Good food." He said through a mouthful, having not had anything so delicious in quite a long time. It wouldn't do to get used to this, it wasn't practical, fresh meats and what not, it involved visiting ports far too often, something they didn't do. Well, unless they felt like getting caught.

He couldn't wait to find out what exactly they had gotten today. Hopefully the princess was lying about the jewels being hidden, he'd hate to think of such lovely treasures sitting at the bottom of the ocean. The dresses and useless trinkets were of no good to him, unless the fine materials could be sold for a pretty profit, but many of the gifts were made of gold or had polished jewels. The crew would live well off of this haul, and they had the little weeping princess and her father to thank for it.