Chapter Text
Son Seungwan stood at the wheel of a great boat, on the tips of her toes just to peek over it. The boat was the most feared, the most respected, and the most glorious on the seven seas. She looked over the crashing waves in wonder, imagining a life where one day, she would get to pilot a vessel such as this.
“Seungwan, get back to work!” A barking order came her way.
“Yes, captain!” Seungwan yelped, running to the main deck of the ship, when the captain caught her by the back of her coat.
Captain Hwang Tiffany regarded the young girl with an expression Seungwan couldn’t quite make out.
“Make sure Seulgi doesn’t touch the rigging again, would you, kid?”
“Of course, captain,” Seungwan nodded, while the fearsome sea captain rustled her hair.
“Good, good, now run along,” She waved Seungwan away, walking off to her sailing master, to discuss the newest path they’d be sailing.
Seungwan beamed as she ran down to the main deck, where her best friend stood, mopping the dirty floorboards, edging dangerously close to the rigging.
She pulled the older girl away gently by her arm when she finally made it down, minding what the captain had told her.
“Ah, did you get caught, Wannie?” Seulgi laughed at her companion, continuing to mop, not paying much attention to Seungwan’s excited hopping about.
“Mhm! Captain Tiffany didn’t seem too upset, though,” Seungwan hummed, grabbing her own mop and joining her friend in cleaning up the deck.
“You’re lucky she goes so easy on us,” Seulgi shook her head, sparing a glance to the younger girl, “If she’d seen one of the older girls slacking on the job, she’d have put them on cooking duty for weeks.”
“Hehe, I know, I know, I just had to stand behind that wheel at least once!” Seungwan grinned, “We’re living the best life a kid could ever live, Seul! Maybe one day we’ll get to be a proper part of the Navy! Taking on adventure, sailing the seas for forever!”
“Of course we will!” Seulgi nodded enthusiastically, “If we stick with Captain Fany, we can go as far as we want!”
***
“I’m not leaving my girls behind!”
“We don’t know what could be on that island, Fany! No one’s ever come back from it, and I’m not putting these kids' lives on the line!”
“They’re like my kids, Hyo, I can’t just leave them in the hands of some random village people!”
Seulgi wrapped an arm around Seungwan, comforting the younger girl as they sat outside the captain’s cabin, having snuck away from the supervision of a crew member that Tiffany had left them with.
The door swung open soon after, and out stepped the captain, letting out a heavy sigh.
“Captain Fany?” Seulgi murmured, startling the sea captain, as the two young girls stood up, stepping into the view of the woman who had practically raised them their entire life.
“Kids- What did you-?” Tiffany was cut off when Seungwan latched onto her side.
“It’s okay, captain, you can leave us, we won’t ever forget about you,” Seungwan mumbled into Tiffany’s side.
“Y-yeah,” Seulgi nodded, stepping forward and hugging onto the captain as well, “And we’ll find you again! We’ll grow up and become the greatest sailors the world’s ever seen, and we’ll find you!”
TIffany blinked down at the kids, a little smile settling on her face, “I’m sure you will girls, I’m sure you will..”
***
Son Seungwan stood on the deck of navy ship, with her longtime best friend, Kang Seulgi, pleading to the navy men to let them join their crew.
They were so close to realizing the dream they’d had since they were little girls, cleaning up the deck of the most infamous captain on the seas.
“Look, you two seem eager but-” The man was cut off as another called for him, from the dock, “Goddamnit- Look, I can’t let you join the navy, okay? Just get off of the boat and don’t come back,” he shook his head as he ran down to calm whatever commotion had started back on the dock.
Seungwan let out a frustrated sigh as they made their way to leave the boat, “We were part of one of the best navy crews in the world as CHILDREN! How are we not qualified for this?”
Seulgi shrugged, stopping just before they could leave the boat, “Maybe they just don’t know that we were on the crew? Do you think Fany ever listed our names? We were just kids..”
“Well…!” Seungwan tried to find an argument but couldn’t, “Damn… How are we supposed to prove we can do this then, they won’t even consider us!”
Seungwan continued to rant, but Seulgi had long since stopped listening. Her eyes rested on some rope that hung over the side of the boat. “Huh... I wonder what this is,” she muttered, her hands absentmindedly playing with the rope.
Soon, the rope unfurled, and fell away into the water below them.
“Uh-oh,” Seulgi whispered, eyes widening as they began to drift away from the dock, “Wannie…”
“And they won’t even let us join as simple deckhands-!”
“Wannie.”
“Like, how hard is it to just let us mop the deck-!”
“Wannie!”
“I bet their captain isn’t even HALF as competent as Fany-!”
“SEUNGWAN!”
“WHAT-? OH MY GOD-!”
When Seulgi had finally gotten Seungwan’s attention, they had already drifted quite far from the dock, and even worse than that, neither quite knew how to properly stop the vehicle.
“GET THE WHEEL, STEER AWAY FROM THE LAND!” Seungwan screeched, pushing Seulgi along as she ran to unfurl the sail and work the rigging as best as she could.
“OKAY, OKAY!” Seulgi cried, skittering off to the wheel to follow Seungwan’s directions.
The girls struggled for a solid few minutes, getting the boat to sail smoothly, as they got further and further away from the land.
But, they were soon smooth sailing, and completely out of breath, sitting beside the wheel together and panting for air.
“We can’t go back… we stole a boat…” Seulgi whimpered, to which Seungwan nodded.
“You remember how Tiffany never wanted you to touch the ropes?”
“No, not really…”
“Well, this is why.”