Monthly Oneshot Exchange, March- (pairing) BlaiseDaphne, (genre) Romance, (word) starlight, (object) mirror, (dialogue) "Haven't you learned yet? Nothing is impossible.", (AU) pirate, (color) silver

Hogwarts Writing Club - Lyric Alley - 8. Feel the wind in your hair

Insane House - 36. Daphne Greengrass

Caffeine Awareness - Black Coffee - Write about a bitter person

To Amber, one of the insanest writers I've ever seen. Happy early birthday (because I couldn't wait until your birthday to post this :p)!

Title from "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon

Blaise's cool fingers trail down her cheek. "You're quite the catch, Miss..."

"Greengrass to you, thanks," she retorts, venom dripping from her voice and her eyes smoldering with loathing. "You lost the right to call me by my first name when you kidnapped me from my home."

"I never knew I had that right," he shoots back, a smirk curving his lips.

He speaks impeccable English, Daphne notes. She scowls, her glare intensifying. "What the hell do you want?"

"My, my, such vulgar language for a high-class lady like yourself," Blaise drawls. "You would think that someone like you would be more sophisticated, but apparently not..."

Daphne wants nothing more than to slap his smug face. "My father can and will hang you for this," she spat.

Another insufferable smirk lifts the left corner of his mouth. "Let him try."

It's been three weeks of captivity, and no one's rescued her yet. There's not even the slightest sign her father is intending to come.

Daphne rubs her aching wrists, rubbed raw from her shackles. After about two and a half weeks, once they learned that she was of no threat to them, they had released her and let her roam around the ship.

But to her, she was still trapped, with the choice of drowning or staying safely aboard. Although the former sounded tempting at the moment, she very much valued her life too.

"Are you okay?" asked the smooth, yet intolerable voice she had come to hate. However, it was laced with genuine concern.

"I'm fine," she snaps, turning her body away him, though her eyes remain fixated on the stars above.

He frowns. "You know, you don't have to bite my head off every time I say something," he chastises her lightly. "I sincerely care about your well-being, regardless of the fact that you're my prisoner."

A chord is struck within her. She doesn't know what it means.

"But you captured me and imprisoned me here without my consent," she points out. "Wouldn't you have done the same thing?"

He cocks his head. "True," he acquiesces, "but it's been three weeks and even after I freed you from your cell, you're still being hostile. My crew and I have treated you with nothing but respect, as we would a guest. We've clothed you, fed you, and yet you're still rancorous. Tell me what to do, Greengrass, tell me."

His dark eyes are illuminated enigmatically by the starlight above, giving them a dazzling, silvery sheen. Daphne shivers involuntarily, entranced.

"Aren't you the captain?" she asks, her eyes boring into his. "Aren't you the one who is supposed be providing orders?"

She isn't aware that she's staring, not is she conscious of the fact that he's staring back. Their faces are close together, so close that his breath ghosts over her lips as he speaks.

"I am," he murmurs, and then suddenly, he pulls away, a devilish smirk adorning his lips. Daphne's mind does a full 360 and she blinks, willing away the haze clouding her brain.

"I am the captain," he repeats, an underlying tone of triumph which makes her wary, "and I order you to stop condemning me."

Daphne, however, has swiftly regained her bearings and is not one to be undermined. "I'm sorry, Zabini," she says coquettishly, "but I'm not a member of your crew, so your order is invalid. I'm merely a guest." She bats her eyelids sweetly, while a conniving simper dominates her face. It's only then she realizes she's borderline flirting with him. The smug expression erases itself.

Blaise frowns. "Are you okay?"

She's not.

"I'm fine," she dismisses.

She's less than okay.

"If you're sure."

She's not.

In lieu of voicing this aloud, she says tightly, "I'm going back to bed. Good night."

He looks startled by her abrupt departure, but nonetheless smiles gently. "Good night."

And his smile sends her heart plummeting to the depths of her stomach. It's then when she comes to an understanding; why her heart is aflame, why her gut is nudging her to stay.

Oh no...

She's not supposed to like him, dammit. He's her enemy; the man who stole her from her home, her place of birth and her family.

And yet...

Her dreams of him and her dance through her head, teasing her and enticing her. Her visions call out to her, inviting her into his strong arms. They coax her to kiss him, to love him like any good woman loves her husband.

It's tempting.

And in the daytime, the visions are worse. Her heartstrings are like the strings of a marionette, so fragile yet so inflexible. His puppetmaster-like hands are controlling the strings, which could break with rejection and let her fall. It's scary and daunting.

Every time he smiles, her heart does a flip. When he touches her, she blushes. When he flirts, she stutters.

She hates how much power he has over her body. She's behaving like a schoolgirl with a crush, yet her feelings are real.

So Daphne decides to take matters into her own hands.

When the ship docks in Hastings, Blaise permits her to venture onto land and gives her a handsome amount of spending money. It just goes to show how much he trusts her, but little does he know, there's something else at work.

He has no idea what's coming, she thinks deviously.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the crew, she knows this town very well. She knows it well enough to immediately head for her favorite clothing seller.

The shop is run by a mother named Molly, who has seven children, all of whom work with her. They live in a small flat above the store and Daphne pities them just enough to drop by their dwelling every so often to purchase a dress.

When she leaves the shop, she is carrying a single bag, but the way she purposefully carries herself, everyone knows she has a plan.

One night a month, the crew hosts an informal ball, also known as an excuse to get themselves utterly wasted without retribution.

Daphne shudders as she recalls her mother's words:

"Being surrounded by men who are sexually frustrated and incredibly inebriated is not a place you ever want to be in," her mother had warned. "That is no place for a proper young woman like yourself."

Well, screw her mother, Daphne thought superciliously, she was dead and had no influence over her life. She was a grown woman and was capable of making her own choices.

She appraised herself in the slightly bent mirror that had formerly belonged to Blaise, but he had graciously granted it to her for her own use. It was coming in handy now, as Daphne inspected herself in the mirror, her eyes calculating.

Sure, the dress she had bought was a little scandalous, but it was going to be worth Blaise's reaction. The dress, peacock blue to match her eyes, had a slit down the front, showing off her cleavage and reaches her mid-thigh, leaving little to the imagination.

She looks nothing short of smoking. Blaise was going to positively drool all over himself when he saw her in that.

There's a knock on the door. Daphne spins as Blaise asks, "You ready?"

"Are you?" The question leaves her mouth before she can halt it, but it makes Blaise hesitate before he opens the door.

There's a beat of silence, then another, as he takes her in, scantily dressed and smirking sultrily at him.

"What do you think?" she practically purrs, no trace of nervousness in her voice. Sure, she had rehearsed this over and over, but the real-life response is better than the imaginary one.

He finally finds his voice. "You look," he swallows audibly, his Adam's apple bobbing, "you look...great."

Great. That's all he had to say. Granted, she had knocked the poor man backwards with her appearance, but she had been expecting something more...passionate. Enthusiastic. Romantic.

"Thank you," she murmurs, crossing the floor to his side and brushing the underside of his jaw. "You clean up well."

Ha. Let's see how he responds to that.

"Thank you," he says in a much stronger voice. "I had one of my blokes lend me their best shirt. You know, Malfoy, he's down with a fever, struck him earlier this evening."

Her fingers trail down his shirt, gazing up into his eyes, now golden from the light of the setting sun. "Thank him for me," she whispers.

When they arrive on the upper deck, the party is in full swing. The two best musicians on the ship, Crabbe and Goyle, play the fiddle and the guitar respectively, while the others dance gaily around the deck, half of them already drunk.

Daphne lets herself go during this party, having fun like it's her last day on Earth. She's never been to a real party before, mostly social gatherings comprised of elite members of the court and their spoiled children. She was one of them, at least until she was trapped aboard this vessel.

Here, she's free to let her hair fly loose, look as un-womanly as she likes. She can drink alcohol in copious, forbidden amounts (but not too much in excess; she's not one of them. Yet.) She can scream, she can laugh, she can do whatever she wants.

But parties do have to end eventually, and the impromptu band announces their final song of the night, a romantic number. Everyone partners up, and she's left alone on the side.

And then, she catches his eye, and with a cock of his head he mouths, Do you want to dance?

She nods, her heart fleeing her chest at his answering smile, and then he's crossing the deck towards her and takes her hand.

"You look beautiful," he whispers as the song commences and Daphne instinctively blushes, before remembering she has to play coy.

"Finally found your eyes, did you?" she teases and then pauses, mortified.

Was that too vain?

"Yes, I did," replies Blaise, amused, and Daphne lets out a breath of relief. "I don't know where they wandered off to, maybe in search of a gorgeous maiden."

She's speechless. Oh, damn him and his suaveness...

Blaise takes this opportunity to lean down and look her straight in the eyes. "You know something, Daphne? You're full of surprises."

Her breath hitches, due to both his proximity and his words. "How so?"

"You were so belligerent when we met," he said, "but now, you're companionable."

He leans closer, if it were humanly possibly. His eyes skate over her lips.

"You were pretty, but your antagonistic behavior made me repelled by you," he continued. "But now that you're more outgoing and ravishing, I find it...irresistible."

He closes the gap between them. Daphne shuts her eyes as his lips finally meet hers in a soft, unhurried kiss that induces fireworks behind her eyelids and a warm feeling to explode in her chest.

This feels right, she thinks, this feels overwhelmingly ethical. She's forgiven him, this kiss sealing her feelings for him, and she knows they can make this work.

Blaise's eyes are a molten gold as his lips release hers. "I thought it would be impossible, winning you over," he murmurs huskily, nuzzling her neck with his nose.

She throws her head back and sighs. "Haven't you learned yet?" she says breathlessly. "Nothing is impossible."

(She loves this man, and she will, until the end of time.)

1912 words