It was becoming apparent to Azhani that there were a few things about maritime travel that she had overlooked. Most of them revolved around the fact that, though she had tucked herself away into a quiet corner of the cargo hold and settled in for the ride, she wasn’t supposed to be on this ship at all.

Sneaking aboard had been easy enough, though, and with her small frame and dark pelt there were plenty of poorly-lit spots for her to disappear into. She had even scraped together some food and drink to bring with her so she wouldn’t need to move around too much or worry about anyone noticing vanishing provisions.

But as it turned out, the real concern wouldn’t be with her removing anything from the ship – no, right now, Azhani was most worried that she would be caught because of her adding something to the ship. Sure, it was a boat and it was meant to get wet, but Azhani had only come aboard to get herself a little way down the Niben, and for as broad as that river was there wouldn’t be very much splashing to cover up any unusual puddles on deck. And there certainly wouldn’t be any way to explain the appearance of puddles below deck.

She really should have thought about that before stowing away on a full-day voyage down the river. Now she was stuck hiding behind a bunch of crates in some dusty corner of a ship, unable to do anything about the vessel’s movements shaking up her full bladder.

So Azhani sat alone in the dark, curled up and breathing deeply but quietly with legs crossed and hands kneading at her crotch through her pants to try to minimize the effects of endless motion. She could hear some chatter from not too far away, so for the moment laying there and trying to soothe her aching bladder was all she could do. It was too dangerous to try and get up to look for a place to relieve herself – there would surely be a bucket somewhere nearby, or else a barrel that Azhani could open up and pour some old water into without anyone noticing, but if there were people around she couldn’t even take the chance to find out. Hopefully they would clear out before too long.

Maybe it was even late enough in the day that they’d be going to sleep soon, but something about how loud they were being made Azhani strongly doubt that things were going to settle down within any reasonable timeframe.

Somehow, she was going to have to find a way to covertly empty her bladder while staying hidden and not leaving behind a mess that would inevitably get discovered even if she didn’t have to sit in it. But would that even be possible? She didn’t have very much space to move around in, and she certainly couldn’t get up to go somewhere else, and even the containers immediately around her would require her to become far too visible were she to try popping one open and perching herself on the edge.

That didn’t leave her with very much in the way of options. If she didn’t want to get wet, she’d have to risk exposing herself to, if nothing else, find some other corner that could serve as her bathroom for the duration of the journey.

But even so, she still wasn’t too keen on doing anything dangerous while she could hear people that were likely close enough to spot her – certainly close enough to hear her as well, at least. So Azhani committed herself to balling up, clutching herself between her legs, and lashing her tail as she tried to quietly fight through the pressure for at least a little while.

It was hard to tell exactly how much time was passing while she kept herself like that, but the growing weight in her belly was enough to gauge that those people she could hear seemed to be set on sticking around – and seeing less and less light filtering into the hold confirmed to Azhani that they were sticking around for much too long.

And even over so many hours, she still couldn’t resist getting into the water she had brought along. Fortunately, since she hadn’t brought very much, she was keeping it strictly rationed and so took in no more than a mouthful, but with her bladder already full even that little bit of extra liquid was more than enough to upset her. But she didn’t have any choice – no matter how much water was already inside her, if she got thirsty, she would have to drink, and no matter how much her body complained she would just have to keep holding it in even as she added to her burden.

There was nothing else she could do. She just had to keep her mouth shut and hold it. Azhani had the better part of a day’s worth of urine within her, waiting to come out, and she just had to hold it in until the right opportunity presented itself. There would be no relief for her until then, no matter how stretched-out her belly got, or how much it ached to keep herself sealed. No matter how dire her situation got, she knew that if she didn’t wait then things would only get worse.

Fortunately, the fading daylight gave her hope – as the hours passed and her desperate, agonized writhing intensified, her surroundings grew darker, and though those sailors never quieted down, they were also being kind enough to never bring a lantern near Azhani’s hiding place.

So, though the pressure only ever grew, she could see relief at hand. In preparation, she moved to sit on her knees, biting hard into one arm to silence her groans as the shift in position sparked agonizing sloshing within her heavy, bulging bladder. Then, keeping her teeth clenched and taking every breath as a quiet hiss, she tucked her tail between her legs to pull it up tightly against her groin. She growled from the pain of having such a sensitive appendage handled so forcefully, but in truth the discomfort was a welcome relief from being overwhelmed by the anguish of a critically-urgent need to urinate.

She shifted her hips back and forth to grind against her own tail as she waited, growling and whimpering as the pressure continued to build and the darkness of a moonless night set in – only reaffirming Azhani’s long-held superstition that her birth moons were her good-luck charm, with the two new moons tonight promising relief in such a precarious situation.

The chatter she could hear never stopped, and indeed only seemed to intensify as more sailors came belowdecks to get drunk and rowdy, but that mattered less and less as her bladder approached capacity and the chance to empty it drew nearer – and it certainly knew that it would get what it wanted soon, with Azhani feeling her tail getting saturated as she lost dribbles and spurts waiting for the right time.

The right time, coincidentally, happened to come around at the same time as a hissing surge of piss broke free and streamed through Azhani’s pants and tail to splatter against the wooden floor for a full second. She was so thoroughly convinced that the perfect opportunity had presented itself just then that she let go of her tail, pressed forcefully against her lips through her pants with both hands, and forced herself up to her toes, sucking in air through her teeth and accidentally letting another spurt loose to disappear into the fur on her inner thigh.

Once she was standing, hunched over and constantly moving her legs, she quickly scanned the area around herself, peering through the darkness to identify her makeshift toilet. There was a hunger in her eyes as they settled on a barrel that, while not wholly open, was obviously not sealed either, as if intended to be accessed repeatedly. She didn’t know or care what was in it, and there was only one thought, one question, on her mind as she squirmed her way out of cover and over to the container – could she go to the bathroom in it? She wasn’t expecting an actual answer, considering that she was dead-set on doing it anyways, or else making a splash on the floor right next to it if she couldn’t get herself settled on top.

At the very least, when she reached the barrel with only a few more leaks dripping through her fingers, she was able to cross her legs, pull both hands away from her groin to remove the lid, and quickly inspect the barrel’s contents. A momentary glance showed her that it was full of some kind of liquid – what exactly, she couldn’t identify even with her Nighteye – and that was more than enough for her purposes.

So she hurried to pull her pants down to her knees, dribbling a little down her legs as she did so, then spun around, hiked up her tail, and reached back to pull herself up. Her bladder gave out a moment before she was ready, and the first jet of her relief struck the floor and edge of the barrel, but soon enough she was positioned to shoot a heavy stream directly into the liquid below her with a heavy sigh and… loud splashing. Very loud splashing.

Acting quickly, before she could get too absorbed in the feeling of emptying her bladder, she adjusted herself to lower her rump. The barrel was full enough already that she could without issue bring herself low enough to pee directly into whatever fluid was in the container, slightly submerging herself and allowing herself to fully relax as her new position minimized the noises she would make. And so with eyelids fluttering she once again sighed deeply, gently swinging her legs like a cub celebrating getting to the toilet on time – after all, that was essentially what she was doing, only as a grown woman.

A grown woman, stowing away on a ship down the Niben, peeing into a barrel of probably-water because she hadn’t had the foresight to bring something with her for relief and couldn’t hold it long enough to find something more appropriate – only once her stream started to taper off did she realize that she had probably just contaminated the only source of drinking water she would have access to outside of the little bit she had rationed. Had she been in less of a hurry, perhaps she could have found a proper bucket or pot to do her business in.

But none of that mattered. Azhani took a deep breath when she felt her relief come to an end, then lifted herself up, gave her rear end a little shake to clear away the moisture, then hopped back to the ground while pulling her clothes up to their correct place. Then, very calmly, she replaced the lid on her toilet-barrel and made her way back into hiding, using her feet to wipe up whatever droplets she’d left behind so that she couldn’t be traced. If she was lucky, those sailors would wake up hungover in the morning and blame one of their own for pissing in the drinking water.